Women24 Parenting Survey October 2007

aims To investigate trends in parenting To test with data some assumptions frequently made by parents on parenting To stimulate debate

methodology There were 6417 valid responses in this survey. Analysis of the demographics of the 6040 responses from women in comparison with the latest Labour Force Survey shows the survey is reasonably representative of urban women with a matric education or greater, aged 20 to 75. We unfortunately could not use responses from men as there were too few (377) for the survey to be representative of men. Responses from men were deleted and the survey was weighted. Weighting is the procedure used to correct the distributions in the sample data to approximate those of the population from which it is drawn. The technique serves to provide data that looks like the population rather than the sample. Variables used in the weighting include age, race and education. The Parenting Survey can therefore be taken to represent approximately 2.5 million people, and has been weighted accordingly. These results refer to the weighted results.

vital statistics Urban Female Have a minimum of a matric exemption 83% are biological mothers 43% have unplanned children Number of children: –Half live with one child in the house, – 38% live with two, and – 9% live with three.

investigations What factors are correlated with child happiness? What is the relationship between routine and happiness? Is being at home with the kids always a good thing? What is the extent of spanking, and who gets spanked? Who gets bullied and who bullies? What is the relationship between TV watching and child happiness? Who gets pocket money and when and what does this imply about parenting? Do we parent girls and boys differently and how do we parent gender?

What makes children happy? (1) Being young: Younger children more likely to be rated “very happy” than older children with babies and pre-school children most likely to be thought of as “very happy”. Not being the middle child … unless they’re toddlers: In general youngest is most likely to be ‘very happy’ followed by the eldest – even within age groups Middle adult children 3.5 times less likely than youngest adult children to be very happy EXCEPTIONS: Toddlers who are middle children are most likely to be very happy among toddlers A teen who is an eldest child most likely to be very happy among teens Having parents who take reasonable time out: Having parents who go out once a week without you is optimal for childhood happiness. More frequent and less frequent has lower happiness ratings. Unfortunately, 51% of parents go out in the evenings without their children less than once a month.

What makes children happy? (2) Routine seems to act as a buffer for child happiness –Children without routine can still be very happy (52%), as long as everything else in their lives is going swimmingly –But children who are unhappy are very likely to have no routine (72% vs 28%) –And most children who are very happy have routine (76% vs 24%) Reasonable time with a parent: –Optimum seems to be 3 to 6 hours a day, but varies within age-groups No week-time TV for some age groups, some week-time TV for others –A small amount of TV has somewhat higher toddler happiness ratings than no TV –For pre-teens, two hour day watchers are most likely to be very happy –All other age groups No TV has highest happiness ratings – especially teens!

The day care debate More than half of toddlers and pre-school children are in day care Yet parents are anxious about day care: –only 48% of parents whose children are in day care say they are “very happy” with the care their children receive during the day – unsurprisingly parents seem to trust their own care the most (68%) –yet parents who are at home all day with their children are the least happy about being a parent But child happiness and type of care for children in general shows –Nannies come out tops (81% very happy), –Followed by crèche (72%) and then only –Home with a parent (60%). –Yet parents ratings of these types of care do not follow the same trends as child happiness – consistent under-rating of nanny care and day-care There are slightly different trends within age-groups for child happiness and daytime care –For toddlers, “school then home with a parent” is tops, with extended family and nannies also scoring well –For pre-school children, “school then nanny” and day-care are tops

Spanking and discipline Most popular forms of discipline per age group? –under a year: understanding needs with communication (although 5% spank) –1- 3: using a harsh tone of voice (37%) –pre-schoolers: a system of rewards and punishments (33%) –7- 9: understanding needs with communication (44%) –pre-teens: rewards and punishments (45%)… here spanking drops to less than 1 % –teens: trying to understand (39%) Only 4% of parents overall admit to spanking. Parents are more likely to spank if: –in a nuclear mom/dad family (6%) –gender-appropriate play is actively encouraged (7%) –the children are girls (8%) baby girls under a year are more than 10 times more likely to be spanked than baby boys, while a shocking 63% of spanked babies are unplanned.

pocket money Who gets pocket money? –5% of toddlers –25% of pre-schoolers –72% of year olds, significantly more likely if boys (80%) than girls (61%) –75% of teenagers, more likely if girls (82% vs 68%) –45% of adult children, again more likely if girls (52% vs 38%)

bullying Parents are aware of 24% of children having been bullied, while Parents are only aware of 15% of their children having bullied another There is a strong correlation with having been bullied yourself and bullying another (33%) the effects of TV: –those who watch no TV are least likely to bully (6%, as opposed to the 15% average), while –40% of children who watch a lot of TV are bullied by another. teens: –35% of teens have been bullied, with boys being slightly more likley to suffer this than girls (37% vs 32%) –Teens who are subject to corporal punishment are much more likley to bully than others (56% vs 11% average)

gendered parenting 43% said their children already embrace appropriate gender play naturally 26% encourage gender appropriate play, while 25% said their children did not have appropriate gender interests but they did not interfere 6% actively encourage the blurring of gender boundaries We are more likely to encourage our sons to engage in gender appropriate play than our daughters (30% to 21%), while daughters are more likely to be encouraged to blur gender boundaries (8% to 6%) Most likely to be very happy? Those whose parents acknowledge inappropriate gender interests, but do not interfere. (66% vs 61% average) Least likely? Those children whose parents actively encourage blurred boundaries (47% vs 61% average). These children are also more likely to be bullied (31% vs 24% average)

Sex and HIV education Only 30% of parents say they have given their children sex and HIV education themselves 65% of parents of adult children have 55% of parents of teens 43% of parent of pre-teens Teenagers –who were unplanned children are less likely to have received sex education from a parent (47% vs 61%) –Who are the youngest are most likely to receive such parental education (58%), while –Girl teenagers are much more likely to receive this parental education (62% vs 48% for boys)