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 handle 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, a member of the Social Issues Rese
arch 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.
小题1:. What does the passage mainly talk about?
A．The good old days of mothers in the 1970s and 1980s.
B．The great sufferings of today’s children.
C．The statistics of working mothers and full-time mothers.
D．The big problems that today’s working mothers face.小题2:. What does the underlined phrase “yearn for” probably means ___________.
A．hate
B．miss
C．abandon
D．control小题3: Which of the following problems is NOT mentioned in the passage?
A．Today’s mothers have less time left for their children and themselves.
B．The working mothers can hardly strike the balance between work and family.
C．Most of the mothers can not control their husbands nowadays.
D．Modern fathers do not spend enough time with their children.小题4: From para. 4, we can infer that ___________.
A．working mothers can seek help on line
B．Skype is a very famous expert in studying social issues
C．working mothers’ double shift is to be a wife and a mother
D．Kate Fox has opened a website offering help to working mothers小题5:. What critics say means that _____________.
A．it is wise for working mothers to put their kids in nurseries or childminders
B．too much time in nurseries or childminders is bad for kids’ mental and physical health
C．nurseries or childminders are dangerous places for children
D．children do not like nurseries or childminders at all
