The concept of adolescence as a transitional period between childhood and adulthood, in which young people were still semi-dependent upon parents, began to emerge in the late nineteenth century. By 1904 psychologist G. Stanley Hall began to argue that adolescence was a universal developmental stage—an essential, stormy, stressful period in the sexual maturation process. Since the concept of adolescence came to be culturally accepted, most youths have not been expected to contribute significantly to the economic welfare of the family. Although many teens in the twenty-first century hold part-time or even full-time jobs, greater importance is attached to their education as more young people attend and complete high school and college. The transition into adulthood therefore lasts longer than it did two or three generations ago.
Because of this significant cultural change, most children and adolescents in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century had considerably more discretionary time to themselves than those in pre-1940s America. This trend began to shift somewhat at the close of the twentieth century. A study by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research (ISR) (Changes in American Children's Time, 1981–97, September 2000) found that free time left after schooling, eating, and sleeping had decreased 12%, from 56.5 hours per week in 1981 to forty-nine hours in 1997. Researchers found that more time was spent at school, up by an average of more than ninety minutes per week. This increased time at school was not due to longer school days, but because more children were in preschool and before- and after-school programs because more mothers were working outside of the home.
According to the authors of the study, more women entering the paid labor force affected not only the amount of free time children had, but also how they spent that time. Because children spent more time away from their parents in structured environments such as sports practice and educational activities like doing homework, they spent less time in unstructured activities such as playing.
Although more women were in the workforce, children actually spent more time with their mothers in 1997 than in 1981 (John F. Sandberg and Sandra L. Hofferth, Changes in Children's Time with Parents, U.S. 1981–1997, May 2001). In 1997 children ages three to twelve spent 4.3 more hours per day with their mothers (a total of nearly 28.6 hours a week) than they did in 1981 (24.3 hours). Children also spent nearly three more hours per day with their fathers in 1997 (18.6 hours a week) than they did in 1981 (15.6 hours). The children were either engaged in activities with their parents (including housework), or the parents were simply accessible to their children during these hours.
Table 9.1 shows the percentage of children who interacted in various ways with a parent in 2000. The amount of interaction decreased as a child aged and went to school, and also tended to be less if the child was living with an unmarried parent. The majority of children under six years old (53%) ate breakfast with a parent every day of the week, three-quarters (76.4%) ate dinner with a parent every day of the week, and almost three-quarters were played with by a parent just for fun three or more times per
TABLE 9.1
| Indicators of daily interaction of children under 18 with designated parent, by marital status of designated parent, 2000 | ||||||||||
| (Numbers in thousands) | ||||||||||
| Children under 6 years old | Children 6 to 17 years old | |||||||||
| Living with married parents2 | Living with unmarried parent(s)3 | Living with married parents2 | Living with unmarried parent(s)3 | |||||||
| Interaction with | Interaction with | Interaction with | Interaction with | |||||||
| Characteristic | Total1 | Designated parent | Father/stepfather4 | Designated parent | Father4 | Total1 | Designated parent | Father/stepfather4 | Designated parent | Father4 |
| 1Totals given refer to questions of designated parents, regardless of sex of parent. | ||||||||||
| 2Married includes married, spouse present and married, spouse absent (excluding separated). | ||||||||||
| 3Includes never married, widowed, divorced, and separated. | ||||||||||
| 4Question asked of fathers who were not the designated parents. Fathers must be biological, step- or adoptive and must be present in the household. Percent of children eating meals with fathers does not represent presence of both parents at the meals. | ||||||||||
| SOURCE: Terry A. Lugaila, "Table 2. Selected Indicators of Daily Interaction of Children under 18 with Designated Parent or with Father/Stepfather if Present by Marital Status of Designated Parent: 2000," in A Child's Day: 2000 (Selected Indicators of Child Well-Being), Current Population Reports, P70–89, U.S. Census Bureau, August 2003, http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p70-89.pdf (accessed September 16, 2004) | ||||||||||
| Number of children | 23,385 | 17,240 | 16,649 | 6,145 | 835 | 48,278 | 34,645 | 33,114 | 13,633 | 636 |
| Percent distribution | ||||||||||
| Parent ate breakfast with child in typical week | ||||||||||
| No days | 14.2 | 12.6 | 26.0 | 18.5 | 34.8 | 20.5 | 18.3 | 30.2 | 26.1 | 38.9 |
| 1 to 2 days | 16.5 | 15.6 | 33.1 | 19.1 | 25.4 | 28.7 | 27.3 | 33.1 | 32.3 | 32.2 |
| 3 to 6 days | 16.3 | 16.7 | 16.5 | 15.3 | 8.8 | 21.5 | 22.1 | 17.3 | 19.9 | 12.8 |
| 7 days | 53.0 | 55.1 | 24.3 | 47.2 | 31.1 | 29.3 | 32.3 | 19.3 | 21.7 | 16.1 |
| Parent ate dinner with child in typical week | ||||||||||
| No days | 5.3 | 5.0 | 7.5 | 6.2 | 15.2 | 3.2 | 2.8 | 5.0 | 4.4 | 3.6 |
| 1 to 2 days | 3.3 | 2.8 | 8.5 | 4.6 | 7.0 | 5.4 | 4.9 | 8.9 | 6.8 | 8.2 |
| 3 to 6 days | 15.1 | 14.6 | 24.4 | 16.4 | 11.3 | 26.8 | 27.0 | 32.1 | 26.5 | 17.7 |
| 7 days | 76.4 | 77.7 | 59.7 | 72.8 | 66.5 | 64.5 | 65.4 | 54.0 | 62.4 | 70.6 |
| Child praised by parent | ||||||||||
| Never—once a week | 1.8 | 1.5 | 2.5 | 2.6 | 5.8 | 5.2 | 4.6 | 6.9 | 6.8 | 11.8 |
| A few times per week | 7.6 | 6.1 | 9.7 | 12.1 | 17.0 | 22.7 | 21.4 | 26.5 | 26.0 | 24.2 |
| Once or twice per day | 20.3 | 19.3 | 24.8 | 23.1 | 23.0 | 31.3 | 31.3 | 30.6 | 31.2 | 36.2 |
| Three or more times per day | 70.3 | 73.2 | 63.0 | 62.3 | 54.2 | 40.9 | 42.7 | 36.0 | 36.1 | 27.9 |
| Child talked to or played with for 5 minutes or more just for fun | ||||||||||
| Never—once a week | 1.0 | 0.4 | 1.7 | 2.6 | 5.8 | 5.7 | 4.9 | 6.8 | 7.9 | 8.5 |
| A few times per week | 6.5 | 5.3 | 10.6 | 9.7 | 17.5 | 19.6 | 18.7 | 24.2 | 22.1 | 28.6 |
| Once or twice per day | 21.1 | 19.3 | 27.7 | 26.2 | 22.3 | 33.4 | 33.0 | 33.8 | 34.7 | 35.0 |
| Three or more times per day | 71.4 | 75.0 | 60.0 | 61.5 | 54.4 | 41.2 | 43.4 | 35.2 | 35.4 | 27.9 |
day (71.4%) and were praised by a parent three or more times per day (70.3%). In contrast, only 29.3% of school-age children ate breakfast with a parent every day, 64.5% ate dinner with a parent every day, and less than half were played with by a parent three or more times per day (41.2%) or praised by a parent three or more times per day (40.9%). If a child lived with an unmarried parent, these kinds of daily parental interaction was less likely to occur.
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