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49 minutes: The time each day the average family spends together

Chasing the clock and worrying about money put more and more pressure on home life, a survey reveals. But Jonathan Owen finds that modern British households come in many forms.

The fabric of British family life is being reduced to stress and "chaos" by time pressures and money worries, experts said in response to the findings of a major new survey.

With the average British family now spending only 49 minutes a day together, almost half of the parents questioned admit they do not spend enough "quality time" together as a family. More than one in five children complain they don't spend enough time with either of their parents, according to the poll commissioned for National Family Week, which begins tomorrow.

The study of 4,000 parents and children, to be published tomorrow, reveals that one in eight families admit to spending no more than two hours together each week. Three out of 10 parents and children say they spend between two and four hours together. Family meals, watching TV and going out together are the most common ways that they spend time together. Only one in 10 parents cited reading stories. More than two-thirds of parents blame money and a lack of time as the biggest barriers to spending more time with their family. One in five claim that family members don't want to spend time together.


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I found that to be really interesting.
I know when I look at my brothers family I feel they almost never see each other.
Looking back, my family used to spend so much time together, it is totally different to how things seem to be these days.
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hmmm...I am sure that a vast number of families spend less time together today than in years gone by, but there are some flaws in the research here I think.

 

They state - only one in 10 parents cited reading stories.

Well if I was questioned today I would be among the nine that don't read stories to their children, but that is because mine devour novels by themselves now. If you asked me 10 years ago, or 16 years ago - the answer would be very different.

 

I think you would get a much greater time spent together if you asked this community also.

Why? People engaged in sport tend to engage in the sport with their families. I spent 6 hours straight at kids Rugby yesterday, with two of my four children. Granted their father was not there (he was playing Rugby in Phuket), but he is normally there. The three of us later piled into my king size bed and watch United 93 together. That exceeds the average daily amount for the week in ONE day. And don't even get me started on how much time we spend together when we go on ski trips!!

 

I think it is really sad if people are actually spending such little time together as a family. sadface

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When I was growing up I think there was too much family time.

Though I suppose lots of teens might think that!

But it sure is more than kids seem to now.

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Originally Posted By: Mamabear
hmmm...I am sure that a vast number of families spend less time together today than in years gone by, but there are some flaws in the research here I think.

They state - only one in 10 parents cited reading stories.
Well if I was questioned today I would be among the nine that don't read stories to their children. If you asked me 10 years ago, or 16 years ago - the answer would be very different.


Depends on what you mean by children doesn't it and what the researchers state as children. If that is what you were hinting at as the flaw.

Personally, the children the researchers are talking about, I would assume to be under 10 years old, from reading the article and the associated picture with it.
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When they do national surveys, sample sizes can vary between anything from 100 up to 250,000 or so depending on how much money they wish to spend.

 

And it also depends on he age group of the parents they are targeting to as well. Not all of the 60mil people in the UK are parents or children at the time of the interview are they?

 

I do agree that the research needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, but would be interesting to see how this stacks up against other countries around the world.

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Yes, Westerners certainly have a different definition of family than in some other places. There's no way some people would consider putting thier parents into an old peoples home.

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I used to read a lot as a kid, then it wasn't cool to be a teenager who read so I ditched the books and became seriously cool wink , then re-discovered my Reading vigour in University. Love reading now. Just finished a book I bought yesterday, need to go get another one

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Originally Posted By: thursday
naughty I heard that reading in bed is bad for your eyes. Kids may need glasses if they keep that up.

No Thursday .... that is not READING in bed that is the cause...
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Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver
I used to read a lot as a kid, then it wasn't cool to be a teenager who read so I ditched the books and became seriously cool wink , then re-discovered my Reading vigour in University. Love reading now. Just finished a book I bought yesterday, need to go get another one


Picture books don't count. razz
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Read this to them:

Originally Posted By: Terry Bisson

 

They're Made out of Meat

 

"They're made out of meat."

 

"Meat?"

 

"Meat. They're made out of meat."

 

"Meat?"

 

"There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."

 

"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"

 

"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."

 

"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."

 

"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."

 

"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."

 

"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they're made out of meat."

 

"Maybe they're like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."

 

"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of meat?"

 

"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."

 

"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."

 

"No brain?"

 

"Oh, there's a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat! That's what I've been trying to tell you."

 

"So ... what does the thinking?"

 

"You're not understanding, are you? You're refusing to deal with what I'm telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat."

 

"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"

 

"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?"

 

"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."

 

"Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."

 

"Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?"

 

"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual."

< 2 >

 

 

"We're supposed to talk to meat."

 

"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there. Anybody home.' That sort of thing."

 

"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"

 

"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."

 

"I thought you just told me they used radio."

 

"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."

 

"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"

 

"Officially or unofficially?"

 

"Both."

 

"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."

 

"I was hoping you would say that."

 

"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"

 

"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say? 'Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"

 

"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."

 

"So we just pretend there's no one home in the Universe."

 

"That's it."

 

"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you probed? You're sure they won't remember?"

 

"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."

 

"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."

 

"And we marked the entire sector unoccupied."

 

"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"

 

"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again."

 

"They always come around."

 

"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone ..."

 

 

the end

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Originally Posted By: RobBright
Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver
I used to read a lot as a kid, then it wasn't cool to be a teenager who read so I ditched the books and became seriously cool wink , then re-discovered my Reading vigour in University. Love reading now. Just finished a book I bought yesterday, need to go get another one


Picture books don't count. razz


You're screwed then! biggrin
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  • 2 weeks later...

Was a bit shocked to see an article last week that average time fathers spent with kids in HK was 20 minutes a day. I would be very dissappointed in life if that was me.

 

But really. Have you actually counted?

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