Professional middle-class parents extend these concerns into an elusive and, perhaps, unattainable goal. These are the parents who emphasize the efforts that go not just into creating family time but into creating “quality time” for
each and every one of their children in the midst of their busy lives. And this enhanced goal might stand behind the finding that education is directly correlated to how much time one reports spending with ones children: college-educated mothers and college-educated fathers spend more time than those with less education.16 This distinctive goal might also stand behind the even more relevant finding that even though women with education beyond college are more likely to be working—and to be working longer hours— than those with less education, the more educated mothers still spend more time with their children than do those with less education.17 Statistical comparison between those I would term “middle class” (i. e., those with a college degree) and those in the “professional middle class” (i. e., those with some graduate education) reveals differences in time spent with children in all four categories of care (basic child care, educational child care, recreational child care, and travel child care) among nonworking mothers and, in two of these categories (basic child care and recreational child care), among working mothers. The differences between professional middle-class mothers and mothers with less education than a college degree are more striking: the ratio of time spent with children among nonworking mothers with graduate training in comparison with those with less than a high school degree is 1.55 to 1; among working mothers the same ratio increases to 1.72 to 1. Among working fathers the ratio comparing fathers with graduate training to fathers with less than a high school education is even higher than it is for women, at 2.16 to i.18