"I could literally show you 20 charts, and 19 of them would show no relationship between the amount of parents� time and children�s outcomes... Nada. Zippo."

Says Melissa Milkie, a sociologist co-author of "the first large-scale longitudinal study of parent time to be published in April in the Journal of Marriage and Family."

The study�s findings shook some parents, many of whom had built their lives around the idea that the more time with children, the better. They quit or cut back on work, downsized their houses or struggled to cram it all in....

Building relationships, seizing quality moments of connection, not quantity, Milkie said, is what emerging research is showing to be most important for both parent and child well-being. �The amount of time doesn�t matter, but these little pieces of time do,� she said. Her advice to parents? �Just don�t worry so much about time.�

What's missing from this analysis, I think, is that a single-earner household can be less stressful and complicated with a division of labor, so that it creates the space in life for those quality things � building relationships and seizing moments and so forth. If you say, I'll go off to work and I'll transport the kids in and out of day care and get everything done including some seized moments, how good will those moments be? I think the real issue here is whether a single earner brings in enough money for the family to live on. But I'm also perceiving the usual encouragement to women to get out there and make careers for themselves. Don't worry about it.