Creating Versus Negating Togetherness: Perceptual and Emotional Differences in Parent-Teenager Reported Time

Abstract

Time together is central to family life, and the question of how much time parents spend with children is vital to scholars. Although parents’ reports of time with children are taken as standard and reliable, assessing different family actors’ perspectives on time together may challenge this notion. Using the American Time Use Survey (2003-2018), we provide a unique window into parent-adolescent time, via a novel examination of precise questions about co-presence and emotions during daily activities. Comparing parents’ and teenagers’ reports of the amount and emotional valence of time spent together, we reveal considerable perceptual gaps – reflecting “ambiguous” rather than “objective” togetherness. Mothers report 24 hours per week of co-presence (“in the room with”) compared to adolescents’ 15 hours – a gap greater than an entire school day; father-teenager discrepancies are comparable. Discrepancies vary by parents’ employment status, with larger discrepancies between stay-at-home parent and adolescent reports. Though the perceptual gap is sizeable, the emotional one is not: both generations experience reported time together as more meaningful, happier and less stressful than time apart, partly due to the nature of activities and presence of other people. Employed parents and the more educated receive more of a well-being boost from adolescent co-presence compared to their counterparts. Ultimately, generational position and social statuses shape perceptions of co-presence, in the form of “creating” versus “negating” classifications of togetherness.

Beyond Childcare: Changes in the Amount and Types of Parent-Child Time over Three Decades

“…Past scholarship suggests that time in the company of children is associated with higher subjective well-being for parents (Musick, Meier, and Flood 2016), although this may vary depending on parenting stage (Negraia and Augustine 2020) or the presence of others such as a partner (Dunatchik and Speight 2020). There is also a need for future research on how more time together impacts well-being from the perspective of children as well (Milkie, Wray, and Boeckmann 2020). Because the time diaries in the GSS come from one respondent per household, we cannot explore intra-household dynamics.…”

“…Extending the conceptualization of parent-child time beyond childcare to time spent together has bearing on understanding family well-being. Parents report higher subjective well-being in activities when their children are in their company (Musick, Meier, and Flood 2016;Meier et al 2018;Milkie, Wray, and Boeckmann 2020), including in leisure and housework activities (Flood, Meier, and Musick 2019;Negraia and Augustine 2020) and in meals. Shared mealtime is an important ritual for collective meaning and well-being in families (Musick and Meier 2012).…”

“…In a study examining Canadian teenagers, Zuzanek and Hilbrecht (2018) find that adolescent-parent contact time shrunk from 3.2 to 2 daily hours from 1986 to 2005. However, teenagers may perceive togetherness differently than parents (Milkie, Wray, and Boeckmann 2020), so parental reports especially regarding younger childrenmay not align. In Australia, parents' time in the company of children declined by about 2 hours per week between 1992 and 2006 (Craig, Powell, and Smyth 2014).…”

“…A narrow focus on childcare may also miss parents' time with children in leisure activities or mealtimes (Bowen, Elliott, and Brenton 2014;Craig, Powell, and Smyth 2014;Negraia, Augustine, and Prickett 2018). Furthermore, shared time together other than childcare has been shown to be salient for the subjective wellbeing of family members (Flood, Meier, and Musick 2019;Milkie, Wray, and Boeckmann 2020;Musick, Meier, and Flood 2016;Negraia and Augustine 2020). Thus, examining total time expands our understanding of parent-child time and its consequences for family dynamics and well-being.…”