A Growing Crisis: Families Drifting Apart

DEBORAH CHEN
Staff Writer

“Mom and dad, can you please spend more time with me?” This is not something a typical teen would say, but according to a “Family Circle” survey that www.examiner.com conducted, this is how most teens feel.
In today’s economy, it is normal to have both parents working full time. When they are not working, they are doing a multitude of other things that occupy their time, such as chores, watching television and sleeping.
The “American Time Use Survey” collects information regarding activities people do and the time they spend doing them. They have conducted a recent survey that shows that employed people from ages 25 to 54, who live in households with children under 18, tend to spend an average of 8.6 hours working, 7.6 hours sleeping, 2.6 hours doing leisure activities and 1.2 hours caring for others.
Despite the large remaining amount of time for parents to spend with their children, a BBC News article shows that a typical working parent only spends 49 minutes a day caring for their children. Additionally, a SourceWire article shows that parents have less than five hours a week to bond with their children.
“Although spending time with family is important, sometimes it can take away the time that I want to use to pursue my own interests,” sophomore Tiffany Huang said.
However, parents do not seem to share their children’s views. A majority of the parents that were surveyed did not feel that they need to spend more time with their children. The gap between how parents and children feel may be because parents underestimate the amount of time their kids want and need from them.
“Parents need to communicate with their children more […] so that their relationship will go smoothly throughout the years,” Mandarin teacher Judy Zhu said.
Nowadays, even when parents are spending time with their kids, they might be simultaneously multitasking, such as grocery shopping. In time diary comparisons done by prb.org, it was revealed that parents now spend twice as much time multitasking as they did in 1975.
“I love spending time with my family because it brings [us] closer together and they will be there for me no matter what,” senior Britney Lynch said.
Although teenagers seem to receive a lot of attention from their peers and teachers, these statistics show that there is a lack of bonding time between parents and their children.