Happy Monday Moms!
We hope you all had a fantastic Mother’s Day and got all the pampering you deserved (yes, having someone else empty the dishwasher qualifies as pampering). By now, your handmade gifts are in a pile on your nightstand, your plate from breakfast in bed is getting crusty, and it’s back to the daily grind of being a mom.
As long as most of the sappiness and sentiments of yesterday feel like a distant memory anyway, we thought it was a perfect time to look at some of the science and statistics of mommyhood across the generations. (And what could be any less mushy than that?)
As a team of self-proclaimed statistic and research nerds, we actually do get oddly emotional about this kind of stuff. But we realize that most moms prefer flowers. Whatever works.
Recently, the DDB Life Style Study® released it’s latest findings, and we’re kind of obsessed with them. This study is the nation's longest running and largest longitudinal study of attitudes and behaviors. This proprietary survey, with its 600+ questions, enables DDB to provide exceptional insight into American consumer attitudes and behaviors. The 2014 study was fielded among 7,020 respondents during January 2014. (© 2014 DDB Worldwide Communications Group Inc.)
A shareworthy finding: all generations of moms agree that raising a child brings them a lot of happiness. (A not-so-startling 92% of Millennial, Gen X, and Boomer moms say as such.)
Of course, there are some differences:
- Millennial moms are significantly more likely than Boomer moms (22% vs. 11%) and Gen X moms (22% vs. 15%) to view parenthood as a real burden.
- Thirty-four percent of Millennial moms say that if they had to stay home with their kids day after day, they would lose their minds, while only 21% of Gen X and 18% of Boomer moms feel this way.
- Millennial moms are more than twice as likely than Gen X and Boomer moms to say they would rather spend time with their friends than their kids (19% vs. 8%) and, further, 22% admit they don't enjoy spending time with their kids.
Many of these stats aren’t looking too good for the Millennial mom; however, another recent study released by Working Mother Research Institute shows that Millennial parents are much happier with their work-life choices than generations past. Check out this infographic:
Alright alright, we get it. That’s enough statistics for a Monday afternoon. But if we have piqued anyone’s curiosity to learn more, you can read both studies in more detail here:
For the rest of you, just reread those homemade cards from yesterday and realize that whether you became a mom five decades ago or five days ago, we can all agree that every mom could use more days when someone else empties the dishwasher.