Parents do £70k of unpaid work in the home

[1Wanda1]

From an article in The Times today (have pasted a few bits as most people won't be able to read the article if I link it. This might be of interest to the many MNers whose partners seem to think they sit around doing nothing all day!

A separate study found British parents undertake £70,768 of unpaid work a year around the house and running around for the children.

It found that the average parent spends more than 100 hours a week juggling household tasks, from cooking and cleaning to ferrying children around and helping with their homework.

Parents were spending 29 hours a week cooking, preparing and serving food and drinks, ten hours playing with the children, the same amount of time driving on the school run, to activities, clubs and playdates, and nine hours giving advice.

No one is saying it’s easy. Neither is training to run a marathon. But both are a choice and aren’t “work”

Agree! It's being a parent - which I assume was your choice!? For fuck's sake, everyone has to do work in their home, it's called being an adult human.

I don't think anyone is saying it's not important (it keeps people alive!). But it is part of life for any adult.

But who is going to pay someone for doing their own housework and booking dentist appointments etc? I can understand if you were in a partnership and doing all of the stuff in the house and your partner was working out of the house but didn't value your contribution then this would be a good study to point to (in terms of time etc) but it really isn't useful to me. What am I going to do? Reward myself for cooking mine and the kids' dinner?

And this was your own choice.

I think it’s just life, if you choose to have children you know what you’re getting yourself in for.

Parenting and the work associated with it can be unbelievably hard, especially by modern standards. Those that think it's just part of life and just so easy should consider fostering as most local authorities are desperate for foster families and pay you handsomely for doing the things you find so easy.

Climbing Mount Everest is also unbelievably hard but no one is forcing anyone to climb it.

Parenting is not part of life as it is a choice.

I am a single parent and find having a child and working FT incredibly difficult but I chose to have sex which resulted in a pregnancy that I chose not to terminate, that isn’t anyone else’s problem.

This. Surely this "unpaid work" is just what everyone does at home.

There is a clear financial benefit to society to caring for your children/keeping a clean house.

If you don't do these things, your children will be taken from you and the state will have to outsource their care to someone else, which will cost many tens of thousands of pounds.

So parents do save the state money by caring for their children.

No. Not everyone does this at home. Many men don't, and some women don't.

And if you don't do this, and you have children, the state will step in and take them away. Because there is a public interest in children being properly cared for. And that will cost £££.

Personally, I find it interesting that it is only rarely fathers who end up caring for children when mothers go to prison and the state can no longer rely on their unpaid labour to care for their children.

@Goldbar

That is the most ridiculous argument I have ever heard.

Am I saving the state money by not murdering someone, therefore saving the state the cost of prosecution and jail time?

Men don’t do enough chores and parenting on the whole - absolutely, that’s a valid issue, talk about that and why that is (and I think in the myriad reasons for this, we have to accept many women martyr themselves and unquestioningly accept male uselessness rather than challenging it or simply not having relationships with shit men. No, that doesn’t mean women are responsible for men’s behaviour. But we are responsible for choosing which men to associate with).

But household chores/parenting for your own family is not the same as paying an outside person to do it. I think that’s the ridiculous equivalence. As many have already said people without kids have to do all this stuff too.

Campaign for men to be active parents and challenge the stereotype than men provide, women run the home, absolutely. It shouldn’t be that way. But this framing of it as women should be paid for doing necessary life admin that applies to everyone is unhelpful and pretty stupid imo. I understand why economists classify it as a measuring method but that’s not applicable to everyday life.

@Botw1 . Fact remains, it costs the state money if parents don't care for their children. Caring for children is not essentially a private matter... there is a public interest in children being cared for properly.

And while child neglect is a criminal offence, it is not a criminal offence to voluntarily put your children into foster care (unlike murder). So your argument doesn't stand.

@Goldbar

Of course it does because you can't just put your kids into Foster care with no background of neglect.

The state is responsible for everyone's well being. Not just children's. That's literally the function of the state.

That does not mean you are saving the state money if you are a well adjusted functioning member of society.

It's a nonsense argument.

So the only reason you clean your house and care for your children is to save the state from having to step in and do it? OooooKaaaaay.

That's not what I said.

There are lots of ways to do caring for your children though. Those parents who work outside of the home are still providing the necessary care for their children.

One could argue that they do 168 hours of 'work' each week as being responsible for one's child is 24/7. I don't see how stating it is in any way useful though.

You only need to have a basic understanding of society to understand that actually your child is everyone else's problem. If you parent your child ineffectively then they are more likely to have all sorts of issues in childhood and beyond that will impact others and basically makes them more likely to be burden on society in lots of ways. Countless studies have shown the importance of parenting and parental input in terms of all sorts of outcomes from criminal activity to career prospects.

So in a way it is like climbing Everest. You choose to do it but if you attempt it in a low effort way attempting to do the bare minimum then you are much more likely to encounter issues that will require some outside body to intervene and assist you.

you can't just put your kids into Foster care with no background of neglect.

You can, actually. If you are unable or unwilling to care for your children for whatever reason, social services will make arrangements to have them accommodated. They don't like it, for obvious reasons, but they have to do it.

On the prison point, it isn't uncommon for children whose mothers go into prison to end up in foster care even if their fathers can be identified. The fathersc can't be forced to care for them. Unfortunately, you can't force anyone to look after their child, though luckily most parents love their children and do it willingly.

But even if you say "I am caring for my child by working 168 hours per week to provide financially", you still need someone around to meet their basic, everyday care needs.

A single parent can't turn around and say, "You know what, I'm bored of doing the day-to-day care needs, so I'll just stop doing that and increase my hours at work. I'm still providing financially, so that's enough caring." It just doesn't work.

@Goldbar

Unable or unwilling to = a reason.

Not just because you cba.

I couldn't rock up to sw tom and tell them to take my kids this weekend I cba looking after them.

People who can't or won't look after their kids cost the state money.

That is not the same as people looking after their own kids saving the state money

I don't think you do though, do you.

Are you really expecting people to believe that you do 100 hours of cooking, washing, and child related stuff a week, and then fit in 7 nights sleep and a demanding job in the remaining 68 hours?

I'm sorry I don't understand the point your making. And I don't understand why you are hung up on Foster care. I've worked in Foster care (not as a carer) and understand the intricacies and understand that a judge is highly unlikely to remove children from the care of their parents without really good reason.

Foster carers are paid for their time because fostering doesn't just involve the many child rearing tasks but also many meetings, and often additional appointments etc and many children in Foster care for one reason or another wouldn't be able to attend after school clubs etc, making it incompatible with the carer working full time or even part time.

Most parents I know work outside of the home and also care for their children. No one sees this as saving the state money. It is just life.

Exactly.

How bizarre. The very notion that 10 hours playing with your children or 9 hours speaking to them would be "work". Surely that is quality family time, downtime, the actual point of having a family is to spend that time together, it's not "work"? Otherwise why bother?

The numbers also seem a but bizarre. Who spends 29 hours per week (over 4 hours every day) cooking and serving food?

It's just living. The things we need to do to look after ourselves, and, if we choose to have them, our children.
Single people do cooking cleaning, laundry DIY and gardening as well you know!