中国网站品牌栏目（频道）
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 The good old days: Today's mothers feel they have less time to themselves than their mothers did. |
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Being a mother is apparently not like it was in the good old days. Today’s parents yearn for the golden age that their own mothers enjoyed in the 1970s and 1980s, researchers found. Mothers have less time to themselves and feel under greater pressure to juggle work and family life than the previous generation. As a result, 88 per cent said they felt guilty about the lack of time they spent with their children. The survey of 1,000 mothers also found that more than a third said they had less time to themselves than their mothers did – just three hours a week or 26 minutes a day. And 64 per cent said this was because they felt they ‘had’ to go out to work, while nearly a third (29 per cent) said they were under constant pressure to be the ‘perfect mother’, the report found. Other findings showed social networking and parenting websites, as well as technology such as Skype, were important in providing help and support among female communities. Kate Fox, of the Social Issues Research Centre, which conducted the survey for Procter & Gamble, said: ‘With increasing pressure on mothers to work a “double shift” – to be the perfect mother as well as a wage-earner – support networks are more important than ever.’ It comes as a separate report examining childcare in the leading industrialised nations found that working mothers in Britain spend just 81 minutes a day caring for their children as a ‘primary activity’. Mothers who stay at home, on the other hand, manage twice as much time – more than two and a half hours – looking after their offspring, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Critics say the pressure on women to work long hours, and leave their offspring in the hands of nurseries or childminders, is putting the well-being of their children at risk. The study also reveals that, despite the fact that more and more modern mothers go out to work, the burden of childcare still falls on them - even if their husband is not in work. A father who is not in work tends to spend just 63 minutes a day looking after his child - 18 minutes less than a mother who goes out to work. Working fathers spare less than three quarters of an hour with their children. (Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Website.) (Agencies) |
现在做妈妈显然不像在过去的美好时代那么轻松了。 研究人员发现，现在的父母向往他们的母亲生活的上世纪七八十年代，那个“黄金时代”。 相比老一辈人，现在的妈妈个人时间更少了，平衡工作和家庭的压力也更大。 在这样的压力下，88%的母亲们说她们因为没有足够的时间和孩子在一起而感到愧疚。 这项涵盖了1000名母亲的调查还发现，超过三分之一的母亲说她们的个人时间比她们的母亲要少，一周只有三小时，一天只有26分钟。 根据这一调查报告，64%的母亲说这是因为她们觉得自己“必须”出去工作，另外有近三分之一（29%）的母亲说不断有压力迫使自己去做一个“完美的妈妈”。 其他调查结果显示，社交网站、育儿网站、以及网络即时语音沟通工具Skype这样的技术能够给母亲们提供重要的帮助和支持。 这一调查是社会问题研究中心为宝洁公司开展的。该研究中心的凯特•福克斯说：“现在越来越多的母亲们被迫要两头兼顾，既要做完美的妈妈，又要工作挣钱，能够给予支持的网络也变得比以往都更重要。” 这份在发达工业国家进行的育儿调查的独立报告发现，英国上班妈妈每天照看小孩的“主要活动”只花了81分钟。 另一方面，根据经济合作与发展组织的数据，那些全职妈妈每天照顾小孩的时间是上班妈妈的两倍——超过两个半小时。 评论家称，女性被迫延长工作时间，让托儿所或幼儿托管人照看自己的孩子，这会危及孩子的健康和幸福。 研究还显示，尽管在现代，越来越多的母亲出去工作，照顾小孩的重任还是会落在她们的肩上，就算她们的丈夫不工作也是如此。 一个不工作的父亲每天照看自己小孩的时间只有63分钟，比出去工作的母亲照看小孩的时间还少18分钟。 而有工作的父亲每天和自己小孩在一起的时间还不到45分钟。 相关阅读 （中国日报网英语点津 陈丹妮 编辑：冯明惠） |
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Vocabulary: juggle: to try to deal with two or more important jobs or activities at the same time so that you can fit all of them into your life 尽力同时应付（两个或两个以上的重要工作或活动） double shift: 两班倒，两班轮班制 |
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