Working full time, kids and research about their achievement

[HammergoHammer]

Long post, bear with me, this sounds super negative but I'm so worried about this issue.
I am a full time, working outside the home mum of two primary school kids. Whether it's my school, the area, I'm not sure but there is not a great deal of opportunities for afterschool activities for working parents. By this I mean clubs that offer more than 'free play' in a school hall for two and a half hours.
There are some activities run by the school and by external providers but these only run until 4.15.
My question is not a personal one, I do not want answers about au pairs, nannies, swaps with non existent friends. I want to know how the hell the research suggests that children brought up with two full time working parents achieve or achieve more than their peers with a parent at home or who works part time.
1.) homework.
The afterschool club does not offer support for homework. Therefore my children have to do their homework at 6 before tea when they haven't been home for 11 hours. They are either starving or exhausted. I can barely get them to do any reading let alone the nightly maths or spelling expected.
2.) mental health
Surely spending so much time outside the home, seeing friends being picked up by their parents, speaking about spending a relaxing two hours gaming is not great.
3.) quality time with a parent.
Only really get to properly enjoy them and have a laugh at weekends.
4.) equality
If low earners like me have to go through all this just to survive, and those with more flexible, higher paid working from home jobs have more time with their children, then how does society ever change? If this was a fairy tale, my hard work would make my children become high achievers who learnt the value of work ethic. But they're likely to be average, due to all of the above, plus genetics.
My job doesn't exist part time and so I have no option to work less unless I retrain which will again mean long hours whilst I prove myself, plus a cut in wages.
This isn't to mention a minority of the kids on free school meals who could desperately do with a safe space after school to do their homework but find the homework club all booked up by working parents who use it as free or cheap childcare. The whole system is crap!

Well, if you read things such as the British Birth Cohort study you understand that extra curricular activities and poorly conceived homework that kids can't do independently have almost no bearing on attainment whereas role models (E.g parents working hard) and financial security (provided for by parents working) have a massive effect.

Can you share said research, op?

Oh and stop making your primary aged kids do homework in the week, the peer reviewed evidence demonstrates that homework at primary level has no bearing on learning, it's just a hangover from the Govian reforms.

We do it the parts that are vaguely worthwhile at weekend and the teacher gets a note about the rest.

The system does suck, I recommend not blindly conforming to all parts of it

What research is this sorry??

What do you mean when you say that your job doesn’t exist part time? I’m sure you don’t want to be too outing but are you able to give us any indication what industry you work in?

Bear in mind, its only really in early primary you a very restricted on time in the week. By age 9 or 10 you can fit in some after school activities at 6 or 6.30 etc because they go to bed later. Also other parents may be ok with lift sharing etc once car seats are no longer an issue and that makes it easier too.

Sorry I should have clarified, I can only find research to say that kids do better with two working parents but I think that may be outdated.
This was traditionally based on a woman staying at home with a lower level of education rather than nowadays when some women are educated to degree level, have careers and then become SAHP's when their children are born.
Again, the financial stability is based on two full time workers on good jobs. I doubt the same research comparing two parents on low paid jobs living paycheque to paycheque in rented accommodation with one parent who works in a well paid job and one parent who stays at home in a mortgaged property would show that the first couple have higher achieving parents. I would be very happy to be proved wrong!

@Raspberry290 I'm a PA to someone who works 50 hours and needs support for the hours that they work.

I wouldn't get too hung up on outdated research. A quick Google search immediately showed loads of studies - one of which said that although having two working parents seemed to result in higher achieving children, there were gender differences found that they couldn't explain so its not that clear cut. Another study identified that children with two working parents had higher BMI's.
As you've said yourself it depends on so many variables like what type of employment and working hours, what salary bracket, who was included in the study etc.
I agree with the previous poster who said its far more likely to be related to being brought up with good role models, parents who strive for their kids to achieve something and expect them to achieve things and having relative financial and job security.

I’ve been thinking about how crap my parenting is in the week when I’m working. Baby at childminder, over tired and whinging for me from 4 apparently. Kids watching tv while I finish work. Eating snacks then not wanting dinner at the table. Clinging as they’ve missed me. It sucks op.

Kids are all different, character-wise. I work in a primary school (infants). Some of the kids are very resilient emotionally and attend breakfast club and a couple of after school clubs without any obvious detrimental effect - they seem full of energy and very confident and independent and enjoy being with their friends at those settings. However I have to be honest and say that a couple of more sensitive quieter children do look upset if I give the teacher a message that they are going to Afterschool club instead of a parent picking up, or even if mum’s friend is picking them up instead of mum. Those are the kids who would probably benefit from a smaller childminder home setting with just a few kids rather than a big group class after school.

so more than any research I think it’s important to look at a child’s personality as to how they cope with a parent/s working long hours and much parental input during the week.

there are other kids who have a parent at home all the time but doesn’t always mean that the child gets quality attention or stimulation.

as others have said, too many variables.

It doesn’t matter what the research says because as with any research you will find arguments either way if you look and honestly I can hear your guilt in your post and I think you will beat yourself up regardless.
You are in a situation that at this time you cannot change much, you both need to work and your jobs are what they are as training as you rightly point out costs in a number of ways. You can make small changes to make life more meaningful and manageable. Scrap the homework for one. Do easy meals or batch cook. Make reading as part of the bedtime routine and limit it to 5 minutes. Bath your dc less. Cut back on chores, no one will die. life with little ones is hard no matter what you do. Your not going to work and leaving your kids because your neglectful you are doing it to feed and cloth them so lose the guilt.

For what it’s worth I have been a social worker for many years and I have had the privilege to see families from all walks of life and at various stages and in my experience children who are loved, fed, clothed, washed occasionally and listened to, do fine and thrive regardless of the working status of their parents.

These studies are unreliable because they are just observing what is happening already. There are reasons why both parents work full time that may explain the difference. It's correlation not causation.

If you could randomly allocate parents to either work or not, you would get the real answer but that is not possible.

WelL OP if you have girls you've already massively improved their life chances by setting the example of not being dependent on a man.

@Notyetacatlady
"For what it’s worth I have been a social worker for many years and I have had the privilege to see families from all walks of life and at various stages and in my experience children who are loved, fed, clothed, washed occasionally and listened to, do fine and thrive regardless of the working status of their parents."

Thank you for this! After feeling guilty about not earning enough being self-employed to buy treats for my kids; I'm now feeling guilty that my new full time (wfh) job means I don't give them enough attention between them getting home and me finishing work for the day. But they do get washed occasionally and I do feed and clothe them so I reckon they'll be alright 😊