Abstract
The major purpose of the study was to investigate working mothers’ activities
with their children (birth-5years). It was a case study of female staff in
University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Specifically, the study identified activities
mothers engage in with their children and determined the amount of time
mothers spend carrying out these activities with their children. The population
was made up of 120 mothers who are staff in the nine faculties that make up
University of Nigeria, Nsukka campus at the time of the study. Questionnaire
was used for data collection. Data were analyzed using frequencies and
percentages. Results show that mothers engage in most of the activities with
their children, for instance, 98.3% of the mothers watch children’s program on
TV, 96.7% talk about school and 91.7% make up stories with their children
among others. Also, 59.20% of mothers spend 1-3hours a week watching
television program; 43.30% spend less than I hour in a week playing outside;
and 35.80% of them spend 4-6 hours a week talking about school with their
children among others. Generally, mothers engage in most of the activities
with children, but times spent on these activities are noticeably low. It is
therefore recommended that working mothers should compensate for their
labor market activities by sacrificing aspects of their personal and domestic life
so that they can spend time with their children. Also, they should trade
quantity for quality of childcare time.