The Pew Research Center analysis of government data, released Tuesday, found that parents rated 62 percent of their child care activities as “very meaningful,” compared to about 36 percent of the time they spend at paid work.

But those kids appear to be much more demanding than our bosses: Parents said 12 percent of their child care time was “very tiring,” compared with 5 percent of their paid work activities.

“We confirmed that it is true. Parents do actually feel that their times with kids are more rewarding than their time at paid work, but in the meantime they also feel like the child care is more exhausting than paid work,” said Wendy Wang, a research associate at Pew Research Center and the author of the report.