"My memory of being a kid is that my mother was available but rarely hovering or directing my activities.  My siblings and I did not have organized playdates.  We rode our bikes around the neighbourhood without adult supervision.  Our parents might have checked on our homework once in a while, but they rarely sat with us while we completed it.  Today, a 'good mother' is always around and always devoted to the needs of her children.  Sociologists call this relatively new phenomenon 'intensive mothering,'  and it has culturally elevated the importance of women spending large amounts of time with their children.  Being judged against the current all-consuming standard means mothers who work outside the home feel as if we are failing, even if we are spending the same number of hours with our kids as our mothers did."

~ LEAN IN ~ WOMEN, WORK, AND THE WILL TO LEAD, Sheryl Sandberg (Chief Operating Officer Facebook) Alfred A. Knopf, 2013.  www.leanin.org

"If there is a new normal for the workplace, there is a new normal for the home too.  Just as expectations for how many hours people will work have risen dramatically, so have expectations for how many hours mothers will spend focused on their children.  In 1975, stay-at-home mothers spent an average of about eleven hours per week on primary child care (defined as routine caregiving and activities that foster a child's well-being, such as reading and fully focused play).  Mothers employed outside the home in 1975 spent six hours doing these activities.  Today, stay-at-home mothers spend about seventeen hours per week on primary child care, on average, while mothers who work outside the home spend about eleven hours.  This means that an employed mother today spends about the same amount of time on primary child care activities as a nonemployed mother did in 1975."