Keeping up with The Times

I knew it, I knew it! In her "Well" blog today, Tara Parker-Pope confirmed what StraightMan and I long had suspected:

Working parents perpetually agonize that they don’t see enough of their children. But a surprising new study finds that mothers and fathers alike are doing a better job than they think, spending far more time with their families than did parents of earlier generations.

As half of a dual-full-time-academic-career couple with two kids, I feel vindicated.

With all due respect and affection to my parents (in particular to my mother, the primary caregiver) - and meals together in our house were the rule, not the exception - I remember a lot of the time we spent together as benign inattentiveness. For example, my brother and sister and I were encouraged to play together, in the backyard, or to read in our rooms on our own.

We kids had our own ways of getting along (or not). Something that I encourage Beanie and Bubbie to develop and explore, too.