Let Dad Relax (And Relax About Dads)Father's Day is upon us, which explains why we are being flooded with photos of pops petting their pooches, resting their feet and throwing balls to their 2.1 children. At the same time — frankly, all the time — we are being treated to alarming articles, such as the one I just read about how parents of both genders just don't spend enough time with their kids. "A recent poll taken of children as young as nine years old revealed only 40 percent of boys and 50 percent of girls spent almost all weekend with their parents," wrote one parenting expert. Excuse me: HALF of girls and almost half of boys spend their ENTIRE WEEKENDS with their parents, and that is not good enough? Isn't it good for kids to spend time playing with friends on their own? Or tinkering in the basement? Or daydreaming on a swing? No, today's parents clearly are expected to oversee all their children's play dates — or even BE their play dates. This pop culture exhortation to spend more, more, more time hands-on parenting is ironic for two reasons, the first being we already ARE spending more time with our children than our parents did! In researching her new book, "168 Hours," reporter Laura Vanderkam discovered that "social scientists have been tracking how Americans spend their time for decades, and it turns out that parents are spending a lot more time interacting with their kids now than they did in, say, 1965. In 1965, according to data from the 1965-66 Americans' Use of Time Study, mothers spent 10 hours weekly on child care as a primary activity. Fathers spent three hours. "Meantime, according to a recent analysis by economists Garey and Valerie Ramey, college-educated moms now spend 21.2 hours on such things (15.9 for women with less education).
So much for selfish parents' being too wound up in themselves to hang with the kids. We're there! We care! And even so, we're being told this is not enough. Parent more! Parent longer! Parent harder! Which brings us to Irony No. 2: When kids spend some time UNSUPERVISED, they are apt to learn the very lessons we are so eager to personally teach them. When children are forced to entertain themselves — as opposed to Dad's organizing an outing or a coach's choosing the teams or a computer's saying "On" — they activate on all sorts of levels. The kids have to be creative: "Let's be pirates!" They have to communicate: "The tree is third base!" They have to compromise: "I want to go first!" And most importantly of all, they have to practice something called "self-regulation." When you want to do something that you know is wrong, the only way to stop yourself is via self-regulation. And it turns out that one of the greatest ways to learn self-regulation is to have a friend shouting at you: "Wait your turn!" Dad might let you have another go — "OK, FOUR strikes and you're out" — but your friend won't. So you wait. You self-regulate. You grow up. Now, obviously, no one ever would advocate actual parental negligence. But letting Dad take a little old-fashioned time away from parenting to watch TV, rest his feet or burn the burgers isn't a crime. In fact, it can be great for everyone. (Except the burgers.) Lenore Skenazy is the author of "Who's the Blonde That Married What's-His-Name? The Ultimate Tip-of-the-Tongue Test of Everything You Know You Know — But Can't Remember Right Now" and "Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry)." To find out more about Lenore Skenazy (lskenazy@yahoo.com) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM
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