Kids Interrupt Dad on Live TV: 5 Facts About Today's Working Dads
In a video that was destined to go viral, a man's live TV interview was interrupted when his two small children burst into the room.
Robert Kelly, a political-science professor at Pusan National University in South Korea, was being interviewed by the BBC about the South Korean impeachment scandal when his young daughter strutted into the room.
The little girl was soon followed by a toddler in a walker. [8 Tried-and-True Tips for Talking to Preschoolers]
Kelly seemed to stifle a laugh, and ultimately kept his cool as a woman burst in to round up the kids.
As amusing as the video is, Kelly's challenge of balancing work and home life is far from unusual. Here are five facts about working dads.
Most American dads work.
Seeing a working dad probably comes as no surprise to most people. Indeed, more than 90 percent of U.S. fathers with kids under 18 participated in the labor force in 2015, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). (Participating in the labor force means that a person is either working or looking for work.)
Married dads have a lower unemployment rate than dads with other marital statuses.
The unemployment rate for married dads was 2.7 percent in 2015, according to the BLS. For unmarried fathers, the 2015 rate was higher — 7.4 percent, the BLS reported.
In families with one working parent, it's more common for the dad to work than the mom.
Although about 60 percent of married-couple American families with kids had two working parents in 2015, among the families where only one parent worked, it was more common for the working parent to be the dad. In nearly 31 percent of these families, only the dad worked, the BLS reported; in 5 percent of these families, only the mom worked.
But the kids' ages matter.
Among married-couple families who have children under age 6, there are more families with only a working dad. In 2015, the BLS found that 37 percent of these families had a working dad and not a working mom, and 4.4 percent had a working mom and not a working dad.
When the kids get older, these numbers move closer together.
In families with no kids under age 6, for example, 26 percent had a working dad and no working mom, and 6 percent of these families had a working mom and no working dad, according to the BLS.
Workaholic dads might mean badly behaved sons.
A 2013 study from Australia found that boys ages 5 to 10 whose fathers worked 55 or more hours each week exhibited higher levels of aggressive behavior than boys whose fathers worked less than that.
A dad's long hours at work, however, did not affect their daughters' behavior, the researchers found.
One reason for the link between overworked dads and bad behavior in their sons could be that children can develop behavioral issues when they don't spend enough time with the parent of the same gender, the study author told Live Science in 2013.
Originally published on Live Science.
