I believe those were accounted for in those times with the notion of a stay-at-home spouse (in reality, read: wife) who did most if not all of that non-job work; food purchase/prep, laundry, chores, children, etc.
Because households basically use all extra income to bid up the cost of real estate in neighborhoods with "better" schools. So if every household has both parents working, then no household is the better off for it. And single parent households are well and truly fucked.
I was thinking the same. I don't have children, either, but observing my friends and siblings who do would make me estimate this at 40+ hours/week. (Estimate applies to children below age 6-8. Of course, it's progressively less the older and more independent the child grows.)
It's an exponential back-off kind of a thing. Our 6 month old probably requires 30 hours/week by himself (and that's already much reduced from what it was). Our 3 year old probably requires 10 hours/week. And our 4 year old maybe requires 3 hours per week.
The bigger issue is that this time is spread out pretty evenly throughout the day, so in practical terms it takes up every single hour that the kids are awake. What changes is that, as they get older, you have an increased ability to do other things in the in-between moments.
I easily put 30 hours a week in getting my 3 yr old dressed, to daycare, entertained while my wife makes dinner, and on weekends. My wife puts in similar time.
I guess we just live a different lifestyle. My wife is a full-time mom, so no daycare. The three year old dresses himself at this point, plus he and the four year old entertain each other pretty well.
I think there's also an element of once you have multiple children you just don't have any extra time. As a result, all the inessential time expenditures get cut. For instance, neither my wife nor I spend any time whatsoever entertaining our children. We don't have the time and they can entertain themselves.
Right, it was a completely different world when the 40 hour work week was proposed and people were pretty interchangeable in the industrializing shift.
- eating: 12-15 hours/week
- making food (or travelling to get food): 7-10 hours/week
- showering, shaving, grooming: 4-7 hours/week
- laundry, cleaning, house chores: 2-4 hours/week
- commuting: 5-10 hours/week
- waiting in line (checkout lines, customer service reps, Comcast/DMV/insurance, etc.): 2-3 hours/week
And that's for me, and I'm single. If I had children, add to that:
- taking care of children: 15-20 hours/week
None of the above counts as work, rest, or recreation. If work stays at 8 hours, that leaves very little time for rest and recreation.
Cutting rest beyond that is physically unhealthy.
Cutting recreation beyond that is both mentally unhealthy AND physically unhealthy (I get all my exercise in my recreation time).