American fathers think they are better parents than their dads were - but mothers feel they still do most of the parenting, according to a Newsweek poll released Saturday.
The poll of 803 parents with children under 18 appears in the June 17 issue of the magazine.Nearly half - 49 percent - of the fathers describe themselves as much better or somewhat better than their fathers. Only 3 percent of today's dads think they do a worse job of parenting than their own fathers.
Men and women differed, though, when asked how involved fathers are in parenting and housework. The majority of fathers polled, 54 percent, say they do about the same amount of parenting as the mother, and 24 percent say they do more.
But only a third of the moms say they and the fathers share parenting responsibilities equally, and just 3 percent of moms say they do less than the father. Half claim to do more than the father.
There are conflicting views on who does more housework, too. A majority of dads - 63 percent - say they do at least as much housework as their wives, but a majority of moms - 57 percent - say they do more housework than their husbands.
Seven out of 10 dads say they spend more time with their children than their fathers did, and six in 10 say they understand their children better than their parents did. Half say they punish their children less severely than their fathers did.
Fathers also say moms do most of the disciplining: Only one in five dads claims to be the parent most responsible for setting rules.
The survey was conducted from May 4-11. The overall margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4 percentage points. Results based on fathers only and mothers only have a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.