From Chores to Childcare: What a New Mother's Day Really Looks Like

Written by Becky Yarwood

Artwork by Kateryna Manko

Source: Nguyen, T. T., Konu, D., Tetteh, D., Tshimbalanga, P., Weissová, J., & Xiong, M. (Under review). “I got all sorts of solitude, but that solitude wasn’t mine”: A Mixed-Methods Approach to Understanding Aloneness during Becoming A Mother. Doi: https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/m67k2. 

We invited forty-seven mothers to take part in a 7-day study. All participants in the study were between the ages of 24 and 42 and were all Caucasian. Most mothers in the study had either undergraduate or postgraduate degrees, and were from households that earned total annual incomes more than £52,000 and most. All mothers in the study were raising their baby with their marital spouse or civil partner. 

After a lab visit, we followed those mothers for 7 days, collecting data on their daily mood, stress, boredom, and loneliness, as well as their daily activities. We categorised activities into different types such as personal time, social activities, caring responsibilities, work etc.

What does a mother’s day look like?

On average, the mothers in the study spent most of their day at home (60%), and engaged in childcare (50%). Time spent alone with the baby took up just over a quarter of the day (26%) but there was very little time the mothers spent alone without the baby (6%). There were similar proportions of time dedicated to personal time (30%), chores and errands (25%), and social activities (24%).  

For the mothers in the study, being alone with the baby meant spending less time alone by themselves, on social activities, and work-related activities. The more time a new mother spent with the baby, the more time she reported staying at home, doing chores and errands, and childcare. 

As most of the mothers in the study have returned to working full-time or part-time, there was some time dedicated to work activities (16%), which are often done when mothers were alone without the baby. Mothers had even less time for rest and relaxation (10%) and less time for personal entertainment (8%). There was very little time for extracurricular activities, reported by only one mother in our study who considered baby swim lessons for this category (1%).  

The most popular activities for the mothers’ personal time included quality time with the baby, time for making or eating meals, watching TV, taking a walk, having a cup of tea, or self-maintenance activities such as taking a shower.