The time behind children’s activities: what national data shows

Ask parents what an activity costs and most will start with the fee. Ask what it takes and they will talk about time: the drive across town, the forty minutes in the parking lot, the group chat about who is bringing snacks. That time is real, but it is hard to measure, and the national figures that exist measure it in very different ways. This review sets out what they show and how to read them.

What the American Time Use Survey shows

Sourced factThe American Time Use Survey (ATUS), run for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, asks a national sample of people to account for every activity on one day. In 2025, adults in households with children under 18 spent an average of 1.39 hours a day caring for household children as a main activity. Of that, 0.19 hours (about 11 minutes) was travel related to caring for household children, and 0.05 hours (about 3 minutes) was attending children’s events.²

Sourced factIn households where the youngest child was 6 to 17, adults spent 47 minutes a day on primary childcare.¹ In the survey’s coding, “attending household children’s events” includes watching a child’s game, dance class or practice; “picking up and dropping off” includes dropping a child at soccer practice; and “organization and planning” includes signing a child up for activities and packing their bag.³

How to read these numbers

AnalysisThe ATUS figures look small because of what they are. They are averages over every adult in a household with children, on every day of the year, including adults who did no childcare and days with no activities. The travel figure is not limited to activities: it counts trips made to care for children generally, and the published tables do not separate trips by destination.² Each trip is also assigned a single purpose, usually the activity that follows it,⁴ so a stop at a practice on the way home from work may be counted under something else. These are the best national figures available, but they understate the time for families whose children are in several activities.

What sports parents report on activity days

Sourced factIn a 2024 national survey of 1,848 parents of children who played sports regularly, parents estimated how much time they and their partner or co-parent spent on an average day when their child had sports. The total was 202.74 minutes, “more than three hours per day.”⁶

Sourced factRural parents reported the most time on sport days (225.23 minutes), compared with suburban (208.08) and urban (189.22) parents. Parents also reported eating an average of 2.52 meals a week out because of the sport schedule, and spending an average of 4.21 hours a week volunteering; 61.6% volunteered in some role.⁶

AnalysisThese figures and the ATUS averages measure different things and cannot be compared directly. The ATUS records what one adult did on a randomly chosen day; the sports survey asks parents to estimate, for two caregivers, a typical day that includes sport, and it covers tasks such as laundry, messages and conversations that the ATUS records under other headings or not at all. Both are useful: one shows the national average, the other shows what a sport day asks of a family.

Who carries the time

Sourced factIn 2025, women in households with children spent 0.22 hours a day on childcare travel and men 0.16 hours; in households with a child under 6, the figures were 16 and 10 minutes.¹² Among married parents in 2015–19, 42.4% of mothers working full time made a childcare trip on an average day, compared with 25.2% of fathers working full time.⁵

Sourced factIn a 2015 Pew Research Center survey, 59% of married or cohabiting parents said the mother plays a larger role in managing their children’s schedules and activities, 5% said the father does, and 36% said they share it equally. In households where both parents work full time, the figures were 54%, 6% and 39%.⁸ In the same survey, 31% of parents said they always feel rushed, even to do the things they have to do.⁷

Sourced factAn analysis of time-use data from 2003 to 2007 found that when the youngest child was 6 to 13, mothers with a college education spent 25 minutes a day on managing children’s lives (including attending events, waiting, driving and planning), compared with 13 minutes for mothers with a high school education.⁹

Family travel more broadly

Sourced factThe National Household Travel Survey groups dropping off and picking up people with other family and personal business. Across the 2001, 2009 and 2017 surveys, these trips averaged about 7 miles and 16 minutes, peaked at 7 a.m., noon and 3 p.m., and were “most prevalent for those living in households with children.”¹⁰ Published national travel summaries do not report activity drop-offs on their own.

What the data cannot see

• Which activity a trip was for. National time-use and travel surveys do not separate activities from school or other child-related trips.
• The whole household. No national source measures every child’s activities, every adult’s time and the clashes between them together.
• What gets displaced. Missed meals, later bedtimes and younger siblings’ evenings are not measured nationally. The meals-out figure above is one partial exception.
• Non-sport activities. The detailed time estimates above come from sports parents only.

What this can’t tell you

How to cite this evidence review

Alec Bantel. “The time behind children’s activities: what national data shows.” And The Little Ones Too, October 5, 2026. https://andthelittleonestoo.com/research/parents-time-childrens-activities