Mother’s Day is a time for dads to spring into action. Dads, make sure your kids (and you) appropriately recognize all their mother does for them and the family. With day-to-day activities, it is easy to forget how much of what goes on in a family centers on mothers making it happen. Mother’s Day is the day to show appreciation because mothers sacrifice a lot year-round for their families’ well-being.
Here is some research-based information about mothers that will (hopefully!) inspire dads to make some changes at home:
• Mothers get less sleep than fathers. A recent study of over 3000 individuals found that there was a 50% reduction in women getting the recommended amount of sleep for each kid in the house. The amount of sleep men got was unaffected by children in the home. This finding doesn’t necessarily mean that mothers are actively doing something with their kids at night, but it does point to how much mental load mothers take on for their families affects their sleep.
• Mothers are far more likely to stay home to care for their kids when they are sick. A Kaiser Family Foundation study shows that only 19% of fathers indicated that they are the primary caregivers when kids are sick, compared to 56% of mothers. Even though the percentage of fathers caring for sick children has risen in recent years, it is not equal.
• Motherhood impacts a woman’s earning power and career choices. According to a Pew Research Center study, more working moms report that being a working parent made it harder to advance in their careers compared to working dads. And mothers earn 74 cents for every dollar a father earns—mothers of color fare worse. In California, over a lifetime, it means a full-time, year-round, working mother would have to work until age 66 to earn what a father earns by age 60, according to the National Women’s Law Center. Given the toll that caring for children can have on career aspirations, it is essential to recognize the financial value that mothers’ caregiving has on the family.
• Mothers do far more of the household chores. In an extensive study of American households, 49 percent of mothers, compared to 21 percent of fathers, did household chores such as cleaning or laundry daily, according to the American Time Use Survey. Many working mothers come home to a “second shift,” where they do tasks like cooking, cleaning, disciplining, etc., after a long day at (under) paid work. Similarly, among families with children under age 6, working mothers spend 1.2 hours providing physical care for children, like bathing or feeding, and, by contrast, fathers spend 31 minutes providing physical care.
Another study of 3,000 mothers tells us what mothers really want for Mother’s Day: 58% want free time to focus on themselves (and not attend to anyone else) and 10% confessed they would like to use the bathroom uninterrupted. In other words, what moms want is the gift of time.
Given what these studies have found, it is clear that in many homes, mothers are still bearing the largest portion of child and home care. As fathers, it is easy to forget to acknowledge those contributions.
Dads, here is the chance for you to recognize all that the mother of your children does, thank her, and pledge to do more for your family.
On a personal note to my wife, Paige: Thank you for keeping us well-fed with your delicious food. Thank you for realigning your career to fit better with family life. Thank you for being our daughter’s personal Uber most of the time. Thank you for all the things you do that go unnoticed. Thank you for being the mom that makes me a dad.
Robert (Rob) S. Weisskirch, MSW, Ph.D., CFLE, is a Professor of Human Development at California State University, Monterey Bay, and a Certified Family Life Educator. He and his wife are parents to a chatty, elementary school-aged daughter and reside in Marina.