The real problem with parents today…

We’ve all read those articles about how us parents are messing up our kids.

Whether we’re been accused of being on screens too much, inconsistent with rules or too soft.

Articles like this one that’s been read by over 30 million people links increasing rates of childhood depression, ADHD and suicide with parents not being firm enough and using technology as a baby-sitter!

I’m no psychologist but I’m pretty sure there is a deeper issue going on here that affects modern-day parents and their offspring.

Today’s children no longer have a parent whose main responsibility it is to take care of them.

Let’s look at it in detail…

There are 168 hours every week.

Let’s say someone works 40 hours per week (although many employers expect even more from their workers!)

Say we spend an hour getting to work, parking etc. and the same on the way home every day. That’s 10 hours every week.

We’re asleep for maybe 8 hours each night (we wish!!). Let’s say from 10.30pm until 6.30am. So that’s roughly 56 hours spent sleeping.

Many of us spend roughly an hour each day cooking, washing up and doing a little housework. That’s 7 hours and that’s if you’re quick!

I’ll add another hour each morning for getting ourselves and our kids washed, dressed and fed…another 7 hours.

Kids often go to bed at around 7pm to 8pm so let’s take off 3.5 hours each night that we can’t spend with them because they’re sleeping.

We’ll round it up to 25 hours when kids are sleeping and adults are awake.  

Apparently sending kids to school all day isn’t enough so they’re sent home with homework to complete each night. We’ll allocate an hour per night for Primary children (although some Secondary pupils report that they do 3 hours each and every night!)

So, we’ll have one night off per week and call it 6 hours per week for reading school books and completing work set by a teacher.

Lots of kids do a group or club each week that lasts around 2 hours. So we’ll add that.

That leaves just 15 hours each week to do everything else. Grocery shopping, eating, running errands, visiting family etc etc etc and spending awesome quality time with our children that they’ll cherish for ever.

We have the equivalent of just 2 hours a day to dedicate to doing everything else and spending time with our children.

That is the heart breaking truth.

So, let’s stop blaming parents for everything.

 Let’s consider instead…

Why parents are having to work such long hours and still barely get by?

Why we continue to send children off to learn in an establishment that fails to support so many?

Why our society continues to gaslight and blame parents?

This lifestyle is just not sustainable.

It can’t go on without someone loosing out.

In 2015 I quit my 9-5 job (more like 7am-8pm), started working online, minimilised our life and put our house on airbnb for the Summer all so we could home educate!