Many Americans believe that mothers should spend as much time as possible with their children for their children to grow up all right. Childrearing experts advise that mothers spend time with their children purposefully in age-appropriate activities, such as providing basic care, playing games indoors or outside, doing arts and crafts, singing, reading, and outings to enriching spaces like libraries, sporting events, or children’s museums.

Accordingly, research has focused on investigating subpopulations of mothers who spend lesschildcare time in these activities and identifying what factors prevent them from investing more time in childrearing. The findings, the researchers argue, can inform policymakers to generate intervention programs that help resource-deprived mothers spend more time with their children in a “proper” way.

Racial/ethnic minority mothers are among such subpopulations that researchers care about. Researchers tend to ask: Do racial/ethnic minority mothers spend less childcare time than White mothers due to constraints such as financial strain, long work hours, single parenthood, or language barriers? 

In our recent research, we argue that if we seek to understand racial/ethnic variation in maternal time, we need to transform our perspectives.

First, we should question the assumption that all subpopulations can fit into one childrearing ideal similarly. Research has long documented that racial/ethnic minority Americans generally agree with the mainstream parenting/mothering norms, but they also recognize that their childrearing practices cannot be the same as White parents’ practices. To ensure their children are well-cared for and well-prepared for an unequal society, minority communities have built alternative childrearing strategies that are rooted in their historical and social locations in the U.S., as we describe below when we discuss the findings of our study. Hence, the kinds of activities in which mothers spend time with children may differ across racial/ethnic communities. 

Second, we need to expand the scope of the investigation to go beyond mothers’ time spent in childcare activities. Childcare time is a small portion of the total time mothers spend with their children. Mothers spend a lot more time accompanied by their children in daily routines (e.g., meals, housework) or leisure activities (e.g., watching TV, visiting friends), which we call mother-child copresence. To capture variation in how mothers in different racial/ethnic communities spend time with children in diverse ways, it is critical to include mother-child copresent time in our analyses.  

We use data collected from 44,372 mothers who participated in the 2003–2019 American Time Use Surveys to examine how Black, Latina, Asian, and White mothers spend time with their young, elementary-school-age, and adolescent children differently from other racial/ethnic groups. We pool the multiple years of data to ensure enough sample sizes for each racial/ethnic group in each of the three age groups of children.

We find that some racial/ethnic differences in maternal time spent with children are related to disparities in socioeconomic characteristics and differences across other demographic characteristics, such as mothers’ education, employment hours, family income, and immigration status, across the four racial/ethnic groups. However, some distinct patterns for each racial/ethnic group in maternal time still exist even after these other factors are held constant.

Black mothers spend more time with children in religious activities while spending less in terms of the total amount of time with their children, particularly activities like play, meals, housework, and shopping, compared with mothers in the three other racial/ethnic groups. These patterns make sense if we consider Black communities’ communal mothering. Black communities conceive good mothering as in part delegatory, given the history that breadwinning is a primary responsibility for Black mothers to fulfill and therefore they rely on trusted others within extended families and local communities for the day-to-day care of their children. The central role that religious communities play in Black communities as a source of social support is well known. 

Latina mothers spend more copresent time with elementary-school-age children, particularly while shopping, watching TV, and attending or hosting social activities, compared with mothers in the three other racial/ethnic groups. This pattern is aligned with Latinx communities’ emphasis on family-centered, as opposed to individualistic, child-centered, childrearing. We also find that Latina mothers spend less childcare time with their young or elementary-school-age children in educational activities, but they spend more time managing their children’s lives. These patterns are consistent with prior findings that during the summer break after first grade, Latina mothers do educational activities with their children less often but are more likely to have them tutored, compared to parents in the three other racial/ethnic groups. These findings indicate that Latina mothers tend to be behind the scenes making sure that their children have things that they need, perhaps particularly if their first language is not English. 

Asian mothers spend more time teaching young or elementary-school-age children than mothers in the three other racial/ethnic groups. They also spend more time providing basic care for young children. Asian communities, which in the U.S. consist of a large proportion of immigrants with highly skilled occupations, stress that raising academically competitive children is a parental obligation to honor their extended families. Another notable finding is that Asian mothers spend more mealtime with young and elementary-school-age children, consistent with anecdotal evidence that Asian parents and children maintain pride in their cultural heritage through their ethnic food. 

White mothers spend more time playing with young and elementary-school-age children and spending more time with elementary-school-age children doing physical activities, consistent with other research findings that outside play is emphasized by White parents, but not so much by other racial/ethnic groups. These reflect the mainstream emphasis on the importance of parent-child play and physical activities for the proper development of children. 

Together, we argue that racial/ethnic variation in maternal time should be theorized and interpreted by centering each minority community’s perspective, not simply using the majority’s ideal as the “gold standard.” Using each community’s perspective can allow us to regard mothers—and other adults—as active agents, within their larger social contexts and communities, who spend time with their children to ensure that their children are well prepared for life. 

Kei Nomaguchi is Professor of Sociology at Bowling Green State University. Her research interests focus on parenting, parent-child relationships, work-family linkages, and health and well-being. She can be reached at knomagu@bgsu.edu. Follow her on X/Twitter at @kei_nomaguchi.

Melissa A. Milkie is Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto, Professor Emerita at the University of Maryland, and recently served as President of the Work and Family Researchers Network (WFRN). Her research centers on gender, work-family intersections and well-being, with a unique focus on time use and culture. She can be reached via email at: melissa.milkie@utoronto.ca; on Linked In at www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-milkie-64345136, and on X/Twitter at @melissamilkie.