by Charlie Brooks posted in Parenting

How much time do working parents spend with their child" A study published last year in the Journal of Marriage and Family suggests that it?s more than previous generations, but it still doesn?t feel like enough to me. Some days, it seems like I?m only around to send the kids to bed.
It gets worse when work-related stress follows me home. This boiled over for me last week when a combination of deadlines, work stress, and whininess from the kids finally pushed me into an angry outburst. Luckily, I stopped myself at, ?Sweet holy fu?,? cutting off a key consonant.
But it doesn?t really matter if you barely manage to contain your profanity ? the stress is easy to see. Kids can sense tension. No parent wants to spend the few hours they have with their kids in a gloomy, angry mood. Sometimes you need to leave the stress at work, no matter what. Much easier said than done, of course. Very few people have the luxury of turning off stress, even when their problems are fairly trivial when viewed objectively. No matter who you are, there are going to be some days when your work-life balance is just out of whack.
That?s my view from the subjective perspective of an office-bound parent. Stay at home parents have a similar problem. Even though they spend more time with the kids, they?re working even harder during the course of a day. It can suck when caring for loved ones starts to feel like a chore.
As I mentioned above, parents spend more ti...