Thaindian News

London, March 8 (IANS) As the world celebrated International Women’s Day Tuesday, researchers in Britain revealed that an average working mother gets barely 26 minutes to relax in daily life.

Juggling a job with looking after children means the average British mother does not even get half-an-hour to herself, the study revealed.

The report, issued to coincide with International Women’s Day, also found no let-up in later life when kids have left home, The Sun reports.

According to the Social Issues Research Centre, once the women turn grandparents, again they end up looking after little ones.

The centre in its report - the Changing Face of Motherhood - reveals the pressures modern-day mums face, compared to previous generations dating back to the 1930s.

The study’s key findings reveal that three out of ten reckon they have far less “me time” than their own mothers did - barely three hours a week on average.

Almost nine in ten feel guilty about the amount of time they manage to spend with their kids which is 145 minutes a day on an average.

Dads still fail to shoulder their fair share at home - spending only half as much time looking after the kids.

Half of the busy working mothers describe the childcare help they get from grandparents as vital.

Facebook and Twitter - along with internet help sites such as Mumsnet - are also playing an increasingly important support role by letting networks of mothers keep in touch.

But despite their heroic efforts, three in ten of the 1,000 women who participated in the study confessed to being constantly under pressure to be “the perfect mother”.

The research centre said families and fellow mums were becoming more essential than ever in helping hard-pressed women cope.

“There is increasing pressure on mothers to work a ‘double shift’ - to be the perfect mother as well as a wage-earner,” said Co-director Kate Fox.