Unmarried, With Children
Today’s single mothers may be divorced or never-wed, rich or poor, living with men or on their own. But with traditional households in decline, they’re the new faces of America’s family album 
 By Barbara Kantrowitz and Pat Wingert
NEWSWEEK 

Parents Today Make More Time for Quality Time 

Pat Wingert 

Just when parents were beginning to feel they were doing everything wrong, a new study says that modern moms and dads are doing something right--spending four to six more hours a week with their kids than the previous generation. The 1997 study of 2,125 children 3 to 12 released last week by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan found similar upward trends in kid time for both working and at-home moms, and both types of dads. Particularly significant was the finding that today's working moms spent about the same amount of time (26.5 hours a week) with their kids as at-home moms did in 1981 (26 hours). The only group that didn't register an increase was single mother