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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCensus Bureau on watching the kids: Dad = "Child Care Arrangement" Mom = What Nature Intended
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/the-census-bureau-counts-fathers-as-child-care/Its not baby-sitting when Daddy does it. Who wouldnt agree with that? The U.S. Census Bureau, apparently. When both parents are present in the household, the Census Bureau assumes for the purposes of its Whos Minding the Kids? report, that the mother is the designated parent. And when the designated parent is working or at school, the bureau would like to know whos providing child care.
If the answer is Daddy, as it was 26 percent of the time when these numbers were last released, in 2005, and 32 percent of the time in 2010, the Census Bureau calls that care. But if Mom is caring for a child while Dads at work, thats not a child care arrangement, but something else. Parenting, presumably.
Regardless of how much families have changed over the last 50 years women are still primarily responsible for work in the home, said Lynda Laughlin of the Census Bureaus Fertility and Family Statistics Branch. We try to look at child care as more of a form of work support. A mother, said Ms. Laughlin, is not only caring for the child only while Dad works. Shes probably caring for the child 24 hours and so Dad is able to go to work regardless.
That bears repeating. If, every morning, I go off to work and my husband stays home with a child, thats a child care arrangement in the eyes of this governmental institution. If the reverse is true, its not. I asked Ms. Laughlin if the Census Bureau collected data on the hours mothers spend offering work support to their husbands. No, she said. We dont report it in that direction.
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Census Bureau on watching the kids: Dad = "Child Care Arrangement" Mom = What Nature Intended (Original Post)
TalkingDog
Feb 2012
OP
d_r
(6,907 posts)1. this has been accepted in the literature since
well, since there was a literature. Always bugged the daylights out of me.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)2. i got in a fight over this with MIL. he is not babysitting his own kids, anymore than i do. not PC
that is her answer well, i am just not PC.
Nuclear Unicorn
(19,497 posts)3. And they're definitely his when they misbehave ---
"Do you know what YOUR daughter did today!?!?!"
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)4. lol lol
yup
then they are dear
you know what MY little angel did