Ask the Children
Subtitle: What America's Children Really Think About Working Parents
Publisher: William Morrow & Company; William Morrow
Published: October 1, 1999
Place of publication: New York, USA
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 391
ISBN-13: 9780688147525
Subjects: Sociology Of Children; Social Science; Family / Parenting / Childbirth; Working mothers; Child Care/Parenting; United States; Sociology - Marriage & Family; Parenting - General; Children of working parents; Attitudes; Dual-Career Families
Description: "Here is important news for the millions of parents struggling to manage work and family, says Ellen Galinsky in this extraordinary study--the first comprehensive study ever conducted that asks children and parents for their views on work and family life today. The responses she has gleaned from in-depth interviews and nationally representative surveys of children and parents are surprising, useful, and guaranteed to break the frantic cycle of guilt and stress that often traps parents." "Five years in the making, the Ask the Children study questions accepted thinking on such issues as quality time vs. quantity time, how mothers parent their children compared to fathers, how much children really know about the daily lives of parents at work, how much parents like their work, what messages we're sending children about work, and much more.^

For example, while many parents worry that they may not be spending enough time with their children, time is not at the top of children's lists when they are asked to name their one wish for changing how their parents' work affects their lives. And while the debate rages about whether mothers' working is good or bad for children, it turns out that children learn more about the world of work from their mothers than they do from their fathers." "For the first time, parents will hear children's perceptions and opinions--both reassuring and insightful--on these and many other topics. They'll see stereotypes blown and politically correct ideas challenged. They'll hear parents and children talking about what works to keep families close and why.^

They'll find practical advice for a better family life and a brilliant new set of operating principles to help them feel more in command and control at work and at home." "As the century closes on a generation of working parents, we have a unique opportunity to view how far we have come as families and to chart the course ahead. Ask the Children provides a positive basis for understanding our past and is a point of departure for our future. Book jacket."--Jacket.
Table of contents: title: Overview : why ask the children, and why now? -- Introduction : why and how this study was conducted -- Reframing the debate about working and children -- How children see their parents' parenting skills -- Is it quality time or quantity time? -- There is something about work -- There’s something about family life, too -- Spillover -- How do work and family life affect us as parents? -- What are we teaching children about work and family life? -- What does the future hold? -- How do we navigate work and family, and how do we ask the children? -- What children want to tell the working parents of America.