Working families, meals and time Julia Brannen and Rebecca OConnell - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Working families, meals and time Julia Brannen and Rebecca OConnell Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education Food, Families and Youth, Lisbon Why focus on family meals? Symbol of family; doing family and displaying family
Julia Brannen and Rebecca O’Connell Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education Food, Families and Youth, Lisbon
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associated with wider health and behavioural outcomes
language and etiquette)
Popular perception of family meals in decline The family meal has a normative status reflecting the ideal more than the real (Murcott, 1997, 2010; Jackson et al., 2009; Wilk, 2010) Research Q: Do working families eat together and under what conditions?
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Speeding up of time/ extended present Harried pace of life Intensification of work/ long/ irregular working hours Work/ family spill over Intensification of parenting
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Longitudinal qualitative study linked to secondary analysis of a national UK survey NDNS Qualitative sample drawn from NDNS (England) Wave 1 N=47; Wave 2 N=36 Children aged 2-10 at Wave 1; aged 4-14 at Wave 2 Qual analysis compared with secondary quant survey analysis Children participated as well as parents Mix of methods / activities for children
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I grew up having family meals and I’ll always sit at the table and eat.’ (Lone mother, children aged 11 and 9 at Wave 2) ‘Well I think it [family meals] is a time we can all get together and sit round and discuss what we’ve done in the day.’ (Mother, children aged 7 and 3 Wave 1) ‘… [eating together] really good for their language development. It can be a bit of a strain…’ (Mother with children aged 3 and 2 Wave 1)
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Mothers did most of the cooking on weekdays and weekends at W1 and W2 One third of fathers cooked one or more meals on weekdays W1 and W2; the rest cooked on high days and holidays or did other forms of food work Fathers’ contributions decreased W1 to W2 Fathers more often did food work on weekdays when mothers and fathers both worked full time
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2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 Eat together most days W1 Eat together some days or with one parent W1 Never eat together W1 M not working M short PT M long PT M FT
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5 10 15 20 25 Eat together most days W2 Eat together some days or with one parent W2 Never eat together W2 M not working M short PT M long PT M FT
Increased simultaneity whereby individuals occupy different social domains concurrently (Brose, 2004) severing the time - space link (Harvey, 1990) NOT the shortage of time BUT the issue of timing (Warde, 1999) Lack of ‘synchronicity’ or coordination of time schedules (Southerton, 2001) and time paths
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Not mothers’ or fathers’ working hours BUT Synchronisation of parents’ work timetables Synchronisation of children’s lives Body tempos of children Tastes and food preferences of children and other family members
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James aged 11 at W1
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Families do not eat together every day because of Dads arriving home from work late The timing of children’s ‘extra’ activities Childcare eating regimes The need for young children to eat early Children eat with one parent on different days where parents live apart
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Malkeet aged 6 at W1
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Two patterns Individualised meals Collectivised meals
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Hayley aged 11 W1
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difficult over time
and children; flexibility in both mothers’ and fathers’ work time, family size, the timing of children’s routines, body tempos especially those of young children
preferences and the organisation of eating space in the home
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‘Families need time together, although what they do together changes as children grow up and the shape of this time changes. What parents of young children want might be very different to what parents of teenagers want... what many families report …is frequent disruption of time together and of activities.’ Report from Time health and the family 2014
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