中國網站品牌欄目（頻道）
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 The good old days: Today's mothers feel they have less time to themselves than their mothers did. |
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Being a mother is apparently not like it was in the good old days. Today’s parents yearn for the golden age that their own mothers enjoyed in the 1970s and 1980s, researchers found. Mothers have less time to themselves and feel under greater pressure to juggle work and family life than the previous generation. As a result, 88 per cent said they felt guilty about the lack of time they spent with their children. The survey of 1,000 mothers also found that more than a third said they had less time to themselves than their mothers did – just three hours a week or 26 minutes a day. And 64 per cent said this was because they felt they ‘had’ to go out to work, while nearly a third (29 per cent) said they were under constant pressure to be the ‘perfect mother’, the report found. Other findings showed social networking and parenting websites, as well as technology such as Skype, were important in providing help and support among female communities. Kate Fox, of the Social Issues Research Centre, which conducted the survey for Procter & Gamble, said: ‘With increasing pressure on mothers to work a “double shift” – to be the perfect mother as well as a wage-earner – support networks are more important than ever.’ It comes as a separate report examining childcare in the leading industrialised nations found that working mothers in Britain spend just 81 minutes a day caring for their children as a ‘primary activity’. Mothers who stay at home, on the other hand, manage twice as much time – more than two and a half hours – looking after their offspring, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Critics say the pressure on women to work long hours, and leave their offspring in the hands of nurseries or childminders, is putting the well-being of their children at risk. The study also reveals that, despite the fact that more and more modern mothers go out to work, the burden of childcare still falls on them - even if their husband is not in work. A father who is not in work tends to spend just 63 minutes a day looking after his child - 18 minutes less than a mother who goes out to work. Working fathers spare less than three quarters of an hour with their children. (Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Website.) (Agencies) |
現在做媽媽顯然不像在過去的美好時代那么輕松了。 研究人員發現，現在的父母向往他們的母親生活的上世紀七八十年代，那個“黃金時代”。 相比老一輩人，現在的媽媽個人時間更少了，平衡工作和家庭的壓力也更大。 在這樣的壓力下，88%的母親們說她們因為沒有足夠的時間和孩子在一起而感到愧疚。 這項涵蓋了1000名母親的調查還發現，超過三分之一的母親說她們的個人時間比她們的母親要少，一周只有三小時，一天只有26分鐘。 根據這一調查報告，64%的母親說這是因為她們覺得自己“必須”出去工作，另外有近三分之一（29%）的母親說不斷有壓力迫使自己去做一個“完美的媽媽”。 其他調查結果顯示，社交網站、育兒網站、以及網絡即時語音溝通工具Skype這樣的技術能夠給母親們提供重要的幫助和支持。 這一調查是社會問題研究中心為寶潔公司開展的。該研究中心的凱特?福克斯說：“現在越來越多的母親們被迫要兩頭兼顧，既要做完美的媽媽，又要工作掙錢，能夠給予支持的網絡也變得比以往都更重要。” 這份在發達工業國家進行的育兒調查的獨立報告發現，英國上班媽媽每天照看小孩的“主要活動”只花了81分鐘。 另一方面，根據經濟合作與發展組織的數據，那些全職媽媽每天照顧小孩的時間是上班媽媽的兩倍——超過兩個半小時。 評論家稱，女性被迫延長工作時間，讓托兒所或幼兒托管人照看自己的孩子，這會危及孩子的健康和幸福。 研究還顯示，盡管在現代，越來越多的母親出去工作，照顧小孩的重任還是會落在她們的肩上，就算她們的丈夫不工作也是如此。 一個不工作的父親每天照看自己小孩的時間只有63分鐘，比出去工作的母親照看小孩的時間還少18分鐘。 而有工作的父親每天和自己小孩在一起的時間還不到45分鐘。 相關閱讀 （中國日報網英語點津 陳丹妮 編輯：馮明惠） |
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Vocabulary: juggle: to try to deal with two or more important jobs or activities at the same time so that you can fit all of them into your life 盡力同時應付（兩個或兩個以上的重要工作或活動） double shift: 兩班倒，兩班輪班制 |
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