‘The playdate is dying’: US parenting ‘lonelier’ than in previous generations, data suggests
August 15, 2024
Contrary to popular conceptions, American parents aren’t spending significantly more time with their children – but they’re feeling more isolated than their predecessors, a report concludes.
“Far from American parenting becoming more time-demanding, Americans are shedding many time-intensive ties (like friendship), reallocating time towards various kinds of experiential consumption (like pet ownership), and facing the demands of parenting more alone than ever before,” writes Lyman Stone, director of the Pronatalism Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies.
Stone examined 20 years’ worth of data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), which has tracked US childcare and time spent with children from 2003 to 2023.
