'Maternity equals 2.5 full-time job'

- Being a full-time mother is not a job where you can close the door behind you at five o'clock to get yourself to yourself. Recent research confirms what every mother already knows; being a mother is more work than a full-time job.

Amsterdam

New York Post reports this after a survey of 2000 mothers with children in the age group of five to twelve years, held by the American food manufacturer Welch's.

An analysis of the mother's weekly schedule shows that mothers start the day at 6:23 am on average. That is well before most people start their working day. The day ends for most mothers only when they have completed all tasks, whether it concerns career-related tasks or parenting tasks. And that is often only around an hour or half past nine.

Not many jobs require a working day of fourteen hours, but for most mothers this is really the daily reality. All in all, a mother makes a working week of no less than 98 hours, or two and a half times as much as the average job.

The research also showed that the average mother only has one hour and seven minutes per day for herself.

When asked what keeps the mothers going, they answered that they 'drink a lot of coffee', 'take a nap'. Other lifesavers appear to be wine, babysitters or family help, Netflix, wet wipes, takeaway meals, iPads, toys and healthy snacks.