Mothers' Time, the Parenting Package, and Links to Healthy Child Development

• Author: Paula Fomby,Kelly Musick
• Date: 01 February 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12432
• Published date: 01 February 2018

P F University of Michigan

K M Cornell University∗

Mothers’ Time, the Parenting Package, and Links to

Healthy Child Development

Studies show that mothers’ time in particu-

lar activities with children is positively associ-

ated with child well-being, but results aremixed

regarding associations between child outcomes

and the sheer amount of time that mothers spend

with children. Using data fromthree waves of the

PanelStudy of Income Dynamics Child Develop-

ment Supplement (N=2,622), the authors assess

whether gains from mothers’ total time with

children vary by the quality of mothers’ other

investments in children or the “parenting pack-

age.” Mother–child shared time was associated

with children’sbroad reading scores and adoles-

cents’ externalizing behavior, but mothers’ other

parenting investments did not moderate these

associations. Results were robust to alternative

measures of mothers’ time and to the incorpo-

ration of earlier assessments of child academic

and behavior problems. Parenting investments

may be indicative of the quality of children’s

home environments, but do not magnify gains

from mother–child shared time.

Studies have long demonstrated the importance

of mothers’ time investments for healthy child

Survey Research Center and Population Studies Center,

Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 426

Thompson St., Ann Arbor, MI 48104

(pfomby@umich.edu).

∗Department of Policy Analysis and Management and

Cornell Population Center, Cornell University,254 Martha

VanRensselaer Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853.

Key Words: child development, family interaction, parental

investments, time use.

development. These have often relied on par-

ents’ reports of usual time in specic activities,

such as reading to a child, eating dinner together,

talking, or helping with homework (Amato &

Rivera, 1999; Astone & McLanahan, 1991;

Musick & Meier, 2012; Kalil, Ziol-Guest, Ryan,

& Markowitz, 2016). Time diary data similarly

have shown that shared time in educational and

enriching activities is linked to child well-being

(Fiorini & Keane, 2014; Hsin & Felfe, 2014;

Raley, 2014). Studies assessing the total amount

of time parents spend engaged in activities with

children have shown weaker or more mixed

results (Hofferth, 2006; Hsin & Felfe, 2014;

Milkie, Nomaguchi, & Denny, 2015). In a

recent set of commentaries arising from these

discrepant ndings, scholars engaged in a useful

exchange about how best to conceptualize,

measure, and model the link between parents’

time investments and child development (Kalil

& Mayer, 2016; Nomaguchi, Milkie, & Denny,

2016; Waldfogel, 2016).

This exchange highlighted critical challenges

to understanding the importance of parental time

with children, including how to think about

the measurement of parental time, the quantity

and quality of parental time, and the factors

potentially confounding associations between

parental time and child well-being. Wetake steps

to address these issues and extend the exist-

ing literature in three key ways. First, we pay

close attention to the measurement of moth-

ers’ total time with children, addressing con-

cerns about the reliability of time diary data and

exploring differences in mothers’ time engaged

in activities with children versus present but not

166 Journal of Marriage and Family 80 (February 2018): 166–181

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12432

Mothers’ Time and the Parenting Package 167

involved. Second, we examine the quantity and

quality of parental time as distinct dimensions,

tapping quality with rich indicators of children’s

physical and emotional home environments, par-

enting style, and parenting strategies. We ask to

what extent these aspects of quality moderate

the association between parents’ total time with

children and child outcomes. Finally,we use lon-

gitudinal data to provide some leverage into dif-

cult questions of causal order and confounding

factors.

These extensions allow us to explore the con-

texts in which parental time may matter more or

less for children and adolescents. A large liter-

ature demonstrates the importance of children’s

home environments, parent–child interactions,

and parental involvement for child development

(Bradley, Corwyn, Burchinal, McAdoo, & Coll,

2001; Grolnick & Slowiaczek, 1994). Studies

of parental time to date, however, have tended

to conceive of quality in terms of particular

activities that mothers engage in with chil-

dren. We shift the focus on quality away from

activity type to the parenting context in which

shared time occurs, including various aspects

of parents’ material and emotional resources,

parenting style, and parenting strategies that

we call the “parenting package.” We examine

how the parenting package conditions the asso-

ciation between mothers’ time and behavioral

outcomes of children (6–11 years) and adoles-

cents (12–17 years), anticipating that where the

parenting package is supportive of child devel-

opment, mothers’ time will be associated with

positive developmental outcomes. Conversely,

where the parenting package is weak, mothers’

time will have a neutral or negative association

with child well-being. Our study uses time diary

and questionnaire data from three waves of the

Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) Child

Development Supplement (CDS), a nationally

representative sample of children born between

1985 and 1997 (PSID, 2012b).

B

Measuring Maternal Time With Children

The measurement of mothers’ time with chil-

dren raises issues around the reliability of assess-

ments and, more generally, the extent to which

measurement strategies capture relevant varia-

tion. Quantitative assessments rely on the fol-

lowing two basic approaches for collecting data

on time: survey questions that ask about time in

particular activities, such as reading, eating din-

ner, or outings, and time diaries that account for

all activities during the course of a day. Time

diaries have several advantages over stylized

reports. The format of the time diary leaves less

leeway in question interpretation, and, by design,

all activities have to be reconciled within the

constraints of a 24-hour day.Time diary data suf-

fer less from social desirability bias and are more

accurate and thus tend to be more valid indi-

cators of parental time investments (Robinson,

1985). For example, Hofferth (2006) showed

that parents’ stylized reports of reading to chil-

dren were inated relative to diary reports, that

this was particularly true among highly educated

parents who see reading as central to good par-

enting, and nally that stylized reports of reading

were not as strongly associated with children’s

test scores as diary reports.

Time diaries have disadvantages as well.

Whereas stylized reports may ask about longer

units of time or about what is typical, time

diaries reference a particular day. Thus they rep-

resent a thin slice of children’s daily lives(2 days

in the case of CDS) and may be an inaccurate

representation of parents’ time with children

(e.g., Kalil & Mayer, 2016; Wolfers, 2015).

To the extent the days recorded are unusual

(e.g., a sick day or day in which the parent

was traveling for work), the time diary reports

will be a poor measure of parental investments

and misestimate relationships between parental

time and child outcomes. Nomaguchi et al.

(2016) tested associations between mothers’

time and child outcomes for a subset of children

whose diary days were rated “very typical” and

found the same pattern of results as in the total

child sample (i.e., weak associations between

mothers’ time and child outcomes). We extend

this strategy to minimize concerns about mis-

measurement, rst limiting our analysis to very

typical days and further examining time use on

weekdays only. Qualitative accounts suggest a

substantial amount of routine in children’s time

(Lareau, 2011), and we expect this to be partic-

ularly true of days already highly structured by

children’s school schedules and parents’ work

schedules.

We also address more general measurement

issues about what counts as time with children

and what increments should matter for chil-

dren. Much work has emphasized the distinc-

tive value of mothers’ engagement in shared