“Day After” Time Use Survey

For the Mothers & More “Day After” Mother’s Day Survey, we set out not to be scientific and precise in quantifying how we mothers spend our time, but rather to give mothers the opportunity to provide qualitative data on what their time feels like and what emotions they have, as they perform the daily tasks associated with their roles as mothers, workers and caregivers.

We used the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) categories to help participants see for themselves the breadth and scope of their activities throughout a typical day. But we added a category we felt was sorely missing in the ATUS: Invisible, mental work ( worrying, planning, scheduling, listing, remembering, etc), that we believe is part and parcel of mothers’ lives and takes appreciable time, focus and energy, just as all the other activities captured in the ATUS do.

We also wanted to take a closer look at multi-tasking—accomplishing two or more tasks simultaneously—and compare that with how mothers felt about their time and sense of accomplishment.

Then we asked how mothers felt during certain blocks of time—what their emotional state was in general throughout their day, and how the time itself felt to them.

Lastly, we invited mothers to give us a blow-by-blow of their time blocks, and to reflect on whether they felt the work they did on this “Day After” was acknowledged and appreciated, in the afterglow of Mother’s Day.

SURVEY FINDINGS

Here’s an overview of our findings from the survey:

Mothers Are BUSY

Whether in the paid workplace or full-time caregivers at home, mothers’ days are very full and very hectic. Except for the 9 pm – midnight and 3 am – 6 am time slots, the majority of our mother survey participants were multi-tasking all day long (from 50% – 87% throughout the day, averaging out at 75% overall). And the task that took first in every time slot but one (9 pm to midnight) was, you guessed it, caring for kids (72.9% overall), followed by telephone calls, mail and email (69.4%) and household activities (67.8%). Mothers’ busiest times of the day were 6 am to 9 am and noon to 6 pm, though you could still find them busily working even in the 9 pm to midnight time block, trying to fit in all the things they weren’t able to do while the kids were awake. (Also notable in the 9 pm to midnight time block: multi-tasking goes from the 70%-80% during the rest of the day to 56%, and personal care goes up to 56%—no wonder kids’ bedtime is sacred to mothers; it’s when they can focus and get a little personal time for themselves.)

Our added activity category, “invisible mental work” also bore out our hunch on its prominence in mothers’ daily lives—from 6 am all the way to 9 pm, between 50% and 64% of our respondents reported being engaged in this work, along with all their other activities.

Mothers Are TIRED

Of the 12 feelings offered up to participants (and they were invited to check all that apply), feeling tired was the overwhelming feeling throughout the day. Except for a short respite in the 9 am to noon time block (maybe after the caffeine kicks in and before the day has really taken its toll), at any given time, 50% to 100% of our participants reported feeling tired----100% feeling it between midnight and 3 am, 83% from 3 am to 6 am (getting up in the middle of the night with infants or sick children, perhaps) and over 70% feeling that way again from noon to 3 pm and 6 pm to midnight. “Tired” averaged out to 63% over the course of the whole day.

A distant second feeling was “accomplished,” which peaked at 56% from 9 am to noon (which is also, perhaps not coincidentally, when mothers felt least tired) but only averaged out to 38% for the day. Neck and neck for third place were “content” (30% average), ”anxious” (25%) and “happy” (23%). “Content” peaked during 3 pm - 6 pm (38%), “anxious” between noon and 3 pm (39%) and “happy” from 9 am to noon (33%).

The good news is, the feelings that received the lowest percentages throughout the day were “mad” (5%), “defeated” (5%) and “sad” (4%). Also near the bottom were “fulfilled” (11%) and “refreshed” (14%), however.

Mothers’ Time is FAST and FRAGMENTED but PRODUCTIVE

When asked to pick the feelings they had about the time itself, mothers’ most frequent selections were “fast” (45% overall), “productive” (43%), “fragmented” (37%) and “worthwhile” (33%).

Not surprisingly, the time block where mothers felt the most productive (54%) was the same block where they also felt that the time went fastest (64%), 6 am – 9 am. And interestingly, during waking hours, the time block that felt most fragmented (50%) was also when mothers felt the most anxious (39%), noon-3 pm.

Mother’s Day Leaves a Lot of Mothers Feeling Conflicted

After giving mothers a chance to review their activities and their feelings on the Day After, the last question we asked was,

Did you feel appreciated and feel that all the work you do for your family was recognized yesterday? Did celebrating Mother's Day yesterday change your perspective on the work you did today?

The overwhelming majority of mothers said they did feel appreciated by their families on Mother’s Day, and the majority also said that Mother’s Day did nothing to give recognition to the amount and importance of the work they do as caregivers—the next day it was back to business as usual and having mothers’ work go largely invisible. Read individuals’ comments highlighting the issues mothers’ grappled with in terms of appreciation and recognition.

A Day in the Life

Statistics and percentages aside, the story of mothers’ lives the Day After is best told in their own words. All the work and activities, the multi-tasking and the feelings surrounding them were most eloquently expressed in mothers’ blow-by-blow accounts of specific time blocks. Here’s a representative sampling from different mothers at different times of the day, which illustrate the love, the sense of accomplishment, the fragmentation, intensity and relentlessness of the job of mothering.