(Source: Veronis, Suhler & Associates Inc., New York, NY, Communications Industry Report, annual, in the U. S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2000 [120th edition] Washington, DC, 1999, p. 566.)

"A group of 1,478 parents in New York State, with children between the age of one and five, were surveyed regarding their TV watching habits and diets. Children who watched television during dinner and snacked while watching television-practices that are greatly influenced by their parents-consumed less milk, fruits and vegetables than those who turned off the television at dinnertime and didn't snack while watching television. 'The quality of children's diets varies depending on their television viewing habits,' says Barbara A. Dennison, M.D., senior scientist at the Bassett Research Institute in Cooperstown, N.Y., associate professor of Clinical Pediatrics, Columbia University, New York, N.Y., and lead investigator. 'We believe that the poor quality diets associated with television watching explains, in part, the long-recognized association between television viewing and obesity.'"

(Source: "Watching TV May Be Related to Poor Quality Diet and Increased Risk of Child Obesity," North American Association for the Study of Obesity (NAASO), October 10, 2001; accessed at http://www.naaso.org/naaso2001/tv.htm.)

When Mom takes a job outside the home, her children naturally see less of her.  And when they do, they may well be acting up in ways that make their time together unpleasant.  To see why the children of employed mothers are prone to misbehave, we need only turn to a study recently published in the Journal of Marriage and the Family by researchers from the University of Michigan. 

Examining nationally representative data, the Michigan scholars identify a number of ways that maternal employment affects how children spend their time.  Predictably enough, children of employed mothers spend more time in day care than children in traditional male breadwinner-female homemaker families.  But perhaps not quite as predictably, children of an employed mother "spend less time in everything else, including play, structured activities such as church, family activities such as eating and sleeping, and learning time such as reading."   Such differences, the researchers remark, "reflect differences in time spent at home and availability of a second parent."

With less time for worship, reading, play, and even sleep, children in employed-mother homes may be headed for trouble.  First, children in two-earner homes will likely do worse in school than peers from traditional families, since "reading was linked to achievement" and "children who spent time reading for pleasure did better on tests of cognitive achievement."  Second, the activities missing from the lives of children in employed-mother homes appear to be the very ones which foster tractable and cooperative behavior.  "Time spent in family activities," write the authors of the new study, "is associated with fewer problem behaviors."   The researchers report that even spending time eating meals and sleeping at home tended to reduce problem behaviors.  So if children regularly get a quick hamburger in the back of Mom's car on their way to a late bedtime, who can wonder if they end up raising Cain?

(Source: Sandra L. Hofferth and John F. Sandberg, "How American Children Spend Their Time," Journal of Marriage and the Family 63[2001]: 295-308, emphasis added.)