Stupid headline

[ailbhe]

I can't sleep, so I'm fretting about a stupid headline I saw somewhere. Apparently the average woman in the UK spends as much as or more of her life shopping than she does in high school.

I'm surprised it's not more.

Schools in Reading have pupils in them about 190 days a year, for not quite 8 hours a day, sometimes much less. Supposing the average woman attends high school for six years (which is again an overestimate), that's 9120 hours per lifetime. And supposing she does no shopping until she's 20 and stops when she's 60, because she is average and has 2.4 children and she gets her daughter to do it for her then, or something... That's 228 hours a year, which is about four and a half a week.

That's all the grocery shopping, taking children to have their feet measured, DIY shopping, large house purchases like beds and chairs and televisions, plant nurseries, kitchen utensils, special event stuff like birthdays and Christmas, school uniforms, children's clothes, often gifts for their partners' friends and families, gifts for their children's friends for a good 8-12 years per child, and then on top of that there's buying lunch sandwiches in Boots or M&S when she's at work and on top of that there's buying her own clothes, possibly including the aeons it takes to try on things like wedding dresses, and maybe if she has time to spare books, CDs...

I also wonder how much difference there is between what women consider shopping and what men do, on the kind of survey that asks that kind of question. Do men consider looking in catalogues and magazines to choose which kind of TV to buy to be shopping? Possibly not. Do women consider looking at clothes for 10 minutes during their lunchbreak to get an idea of what is and is not in the shops and what things cost, even if they don't buy anything? Often, in my experience, yes they do. They were in shops, so they were shopping (but didn't buy anything).

Women shop, I think, and men just buy stuff. Call it a midnight hunch.

Comments

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

It is a daft comparism (IMHO) as you shop for more years than you go to school.

It's also a social thing. Mum & I went Christmas shopping yesterday & spent as much time chatting as we did shopping.

[haggis.livejournal.com]

There's also an intrinsic suggestion of "schooling is worthwhile and important, whereas shopping is frivolous" to that survey.

Education is important but the idea that the only time spent on it that counts is when you are in a formal environment, doing nothing else is a bit odd. (What about work based training or experimenting to teach yourself a skill?) Shopping for frivolous things is frivolous but shopping is a way of providing food, clothes and other necessities for a family, which would have previously been done by hunting and gathering or trade with neighbours.

[clarahippy.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. Being thrifty and frugal are really important household skills to make the most of your money so the family unit is fed/clothed well.

Also I seem to remember some sort of campaign a while back that encouraged parents to teach their children skills while doing household tasks like shopping so basic maths/reading etc.