Most kids can work around parents' jobs

By JOSIE CLARKE social issues reporter

Working parents can relax. Your children do not mind if you work full-time - but you had better make it up to them during the weekend.

A study of 71 children, aged 8 and over, found they had insightful and sensible things to say about the impact of their parents' work on their lives.

Two-thirds of the children interviewed by the Australian Institute of Family Studies thought their parents worked "about the right amount of time."

But children's satisfaction could not be predicted by the hours their parents worked. Nearly all the children whose parents worked full-time, for example, described the hours as about right.

"Children seem to be saying that the number of hours that their parents work is not the most important determinant of their relationship with the parent," said Dr Virginia Lewis, the institute's senior researcher.

But many wanted "a bit more" or a "little bit more" time with parents to do things such as going to the park and talking.

"Even when judging parents' work hours as 'all right,' they also express a need to have parents available, especially for particular kinds of time," Dr Lewis said.

A 12-year-old girl captured how many children felt: "I think it is good and bad. Sometimes you wish you had more attention, although it is nice not to have them around all the time."

Dr Lewis said it was often assumed that parents and children should all want more time together.

But time was only one of the critical factors that influenced the quality of family life. And what many parents needed was greater flexibility.

None of the Australian children thought his or her parents should be present all the time, and virtually all accepted their parents' need or desire to work.

When asked whether parents' working was good or bad for children, nearly all responded sensibly with conditional statements such as "it depends," Dr Lewis said.

Auckland 10-year-old Mitchell Land said he did not mind that his parents both worked full-time, and spent "quite a lot of time with them in the evenings and weekends.

"I've got my sisters [aged 21 and 16] to look after me. It's fun."

Kay Land, Mitchell's mother, who manages a photographic agency, said she was always available to look after Mitchell if necessary, and her husband tried to spend quality time with him whenever possible.

"We make sure we ask the kids what they want to do, instead of suggesting what we want to do."