Working parents juggle 18-hour days

The average working parent clocks an 18-hour day when considering all the tasks involved in raising children.

A survey of 2,000 parents with children aged 0-6—split evenly between working and non-working parents—highlighted key differences between these groups.

In addition to their typical 9-5 jobs, working parents spend two hours daily on household chores and another two hours driving family members to various destinations. They also devote four hours to preparing their children for the day, helping with schoolwork, and handling other needs, along with an extra hour for miscellaneous tasks.

On average, working parents also add two hours of overtime each week to their already 7-hour workday, leaving only about six hours for sleep.

Non-working parents also lead busy lives, putting in 17-hour days. Instead of work hours, they spend nine hours caring for their children, four hours on chores like cooking and cleaning, and two hours handling transportation and other responsibilities.

Regardless of their employment status, 96% of parents agree that being a parent means always being “on call.”

On average, parents get just 31 minutes of personal time per day, with 15% saying they never get any at all. Yet, 56% of parents confess to feeling guilty about not spending enough time with their children.