How Important Is Parental Time? It Depends: Comment on Milkie, Nomaguchi, and Denny (2015)

• Date: 01 February 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12259
• Published date: 01 February 2016
• Author: Jane Waldfogel

J W Columbia University

How Important Is Parental Time? It Depends:

Comment on Milkie, Nomaguchi,

and Denny (2015)

I enjoyed reading Milkie, Nomaguchi, and

Denny’s (2015) article and appreciate being

invited to comment on it. Let me say at the out-

set that I think the authors tackled an important

question and did so in a careful manner. To recap

their main results, holding other factors constant,

they nd that the amount of time mothers spend

with their children or adolescents has few signif-

icant associations with child or adolescent out-

comes (even when they focus on a measure of

“engaged time,” which captures the time moth-

ers were actually engaged with their children

rather than simply present).

Specically, the authors nd no signicant

associations between amount of time mothers

spend and mothers’ reports of behavior problems

for children age 3–11 or reading or math scores

for children age 6–11 or two measures of adoles-

cents’ risky behaviors. But there are also some

important exceptions. The amount of time moth-

ers spend with their children is associated with

less delinquency reported by their adolescents.

In addition, the amount of time mothers and

fathers spend together with their children is asso-

ciated with several adolescent outcomes: fewer

externalizing problems, higher math scores, less

substance use, and less delinquent behavior. So,

at the end of the day, we are left with a some-

what mixed picture. Amount of time seems not

to matter for school-age children, but it does

School of Social Work, Columbia University, 622 W. 113th

St., New York,NY 10025 (j.waldfogel@columbia.edu).

for adolescents, but results vary depending on

whether mother or parent time is considered and

depending on which specic outcome is exam-

ined.

I’ll begin with some caveats and limitations

related to these results. Several (although not

all) of these were pointed out by the authors

themselves, but I tend to place somewhat more

weight on some of them than they do. But I’ll

devote most of this commentary to some issues

that were not addressed in the article.

C  L

Milkie et al. are careful to note that there are

several important caveats and limitations related

to their results. For example, they discuss the fact

that they are not able to assess the quality of time

that mothers (or parents) are spending with their

children. I agree with the authors that this is an

important point, but I don’t have much to say

about it beyond what they have said already.

The authors also mention the possibility that

mothers who spend more time with their chil-

dren might be a select group and that this might

bias their results. But they suggest that this con-

cern is somewhat muted in the present case

given that theymainly nd null results. Although

they provide some discussion on this point, I

think it deserves more attention. My concern

is the following: If it is benecial for children

to have mothers (or parents) spend more time

with them, but the mothers (or parents) who

select into more time are negatively selected (or

266 Journal of Marriage and Family 78 (February 2016): 266–269

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12259