Moms long for time alone, but research suggests an unfair division of labour means they seldom get it

Natalie Stechyson · CBC News

· Posted: May 10, 2024 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 15 minutes ago

Wake up at 5 a.m. Hide from your children. Lock yourself in the bedroom. These are some of the more common tips and tricks often suggested online to moms who want time to themselves.

If that sounds extreme, Cassandra Orr, a mom of two young children, jokes that all she had to do to get some alone time was break her ankle.

"Before this I had at least one kid with me at all times," Orr, 33, told CBC News from her home in Ottawa, where she's recovering from surgery after snapping her ankle in four places while walking down a flight of stairs two weeks ago.

"I don't mind it all the time. Like, I enjoy spending time with my kids. But it would be nice if I had the option to have a moment alone before this, for even a dinner or something."

She's not alone. New research from U.S. parenting website Motherly, which releases an annual report around Mother's Day, found that just 39 per cent of Gen Z and Millennial moms surveyed get at least an hour to themselves a day. The researchers surveyed 5,608 U.S. mothers through their subscribers list, social media and partner channels, focusing on the Millennial/Gen Z cohort of 3,220 respondents between the ages of 18 and 43.

WATCH | Illuminating the penalties of motherhood: 

The findings can't be applied to the wider population, but they still provide a snapshot of the pressures faced by mothers and echo similar findings about Canadian parents. 

While studies have found that fathers today are taking on more parenting than they have in the past, mothers are still generally the managers of the household, according to Lisa Strohschein, a professor in the department of sociology at the University of Alberta and the editor-in-chief of the journal Canadian Studies in Population.

"It's a structural issue that women need time to be alone while men don't have those problems," Strohschein said. "They just don't encounter them in the same way that women do."

She explains some of this is because, historically, men have more traditionally worked outside the home.

"And even if women are also working, if a kid is sick, the school is not calling dad. The school is calling mom. She's the one deemed to be responsible."

Division of household responsibilities uneven

The desire moms have for alone time can be at least partially explained by the division of household responsibilities and child care, other researchers note. 

A 2023 study published in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life found that over half of Canadian mothers with young children reported desiring more alone time compared to about one-third of fathers.

WATCH | The challenge of the mental load when you have ADHD: 

The authors of the study suggested that the reason for the greater desire among mothers was their higher levels of responsibility and expectations compared to fathers, especially when it comes to the mental load of planning, which is often invisible.

"This leads to mothers longing for fairness, which rarely comes," the authors said in the paper.

They add that less alone time is associated with agitation, chronic stress, fatigue and other harmful impacts on mental health.

Lead author Tom Buchanan, a professor of sociology at Mount Royal University in Calgary, said in a news release that households need to have intentional conversations about how fathers can take more initiative when it comes to time spent parenting and planning.

"If fathers contributed equally to parenting, household and cognitive labour, it would likely reduce mothers' desire to be alone."

Another issue, notes Strohschein, is that while fathers may be taking on more household responsibilities now than they have in the past, often those responsibilities take on a predictable pattern of fathers spending more time with their children while mothers handle more of the cleaning and scheduling. 

Women still consistently take on a larger share of unpaid household work, including chores and child care, according to a 2022 Statistics Canada report.

So while the division of labour may be improving, Strohschein says that when we look at who is keeping up with household tasks like cleaning toilets, at the end of the day, "It's still women." 

'Time to get my life together'

In the U.S. Motherly study, 15 per cent of respondents said they hadn't worked out for at least 30 minutes even once in the past year.

The desire for exercise is how Orr, who is on maternity leave, found herself on bed rest. Until recently, she says she basically had zero time for herself. She doesn't have family in Ottawa, and because baby-sitters are expensive, she doesn't go out on her own.

But then her four-year-old daughter's daycare had a spot available for her 16-month-old son. Although she's not due back to work as a dental hygienist until June, she had to take the spot early in order to secure it.

"I figured I'd use this time to get my life together. Try and get back in shape before I was due back at work, clean the house, meal prep, have a moment alone, maybe shower in peace," Orr said.

"And it was going great. Until I took the stairs down after a workout class and my ankle buckled and broke in four places."

Now, with both kids still in daycare, she suddenly has lots of time to read and watch television while she has to stay off her ankle for eight weeks, but she says she'd prefer to be useful.

"I miss the kiddos, though, honestly. I didn't want this much alone time."

WATCH | How this mom balances her kids and her practice: