U.S. Policy: European Perspectives

European social policy tends to be more progressive than that of the United States. Their system is more extensive and makes public child-care systems available, promote flexible working time and arrangements, and promote equality between men and women. The United States has very minimal Federal and State social policies in comparison. There is a more individualist and market approach. As a result, workers see longer hours and lower wages. Parents are also responsible for finding their own form of child-care.
In regards to child-care, different countries in Europe take similar approaches in comparison to the U.S., yet there are some major distinctions. In France, almost 100% of three, four, and five year olds are enrolled in Ecoles Maternelles. This is a free program that promotes early education. Teachers are paid high wages and are required to have masters degrees. It costs the government $5,500 per child each year in 1999. This adds up to about 1% of France’s GDP. All children are welcome and most actually do attend.
In Denmark, there is less emphasis on the school model. Instead their child care system stresses “relatively unstructured curriula” run by pedagogues with college degrees and paid teacher wages. Children can attend from birth up to age six. This system is publically funded but parents do end up paying about 1/5th the cost. In the United States, parents are forced to find and pay for their own child-care. This leads to the commoditization of child-care and many parents pay high prices for low quality care.
Family leave policies are less generous in the United States. In all industrialized countries the United States has one of the worse policies. Each parent receives 12 weeks of protected unpaid leave as long as he or she is protected under the Family Leave act. It requires for the company to have at least 50 employees and you must have worked a certain number of hours before you are eligible. The problem is that most workers claim they can not afford to take off, since leave is unpaid.
Family Leave in European countries is much more extensive. European Countries offer paid leave for longer durations. Many countries also allow even more leave on top of the paid leave, which is unpaid. Sweden, for example, allows 52 weeks of leave with 80% pay with 13 additional weeks of unpaid leave.
Work time and arrangements is more heavily regulated in Europe than the United States. In Europe, the standard work week is as low was 35 hours (France). There is a cap in the European Union of 48 hours which includes overtime. Four weeks of vacation is also paid each year. Part-time work is also protected, pay is equal and benefits are protected. There is also promotion of flexible work arrangements.
I think it is possible to have a more dual-earner/dual-carer society in the United States over time. I think people are starting to realize reform is necessary, but people in the United States are still trying to decide what policies should be in place. I think there needs to be policy that provides a balance in allowing for more time for parents to spend with children, and allowing child-care centers where children can interact. Public child care should be provided to all children, which offers high quality care. Work hours should also be reduced to encourage more family-time.

Emotion Work and Sex Work

Emotional work is done by both men and women to keep a relationship survivng. Women make “defensive use of sexual beauty and charm and make a resource out of feeling and offering it to men as a gift in return for the more material resources they lack.” For women, being becomes a way of doing and acting is a necessary skill. Men are seen as being more rarely called upon to do emotional work and roles consist of looking tough and being in control. Women are usually described as nurturing, caring, and emotional. They are “supposed to make men feel good” by smiling and faking orgasms. Women’s behavior appears to fit the Stepford wife stereotype, yet it also shows the basic difficultly in researching and describing emotional work. Men tend to worry about work-related problems, but keep much of this away from wives to keep them from worrying about these issues. Men expect their wives to do certain emotional work and when they don’t men are doing work by trying not show his resentment. Much of men’s “work” deals with coping being the breadwinner. Most of their emotional work is on themselves. It is common for couples to “deep act” in relationship. But this is not authentic, yet becomes the way of the rest of the relationship. Couples tend to conform to gender stereotypes of “stepford wives” and “hollow men.” There has been a tendency to take at face value the implications of the phrase emotion work and there has been too little research on how individuals feel about the emotional work they do (especially whether they find it rewarding).
Sex in heterosexual couples is essentially a form of alienated work. Men typically dominate this field but second-wave feminism urged women to become sexual subjects and take initiative. In a study it was found that the goal of heterosexual sex had become the mutual orgasm. Marriage seems to change couple’s sex lives, leading to long-term decline in sexual activity. As this happens, couples tend to develop informal strategies and routines which indicated and regulated sexual availability. Children and work are two major factors in the decline of sexual activity. There is little time and energy left after dealing with both everyday. To overcome boredom or sexual difficulties, some couples experimented with the use of pornography, or changes in sexual techniques and masturbation. Sometimes couples resort to celibacy, but most of the time one partner is dissatisfied since only one partner wanted to give up sex. In some long-term relationships, brick walls are crated as communication decreases and resentment increases.
Prostitution has been traditionally seen as immoral and in need of reform and punishment. Pro-sex feminists have opposed the criminalization of it and want it legalized. According to radical feminists, prostitution is abuse of sex and repressed. Modest feminist believe sexuality is the root of gender inequality and sexual objectification is the key to women’s subjection. Therefore, prostitution is “an inherently asymmetrical” institution. In modern patriarchy prostitution is the sale of a female body for a man’s use. Pro-sex feminism defends prostitution as economic empowerment and an expression of freedom. Some of the negatives of sexual work include coercion by pimps or boyfriends, vulnerability at the hands of violent customers, police officers and criminal justice system, and economic and drug-induced desperation. On the other hand, wages allow a unique degree of economic freedom. Some are even able to assert a degree of control over their sexuality and provide a relatively meaningful consent. Different meanings are tied to different version of the prostitution contract. There are different types of sexual work performed by different types of people for different types of people and different reasons. Sometimes it can be seen as empowering and liberating while other times it is seen as desperate and degrading.
Middle class work has been facilitated by new technologies and sexual exchange. Economic reasons seem to be very relevant in explaining middle class sex workers’ erotic and professional decision-making. Middle class women in postindustrial economies are much more likely to find themselves working in the lowest remunerated jobs compared to middle-class men. During the technology boom women only made up 28% of the IT industry. Lap dancing was sometimes a more reliable source of revenue. Women also went from low-end service work into sexual labor. Individuals who pertain to the new petite bourgeois class fraction are likely to settle into subordinated spaces within the institutions of cultural production and eye change. They seek occupational and personal salvation via an ethic of “fun.” The new petite bourgeoisie regards fun, pleasure, and freedom as ethical ideals worthy of strenuous pursuit. The internet has enabled sexual commerce to thrive not only by increasing clients’ access to information but also by facilitating community and camaraderie amongst individuals who might otherwise be perceived (and perceive themselves) as engaging in discreditable activity. Cultural capital also helped many middle-class women get certain jobs and work experience necessary of sexual labor. These conditions include a technologically driven, postindustrial economy that has rapidly driven up the cost of living in desirable urban centers, while at the same time creating a highly stratified occupational sector. These economic developments are intricately connected to some of the ways that increasing numbers of young, urban middle-class people are restructuring their intimate lives – either by delaying marriage and childbearing until these are more economically viable options, or by defying the expectations of heterosexual monogamy entirely.
In long-term relationships, emotion and sex work seems to be more common. Often this is due to trying to keep the relationship content, along with keeping the relationship going. This “work” seems to be not considered work but is done voluntarily and happily in the beginning of a relationship. As time passes, sex tends to decrease, and therefore sex work increases. Emotional work also increases trying to keep your partner happy. Women tend to ignore their own emotional needs and sacrifice them while doing emotional work. When a man comes home from work, a women often ignores her own emotional needs in order to make sure her man is content. This could include not bothering him with your problems, quieting the kids and keeping them from bothering him, or having a clean house with dinner on the table with him. Many women feel the pressure to provide this type of environment. I feel like women do a significantly more amount of emotional work.
Even though one can make very good money through prostitution, I still find it degrading to oneself. I don’t agree with the argument that it is empowering. It can be very dangerous and unhealthy. Most women go into the field through desperation and end up staying in it. I do agree with the fact that there is a huge stigma with women sleeping with multiple men, yet men are “allowed” to sleep with any amounts of women. There are several names for these types of women such as slut and whore, yet men are rarely coined with these names.

It is very common in the United States for Mexican and Central American immigrant women to work as nanny/housekeepers and housecleaners, especially in certain cities such as Los Angeles. The growth of this paid domestic work is associated largely with the increase in women entering employment, especially as mothers and wives. Private caregivers are often preferred because patents feel they gain control and flexibility, while their children receive more attention. The fact is that most of these workers doing domestic work are not viewed as real employees. Much of this is because the work they do is private in the home, and has traditionally been unpaid. The work they perform is also associated with women’s “natural” expressions of love for their families. The personal, idiosyncratic nature of the work also prevents paid domestic work from being recognized as real work. With some exceptions, most domestic work as always been reserved for poor women, immigrant women, and women of color, but more recently it has become more homogeneous. One reason for the cause of paid domestic work, especially Latinas, is due to high rates of immigration in more recent years. Worldwide paid domestic work continues its long legacy as racialized and gendered occupation. Paid domestic labor has also developed the idea of transnational motherhood. Domestic responsibilities are transferred from one mother to the next from all across the world. Many times workers live and work in different countries than their husbands and children and therefore do not see their families for years.
There are three common types of paid domestic work jobs. Live-in-nanny/housekeepers live in employee’s homes and work fro one family. Responsibilities usually include caring for children and housework. Live in jobs are less common now than before the early 1900s. There is usually no clear line between work and non-work time. Food can also be a huge issue. Most earn less than $5 an hour. Live-out nannies/housekeepers usually work five to six days a week for one family. They usually tend to the children and household, but return each evening to their own homes and families. This form of work is much more common today in the US. They have more autonomy then live-in nannies and actually earn slightly more. A housecleaner usually works for several different families/employers cleaning homes. It is a contractual basis, and child care is usually not involved. Housecleaners earn significantly more on average, ranging from between $50 and $60 per housecleaning, suggesting an hourly wage of about $9.50. Housecleaning represents the “modernization of paid domestic work.” Latinas tend to be wanted for these jobs because they are seen as more trustworthy, more submissive, and more responsible. Images of Latinas include them to be exceptionally warm, caring, patient, and clean. For this reason they are more often preferred.
Human care has often been viewed as love, duty, and destiny, but rarely as work. While women now make up one-third of the world’s formal labor force, the still do four-fifths of all informal work. Yet, they still only receive 10% of the world’s income and own less than 1% of property. Much of this is due to the ignorance of domestic work. Care giving is not usually seen part of housework, yet housework is a part of the process of human care. Women have to do this all, while being managers of the household. Besides physical work they need acknowledged management skills to plan, organize, and carryout many elements of parenting. This has caused toe dual work roles of women. They have dual occupations, at work and work at home. Since the work at home has traditionally been unpaid, it is undervalued and not seen as real work. There are a few theories on how to help this situation. One is to rearrange the time demand of employment. Another is to modify the wage variable by paying wages in relation to the time they devote to child care work. Some people do not support any of these claiming that there needs to be a separation between the market and domestic spheres.
Question has been raised if the hiring of domestic workers due to women going into the work force has actually furthered social inequality and injustice. After more women began working, child care became an issue in which parents needed to seek out. Upper-class and upper-middle class families usually hire a paid full-time domestic caretaker who may or may not live in the house. Workers in the home are paid woefully low wages. Besides low pay, the work is lacking respect and dignity. Domestic workers are also very susceptible to exploitation due to the nature of the work. This can also be harmful to the children having them come to expect that other people will always be available to meet their needs. So why do people continue to hire domestic workers. Much is out of necessity and the ideological construction of intensive and competitive mothering. Mothers feel the need to provide an environment for their children for intellectual stimulation. Because they are at work, they feel a nanny is the next be substitute. As a result, upper and upper-middle class mothers exploit lower class and poor women in order to be able to work and have their children cared for. So what can be done? One option is making the professor more humane but enforcing labor laws such as minimum wage and social security benefits. A more radical approach includes industrialized societies providing child care facilities that are publically supported, locally organized. The most radical view is to rethink and recognize the ways in which the assignment of responsibility for children’s success to their patens reinforces the “winner take all” attitudes in our culture.
I find transnational motherhood a very sad occurrence. Mothers have to leave their own children to take care of others. It barely makes sense and is only done out of pure necessity. Growing up I had a housekeeper who had a daughter back in Guatemala. Gabriella lived with us for five years, barely returning home. Every Christmas we would fly her home to see her family. She lived with us and performed much of our housework, and had a part-time job as waitress too. She felt like part of the family and I was very close to her. I was like her daughter, but much of her love towards me was probably displaced. I know she missed her daughter greatly so one way to deal with that was treating me and my siblings as her own.
I know a lot of families who have live-out nannies/housekeepers and even more families with housecleaners. Most of the families hire them because both parents work, but some families have housekeepers even with stay-at-home mothers. The reason for this is emphasis on other work, such as child care and volunteer work over housework. Most all of the workers hired are Hispanic. I wonder how these female workers are able to survive on such low wages.
In regards to ways in which the child care problem could be solved, I believe a good option would be to implement a child care program in which all children would be eligible for. The problem with this is though as long as people out there are willing to pay more for individual care, desperate workers will still provide the services and stay employed in domestic work.

Kinship

Women are more likely to help out their parents than men when they are children and once they are adults. One theory is that men are more tied to their jobs that are better than jobs women have, and therefore they are pushed away from family-time. But other theories account for this gender gap in family work, blaming psychological, social, and cultural differences. The amount of domestic work is tied to aspects of employment, and differences in paid employment explain some part of the gender gap in family work. The gap is usually reduced by dual employment, although not fully. Women’s employment is directly linked to domestic work. As women spend more time at work, they spend less time at home and with child care. Some research found that differences in amount of help women and men provided that employment status had no significant relationship to help to parents. The gender gap persisted even when number of hours of work was controlled for. Research has suggested that African Americans, especially women, even when employed, are much more likely than Euro Americans to help their parents. In a study it was found that women provide about 3.8 hours of help per week to parents while men provide 3.0 hours. The men are more likely to be employed than women. Employment status is associated with a reduction in the gender gap in help to parents, and when combined with controls, makes insignificant the marginal effect of gender on help to parents. If all things were equal, employed men and women give the same amount of help to parents. But, on average, women and men different in employment characteristics, and therefore the amount of help given to parents differs as a direct result. It was found that parental characteristics—especially parents’ proximity, physical and financial need, and marital status—are important factors in explaining the amount of help given to parents. Because women are concentrated in less lucrative jobs and are less likely to be self-employed, they are more likely to take on the load of assistance to parents.
Childcare arrangements are necessary with parental employment. In the last thirty years, childcare through relatives has seen a significant decrease, even though parents continue to express a strong preference for care by relatives. Relative care correlates with the belief that parents should be caring for their own children. The rate of relative care is higher for Black and Hispanic families than for White families. A cultural explanation of this is that these practices are products of differing cultural preferences. The structural explanation conceives of them as adaptive responses to structural constraints. The integrative explanation argues that they are due to intersection of culturally-specific values and practices, structural contraints, and the social organization of gender. Anglo American mothers described kin- based child care as inappropriate and even problematic, whereas African American and Mexican American mothers viewed using kin for child care as an appropriate practice even when they preferred other types of arrangements. This study discovered that one of the major reasons that Mexican American employed mothers gave for using kin-based child care was their sense of responsibility to the economic needs of their relatives. This study suggests that the economic needs of those relatives who provide care and their lack of better formal labor market opportunities also contribute to why racial ethnic families continue to be entrenched in childcare arrangements made with relatives.
Women are involved in three types of work: housework and child care, work in the labor market, and the work of kinship. Kinship work includes the conception, maintenance, and ritual celebration of cross-household kin ties. This includes visits, letters, phone calls, cards, and gathering organization. These obligations tend to lie on women’s plates, and men tend to rely on women for it. Women usually negotiate and coordinate among other women when dealing with kinship things. Women end up with dealing with kin relationships because of the self-interest/altruism dichotomy. Since unpaid labor at home is a way for many women to gain human satisfactions and power, they carry out kinship work.
Minority individuals are more likely to live in extended family homes than whites. They’re also more likely to help out their aging parents, grandparents, adult children, and other kin. They are also more likely to visit and live near relatives. Whites are more likely to give and receive large sums or money, but minorities are more likely to be supportive, giving with household work and childcare as well as errands. Even though cultural reasons are usually stated as the cause of these differences, research has shown that class is the key to understanding the differences in extended family ties and behavior. Because blacks and Latinos have less income and education than whites, extended family ties are a result of these social class disparities. Minorities need to rely on kin more often since they are economically less wealthy than whites on average. Reliance on extended kin and lack of marital ties are linked, as marriage actually diminishes ties to kin. Married people become less involved with their parents and siblings. This is usually accompanied by support from spouses instead of kin. At the same time, people who are deeply tied into kin relationships may be less likely to marry, or put marital ties first. People tend to view Black and Latino family life as disorganized and dysfunctional, and try to encourage marriage as a way to make life better. Policy is made in a way that favors and encourages marital relationships, believing that this would solve many problems. But minorities get support from other ties outside of marriage. Policy should be changed to recognize and support this. It is not a moral or cultural problem but an economical one.
I think that relative child-care can be a very good thing. In my own experience, my parents would occasionally leave me with my aunt who lived nearby when they couldn’t watch me. This allowed for quality time to be spent between us and I was able to develop a better relationship with her than with my other aunts and uncles. She never looked at it as a burden and didn’t need to be compensated for it. My older sister also depends heavily on my parents for child care. My parents are retired and use it as a way to spend quality time with their granddaughter. Three times a week my sister takes 1 year old Kate to my parents’ house. Not only is this economically suitable for my sister, but she is more comforted knowing her daughter is with someone who she fully trusts. It also allows for a good relationship to begin developing between my parents and Kate. I was never that close with one of my grandmas because I rarely saw her, but I wish I was able to spend time with her like Kate is able to. My parents do not see it as a burden when Kate is with them. They are more than happy to help out because they feel it is part of being a family.
I definitely thing policy should be changed to better suit kin relationships, not just marital ones. A family friend of mine has to take care of her autistic brother ever since both the parents died. She just got married and within a couple of months her autistic brother had to move in with them. She cares for him now but is not able to use leave time for him, or any other benefits she gets from work. While she is doing a very nice thing by taking him in, policy does not make it easy for her to balance her work and family obligations and it has been very stressful for her lately.

The idea of the “second shift” is one that mostly mothers experience in
a two working parent family. After a long hard day at work they come
home only to endure another shift of unpaid work, taking care of the
family. This shift usually takes up the rest of the day as women are
forced to balance cooking, cleaning, child care and many other tasks.
With limited time they feel overwhelmed and unappreciated as they
receive minimal help from their husbands. This causes stress on the
relationship, especially since at the root of this is an issue between
the ideologies of husband and wife. This is evident in the marriage of
Evan and Nancy Holt. She is forced to give up her idea of an equal
marriage in order to sustain it. Her husband didn’t think it was his
job to equally help out, convincer her that she was better suited for
the job. They ended up coming up with a system they thought was equal
in which he took care of the dog. It became his fetish since it was his
one responsibility. They had tried to implement other ways of sharing
the work but it never worked out. Nancy tried to hide her feelings of
“being taken advantage of” by staring to compare her work to other
mothers instead of her husband. This gave the illusion that things were
fair.
Homosexual families tend to follow similar patterns as heterosexual
ones, even though they try to portray their relationship as ideal both
to themselves and the outside world. Lesbigay families tend to describe
their relationship at egalitarian. Much of domesticity is invisible.
This sometimes causes resentment and anger between partners. Paid work
greatly determines the organization of domesticity. Wealthier lesbigay
often buy domesticity, which allows them to enhance their
egalitarianism within the relationship. The “Downsized family” also
sees egalitarianism. They tend to hire whatever domestic necessities
they need but it is very limited since they are rarely home. Sometimes
the terms fair and equal are misinterpreted. Some couples claim to have
equal responsibilities when one is specialized in paid-work and the
other domestically. What they really mean usually is that this is a
fair relationship. Practical economic concerns and occupational
characteristics play the largest role in determining who gravitates
towards domesticity involvement. Although not many, some people choose
to become more involved in family and domestic affairs. One reason for
this could be the “glass ceiling” effect lesbians and gays run into. On
a whole, those individuals who gravitate towards greater domestic
involvement than their partners often share common socioeconomic
characteristics. The usually share their lives with partners who earn
more, have greater career opportunities, work more hours, and work
outside the home. Many of the families interviewed for this study sort
and arrange domesticity differently, but equality is never really
reached even when they believe so.
The apparently routine work that supports a household is complex and
more meaningful than is typically acknowledged. There are complex
family relations involved that are difficult to put into texts and
articulate. This unpaid work is described as “something different than
work.” Love is a common element involved in household activities such
as preparing food. Meal time and feeding has been affected by changing
society. People eat less meals all togheer at home. Some of the causes
of this include increase in restaurant business and people working
farther away form home. Even so, many families make a special effort to
enjoy meals together, seeing it as quality family time. A lot of
planning goes into these meals, trying to determine what will satisfy
everyone. During actually dinner talk was a very important aspect for
many families. Behavior also must be monitored and controlled.
Professional households are more likely to work successfully at
arranging family means while single mothers were somewhat less likely
than married women to arrange regular meals together for their family.
Meal planning and other family management work is invisible. Practices
seem natural and therefore much credit is not given to it. There is
logic to the work women do, learned through experience and principles.
According to a National Survey of Families and Households, women’s
housework is affected only by their own earning, not by their husbands’
and not by their earnings compared to their husbands’. The findings
also suggest dependence of women’s absolute rather than relative
earnings. It suggests that married women have a substantial degree of
economic autonomy in the areas of domestic life for which they are
normatively responsible. Some women have a dependence on men because
they exchange their domestic labor in return for access to monetary
resources. Women whose earnings are greater than their husbands’ will
spend more time on housework than other women in order to affirm their
gender identities. The main theory is that women’s housework is
affected by their earnings compared to their husbands’ and their time
spent on domestic labor. My analysis also addresses another crucial gap
in the existing research, namely, its failure to account for the
relationship between women’s absolute and relative earnings. Research
has shown that married women with low earnings are more likely than
other women to have high relative earnings, that is, earnings compared
to their husbands.
Men spent more time working for pay and women spent more time on
domestic labor because they were better at doing it. Since men’s
earnings are higher on average than women’s, the economic dependence
hypothesis is a possible explanation for the gender gap in housework.
Partners with incomes that are unusually high or low for their
gender are predicted to compensate by exaggerating their
gender-normative housework performance. married women whose earnings
exceed their husbands’ will spend more time on domestic labor than
other women, and men whose earnings are unusually low compared to their
spouses’ are predicted to spent less time on housework than other men.
Analysis implies that married women may as well be single. Even though
the sharing of life experiences and resources characterize marriage, it
seems that women’s earnings matter more than their husbands’ to certain
outcomes within it. A study implies that women act as autonomous
economic agents in the domestic sphere to the extent made possible by
their own earnings. It is unknown exactly if the autonomous
relationship between married women’s earnings and their housework is a
sign of their freedom to make economic decisions that benefit them, or
of their inability to draw on their husbands’ earnings to reduce their
household labor.
I feel as if the issues faced by Nancy and Evan Holt are very common
among today’s families. Mothers are overworked and outwork their
husbands countless with little appreciation. I myself take for granted
my mother and all that she does for me and all six of us kids. This
includes preparing meals for all of us that we all will enjoy, which is
a nearly impossible task. Each one of us always wants to eat at
different times and different foods. We forget home is not a restaurant
as our mother tries to cater to our needs and wants. I remember trying
to cook over the summer for my family and realizing how difficult it
really is. The logistics of it were a lot harder than the physical
aspect of cooking. I swore to never do it again after having to plan,
prepare, serve, and clean up after just one evening’s meal. I don’t
know how my mother does it most nights for all of us. Even though we
try to eat together as much as possible, it is a rare occasion.
Somebody is always busy and unless it is a holiday or birthday it
rarely happens. My mother doesn’t like it when we eat with the TV on
because she wants us to be able to enjoy each other’s company.
I can see how gay couples would want to even more portray their
relationship as egalitarian. With already so much stigma on such
couples, it is natural for them to want to portray themselves as an
ideal couple. In my own experience, my gay brother and his partner have
separate, and maybe fair roles. My brother tends to be the more
domestic one since he likes to cook, and works less hours therefore
allowing him the time to do more domestic tasks.

Childhood

There is an expectation that parents must exert themselves to the utmost to ensure that their children grow up to be successful. This has transformed the child into the “useless” model. There is still a division in household work between girls and boy, with most of it consumed by female children. Another trend is that children take relatively little responsibility for most household task, barely even 15% according to a study performed. Washing the dishes and cleaning the house are where children help out the most. Some responsibility is shared with children. Why is this so? Parents feel responsibility for investing their own time and money in their child’s future as long as they are home. Children’s age and gender help determine how they pitch in. As children get older, they become more involved. Girls share about 5 times more work than boys. Boys tend to cut lawns or do repairs while girls cook or clean. This helps reproduce sex segregation of household labor found among husbands and wives. This is not the case in single parent households. In this case, children share a lot more responsibility to help out the one parent. In mother-only families, daughters are the workhorses. They take on twice as much responsibility for household work than in a two-parent household. Boys’ work also increases. Overall, in every type of family, higher proportions of children living in mother-only families are contributing strongly to household chores, helping expose boy to household work.
In a study on mothers and fathers’ work on children, several questions were explored. The first focused around the idea of the effects of mothers at work on children. There is a theory that maternal employment causes harm. Fathers tend to think mothers cannot have a good relationship with children if they work. But according to children, it doesn’t matter whether a mother works or not. What really matters is how children are mothered. Warn and responsive, firm and caring characteristics are important. Ironically, it is father’s unemployment that is seen as a problem in society. The issue of child care arises when parents go to work. Many claim it is a bad thing. But it is not bad because it supplants parent care. It is only bad if the quality is bad, and neglect or abuse is present. In a study with The Families and Work Institute, it was found that dual-earner families are spending more time with their parents today than they did 20 years ago. Still, parents feel pressed for time. This had lead to the quality vs. quantity debate regarding time spend with children. Most parents think their kids want more time with them. Children, on the other hand wanted their parents to be less stressed and tire after work. Kids want more quality time with their parents. It is concluded that parents with good situations at work come home in better moods and with more energy for their children. The children develop well and this energy is reinvested back at work. It is important for there to be good communication between parents and their children. Parents need to ask their children’s opinion in order to benefit for everyone.
There are several different theories on child-rearing. Stemming from Freud, one idea is that children replicate their parents and become adults. Really, a child’s goal is to be a successful child. First they must learn how to get along with parents and siblings. Then the child must learn to get along with peers and do the things that are expected of him or her outside the home. Children keep each relationship in separate mental accounts. They learn separately how to behave at home and how to behave outside the home. This is because different behaviors are required. Our minds tend to categorize and put things and people into different groups. Children and teenagers associate themselves in certain groups. This helps explain why teens act out. They are not trying to act like grownups but differentiate themselves from them. As they grow up, it is the peers that help determine the outcome of a person, not necessarily parents, according to Judith Harris.
Throughout the years children have been valued very differently. In the 19th century children were useful but in the 20th century they were seen as economically useless but emotionally priceless. The sacred child prevailed where they were to be kept off the markets, useless but loving and off the streets supervised and protected. Economically they did work around the home for allowance. This work is first to train a child, not to help the parent. The usefulness of the work is not as important. The economic value of children was legitimately combined with sentimental worth, and the instrumental use of child money was acceptable. This sacred child model changed to the valuable household model. Priceless child model became the conventional norm in the 20th century. Since emotional and practical cost increase, children are being rushed out to soon into adult-like behavior. This theory supports the idea that the “Age of protection” is being replaced by the “Age of preparation” The world of children is changing and their household responsibilities are changing a lot due to the changing family structures and new ideologies.
I think while Judith Harris makes a good point, she is overlooking the impact family and parents have on children. While I agree peers have a great influence on you, I think she dismissed the power of family. In my own experiences, I see many ways in which my parents have and still influence me as a child and now as a young adult. I do some examples of what she described as people acting differently in and out of the home. I’m not sure how much this theory applies to me, but I have definitely seen this in several of my friends. It is almost as if they are two completely different people. I find people tend to act very differently in the home then at school, and when they are just hanging around with their peers. I think part of this is because when you’re with your parents, you act more how they want you to act. Children try to meet the expectations of their parents.
When I think of children today I see them more as “useless.” Growing up my siblings, friends and I had very little responsibilities. Occasionally my parents would ask me to help out with something but for the most part they took care of everything. As a kid they wanted me to go to school and study as they supported me. Most of my friends had very little responsibilities growing up as well. Our parents focused on helping us become successful and would sacrifice so much in order to make sure we got what we needed. Looking back, I realize how much they sacrificed for me. My siblings and I were always a priority for my parents.
I completely agree with the idea that children would rather have quality time with their parents instead of more time. Just because a parent is home with a child or even in the same room doesn’t mean they are spending quality time together. A parent can be physically present but not engaging. Good interaction between parent and child is essential to building a good relationship. This is what kids want. Sometimes I see parents try to make up quality time with material items. They think giving kids material things they want will help make up for time lost. In reality, most children would give back these gifts if it meant they could spend more time with their parents, especially those who are not present most of the time.

The absent Black father epitomized the male component of family breakdown due to absent fathers. Many people tend to racialize the idea of fatherless towards Blacks. They have become the symbol of fatherlessness, even though this problem occurs in other races as well. This brands fatherlessness as a depraved condition, and offers a convenient explanation for Black people’s problems. For Black families, a female-headed household is more dominant than the nuclear-family model due to high rates of unwed mothers. There has been a negative connotation towards Black fathers for a while, ranging from them not having any positive effect on their children, to not being suitable mentors. There are a few societal forces that help discourage Black men’s family participation. Black single-mothers receive welfare benefits when they bare a child out of wedlock. The effects of racial repression such as high rates of unemployment and incarceration also help contribute to Black fathers’ absence. AFDC is likely to be paid to mothers, particularly Black mothers never married. The issue is not with a father not being nurturing or emotionally involved, but rather the expectation of marrying and remaining married to the mother. His economical and marital status is what is condemned. But, because marital breakdown is unlikely to be the cause of Black children’s poverty, marriage is unlikely to be the solution. In fact, it is racial inequality, not fatherlessness, that is leading to Black children’s’ deprivation. But the United States fails at constructing a system to help these people. Instead, they put blame on Black fathers, claiming it is the fault of their own bad habits, and not from unequal social structure.
A new style of parenting has started to emerge in which parents alternate work shifts in order to take care of the children. This is predominating in blue-collar families with dual-earning couples. While mothers are working, fathers are home acting as “Mr. Moms” since they do motherly work but are not mothers. Over 10 million workers in the US work evening, night, or rotating shift while the other parent works a noonday shift. This allows for parental caretaking. Despite the fact that some fathers in this system don’t do as much as the mothers at home, they spend on average 28.5 hours a week in solo care of their children. They usually work the early and night shift at home, putting the children to bed. Money is the main reason for dual-parenting. It is a lot cheaper to take care of your children yourself. Others mentioned the idea that children should only be cared for by family. The system of shift working between parents may be good for the children, but causes hardships in the relationship of the parents. They sacrifice their own relationship and time together in order to be with their children. This can cause tension between the family. In most families, the man in an alternation-shift family is still recognized as the breadwinner. Sometimes he had to work as many as double the hours in order to earn more than his wife. His job was usually put ahead of hers too. In contrast, the mother is still seen as the number-one parent. They tailor their work life so they can be with the children at times they define as key times. They also claim that they are still the center of emotional life in the family and that they should be.
There has been observation of change and lack there of in men’s lives regarding family. The decline of the male as primary breadwinner is the most apparent aspect of change. This is no longer the predominate household model. Only about a third of Americans still depend solely or primarily on a male breadwinner. This has led to many men searching for other ways to show manhood and masculinity. Men’s participation in family involvement has not risen proportionally to women’s involvement in paid work. Men are also resisting marriage more and living on their own. A gender gap in domestic work exits, but men’s domestic participation has increase slowly. Men, in general, have increased help in child-rearing by spending more time with children. Some of men show resistance to equality in the family, while others are turning away from the family altogether. Even if a man doesn’t help out equally in the home, more and more are feeling they should be.
The decline of the male breadwinner model has caused confusion and discomfort, calling into question beliefs regarding manhood and masculinity. In the past, economic comfort coincided with being a “man.” Today, it is harder for men to justify their power as new relationships form in the home with women and children. They are now considered in some theories to be in “no man’s land.” Men are participating more in child-rearing, especially after a second marriage. Childhood has played a large role in the way men turn out. How they evaluate, respond and resolve conflicts established in childhood depends on experiences encountered later in life. As a whole, men are starting to reject work achievements and find more gratification in relationships with nurture and intimacy. The word “masculine” typically has been associated with independence, rationality, and aggression. A new vision of manhood has emerged focusing on interdependence and emotional openness. It rejects the views that manhood is the opposite of womanhood. Male dominance is still prevalent. This ties in with patriarch, which focuses on how institutional arrangements bestow power and privilege on men and how they behave as a group to perpetuate these advantages. The workplace allows for males to avoid domestic work. Men also have social political and economic advantages just because they are men. But changes are seen in the recent years in favor of women’s rights, employment opportunities, and women’s independence. Men’s dominance is now being challenge. Over the last several decades, men have seen economic security and entitlements decrease. The job market has changed along with wages. Committed employment among women has also risen. They are going into many managerial positions once dominated by men. This has allowed mens freedom to not feel economically responsible for a woman, and also gives a woman more leverage in a relationship. There is also a rise of alternatives to permanent marriage. Partnerships, divorce, remarriage, cohabitation outside marriage, and permanent singlehood have all grown in popularity. Men have been freed from the obligation to maintain a lifelong economic and emotional commitment to one woman, and women have more discretion about marriage as well. This has caused a bigger distinction between marriage and parenting. It is more common to be a parent, yet not be married. Some men have retained patriarchal control in traditional households while others haven’t.
I feel as if the model of “Mr. Mom” is becoming very common and more accepted throughout society today. Media has made light of this term in hit songs and tv shows. There is a country song by LoneStar called “Mr. Mom” in which the dad loses his job and therefore the mother goes to work while the dad stays home. He thinks it is going to be fun and easy doing nothing but comes to realize the job entails more than he imagine. He ends up wanting to go back to work in the end because being the role of mom is a lot harder than he originally thought. In the popular show “Desperate Housewives” one of the characters ends up being a “stay-at-home dad” because he loses his job, forcing his wife to go back to work. In both forms of media, the idea of men helping out more in the home, so much so they act like the mom is seen positively. In the past, this might be looked down upon and a man would not be considered masculine.
The model of the dual-shift parenting system is one that I have personally witnessed. I know a few families personally that operate this way. One family does this because they are not able to afford any other form of child-care. The mother, as with most, works in the evenings until midnight while the father works in the early morning until the evening. They seem to split tasks pretty equally. The children are very attached to both parents, especially the father. I believe this system really helps establish a good relationship between children and their father since he has to be a lot more involved. Another family I know which operates through a version of the dual-shift system does it not for financial reason but because they don’t want to put their children in day-care systems. They are firm believers of raising your own children and instilling your own values into them yourself. The mother is a nurse so she only works 3 days of the week to begin with. But when she does work, she either schedules weekends, (when her husband can take care of the children) or during the night shift (where the husband is also home).

mothering

Motherhood is in general more appreciated in the United States but there still lack of respect and tangible recognition. Child-raising is considered the most important job, yet care giving is not only rewarded, but actually penalized. American policy does not reflect its values regarding mother hood. Professional marginalization, a loss of status, and an increased risk of poverty are all some of the negative effects of motherhood.
One study assesses motherhood’s penalty due to mothers choosing or being confined to lower-paying,” mother-friendly” jobs. It also examines whether the motherhood’s penalty varies by marital status since growing number of mothers are single. Many women lose at lease some employment time to child-rearing. Some mothers take time out of employment and loss of work experience affects later wages.
According to human capital theory, losing job experience adversely affects mothers' wages because the mothers are less productive. More practiced workers are more productive, so they are paid more. Loss of job experience negatively affects mothers' wages because the mothers are considered less productive, although it is really other workers are able to be more productive.
One theory about mother’s less pay is because they accept “mother-friendly” jobs. These are able to pay less because they have friendly characteristics such as flexible hours, few demands for travel, and on-site day care. Another explanation is employer discrimination. It is possible that there is no causal effect of motherhood on wages, but rather that some of the same individual characteristics that cause lower earnings for mothers also lead to childbearing at higher rates. In a study between married and non-married mothers, working part- time reduces hourly pay. The penalty for having one child is small and none of it is explained by lost experience. Having a second child has a much larger implications. Women may be more likely to take a break from employment when there are two children at home because the cost of child-care is so high that earnings barely cover it. Marriage increases the child penalty. This suggests that the ratio of time and energy mothers allot to children verses jobs is affected by whether they have a source of financial support other than their own earnings. Husbands provide money that allows married mothers to focus more on their children than single women can. Or they share child-care responsibilities
African-American communities have been centered on the idea that “mothers should live lives of sacrifice has come to be seen as the norm.” For any given historical moment, Black women’s relationship with one another, children, community and self actually take depends on how their dialectical relationship between the severity of oppression facing African-American women and our actions in resisting that oppression is expressed. There are distinct conditions which fostered the appearance of distinctive Black women’s standpoint on mothering including: slavery, Southern rural life, class-stratified, racially segregated neighborhoods of earlier periods of urban Black migration. “Othermothers” are common in African-American communities. They are women who assist bloodmothers by sharing mothering responsibilities-traditionally have been central to the institution of Black motherhood. Extended families are very prevalent in Black families rooting from race, gender, and class oppression. Kin units tend to be woman-centered. It was common for girls to help raise and take care of younger siblings or neighbors children. Many mothers raised their daughters implying to notion that being a African-American female in the world makes for an up-hill battle in life. Motherhood can be invoked as a symbol of power by African-American women engaged in Black women’s work. Much of U.S. Black women’s status in African-American communities stems from their actions of mothering as community othermothers. “Strong Black Women” involvement in community work was an important basis within Black civil society. Protecting black children was a primary concern of African-American mothers. They are at risk for higher infant mortality, poor nutrition, inferior housing, AIDS, violence, and several other social problems.
Modern America still has aspects of a patriarchal system. An example of this is a strong pressure to give children their father’s surname. Although there have been several modifications to the more traditional patriarchal system, there is still a domination of children of women by men. Economic superiority and other privileges of a male-dominated social system make this possible. The idea of the “Genetic Tie” connecting parents to children gives them an equal amount of legal rights over the child. With value being placed on the see, the “real mother” and “real father” are the genetic parents. But with substitution being common today, we can choose a woman to substitute us in a pregnancy. From this arises the question of who is the mother: The one who nurtures it or the one who shares genes. This issue has been seen for a while since historically it has been asked. Women of privilege or wealth hire services of the poor and can buy some of the privileges of patriarchy. They can use bodies of poorer women to “bear offspring.” Today, we hire “substitute mothers.” Baby-sitters, day care, nannies take traditional tasks of mothers. This form of “mother” is highly devalued. Today this is an Oedipus-complex concerning child-care. Mothers seek out good child-care yet feel threatened by it at the same time. But the truth is, a relationship is definitely formed between a child and the person who takes care of him or her. Who is with that child should be thought of not as a substitute-someone else but as a first-person, one-on-one direct relationship to that childe. That position deserves respect and value.
Growing up with a “stay-at-home-mom” I’ve seen first hand the under appreciation of mothering. Child-care was never an option for my mother once all six of us kids (within an 8 year span) needed to be taken care of. It would not have been worth paid child-care for six kids and almost cheaper for my mom to stay at home. My mom went to college and had a career up until she had kids. Because my dad was able to support the family financially, she was able to stay home with us. We were lucky though because my dad still was able to be almost as involved as my mother since his job allowed him to be home with us more days than away.
It is not impossible to have a successful career and still raise kids. But it I not easy and it seems that you end up sacrificing one for the other in many cases. A woman without any children can work overtime and travel without having to worry about taking care of her children. This leads to steady promotions and career building. Yet when one has children, a woman usually can’t travel as much anymore, has to leave work by certain times, and cater to her children. I know many moms who use there sick days for their children and not for themselves. They don’t really have a choice, they need to take care of their kids but work usually doesn’t cater to the needs of employees children.
I found it surprising, yet understandable that a mother’s worth was so high. I can completely see how such a high price is reached, but it is something I don’t think many people really think about. It is so easy for mothers’ work to go unnoticed but they really do a lot. I know some moms who find their work at their jobs easier than work at home.

Blog #2

In William’s chapter and intro with regards to domesticity, she explains how it arose and how it has still is prevalent today. Before the age of domesticity, men and women commonly had different jobs/tasks but were considered of equal value. Childcare was seen as just something they both did. Domesticity is the gender system in which men belong in the market working and women belong in the home. Men belong in the market because of their dominant, aggressive and competative qualities while women possess sensitivity, gentleness, empathy, which best suits them to be in the home. There are a few basic parts of this traditional domesticity system that has carried over into current families. First is work’s demand of the “ideal-worker” with immunity to family work. One is expected to relocate if necessary, stay after hours, and be the perfect employee. Second is the husband’s right and duty to live up to being the “ideal-worker.” Even today it is still commonly expected for a man to live up to the idea of being an ideal worker in which employers demand. And last is the idea that a woman has duties to be the caregiver. Her life is supposed to evolve around her children and home. Williams used the example of the Fallows Family to show how the distribution of entitlements shifted from the language of status to emotion. It was traditional for men to be entitled to their wives services and to determine the family docile. This had gradually changed to and emotional language. Fallows stayed home with her son she claimed not because her husband told her to fulfill her own emotion needs. She made career sacrifices while her husband worked long hours. She battles to be the caregiver while he tries to balance family life and the pressures of being the ideal worker.

In Hay’s article “From Rods to Reasoning,” it describes the evolving act of child rearing. Child rearing first began after the middle ages, where children were not paid much attention to until they reached an older age around 6. A distinction arose in which determined appropriate behavior towards kids. In 17^th and 18^th century Europe they followed a more protective approach towards children. In New England, children were in a “redemption stage” in which harsh punishment, religious instruction and work life dominated. The 19^th Century is when “childhood” began to become important and motherhood was valorized. Child rearing and motherhood became synonymous. Morality was to be maintained by mothers since they were the primary child raisers. This was only possible with middle class families. Working class mothers were still seen as foolish, immodest, and devious. Towards the end of the 19^th century middle-class child-rearing began to include mother’s being scientifically trained. She needed to keep updated on the latest info on child development and practice methods suggested by experts. In early 20^th century mother’s goal was to nurture childrens' inherent goodness. Later on during the permissive era raising children was focused on the good of the children, not on the good of the family. Throughout WWII the ideology of intensive mothering persisted and has grown more extensive and elaborate even today. The paradox is that motherly love is necessity, but it is feared that mothers are being over protective, which is not good for children.

In Pleck’s chapter “American Fathering” he describes the changing role of fathers. This chapter analyzes the dominant images of fatherhood in earlier periods of US history and considers their impact today. In the 18^th and early 19^th century fathers had the greatest responsibility for and influence on their children. They were seen as the moral leaders and guided their children. In the early 19^th to mid 20^th century fathers were seen as distant breadwinners. Father’s had a less direct role as mothers’ role was increasing. Fathers worked and their wages made family consumption and security possible. In the mid 1900s fathers were sex role models. This was historically important as the first positive image of involved fatherhood to have significant impact on culture since the moral overseer model of the colonial period. The dominant father-breadwinner image still existed. The “new” more modern theory about fathers involves more involvement in the home.

With regards to the question “Is domesticity dead,” I would answer NO. From my own experience, I think it is still a very common system in place today in middle class homes. Most of my friends and the people I grew up with had stay-at-home mom’s and fathers who worked. Once children reached a certain age some mothers got part-time jobs, but most stayed at home to take care of children and the home. That is not to say that this is the case with every family because it certainly isn’t, but it definitely is not a dead practice.

The issue of child-care was brought up in one of the articles. It challenged the idea of keeping children with strangers while the parents work, claiming there was not much difference between leaving children at school. For me personally, I wouldn’t want to leave my children at day-care because I would want to spend that time with them as my mother did with me. If my husband and I were able to live off of one of our salaries, I’m sure one of us would stay home with them. I think that if you have kids you should spend as much time with them as possible. It is not that I don’t think other people would be competent in taking care of my kids, it is just something I would prefer be done by parents the majority of the time. I was lucky enough to have my mother stay at home with me all my life and have a father who’s career allowed him to have days off at a time to spend with me. Being a pilot, he only worked 10 days a month and was home the rest. This allowed my parents to split many of the “domestic tasks.” In many cases I would consider my father more domestic than my mother since he cooks more and likes to clean. My father always says he picked a good career because he was able to be home a lot. He was still able to be “an ideal worker” since his company did not demand him to work too many hours. Unfortunately other jobs do not provide the luxury of making it easy to balance work and family. It seems some jobs people are living to work, instead of working to live. Some companies are starting to realize this such as Google. They make hours extremely flexible and provide many other services in which makes it much easier for one to have a balanced lifestyle. They provide day-care in the office so you can see your children throughout the day. They also host family events and encourage a good family-work balance. They realize that this balance can still produce and efficient employee….and a happier one too.

Blog #1 Historical Perspective on Family and Work

The readings for this week look historically throughout the years at family and work, focusing mostly on women in the work force and marriage. In the past, generally women’s jobs tended to be centered on the household, whether it was manual labor for the household or raising children. Women’s roles became more involved in the market as commercial economy developed. Still, a division in of labor within the home was still prevalent and males tended to control capital and have the primary responsibility of the family. Women’s work at home was seen “necessary for survival” and took many hours to perform. After industrialization waged work became more available to women. The Industrial Revolution transformed domestic tasks into paid labor Even when “real” work was available to them, work at home was still necessary so it was like having two jobs.

In Chapter 2 of “From Marriage to the Market” a black female profession in the 1950s is quoted saying “I am a little fed up,” expressing resentment towards their husbands’ expectation of their domestic labor and having the notion that “woman is the homemaker and man is the breadwinner.” I completely sympathize with her resentment. There is no reason why those roles cannot be reversed and a man “stay at home.” I feel like today it is more common for a “stay a home dad” to exist, and for men to take over some of the domestic duties, especially with more woman at work. In my own experience, my father actually did just as many “domestic duties” as my mother, even though he worked and she didn’t (until she got a part-time job once all us kids were grown up.) My father cooked for us a lot more than my mother ever did, made us breakfast in the morning, and even prepared our lunches for school. My mom was responsible for many other things, but in general they tried to split the domestic duties since that wasn’t really my mom’s forte.

I thought that the statistics on a mother’s median age at last childbirth from Kingsley’s “Wives and Work” was surprising. More recently the age has been decreasing significantly, but the latest age of 27 (1950s) seems extremely young. I’m curious to know what the statistics are for today. I feel like the trend is no longer getting younger and the age is higher. Women seem to be getting married not quite as young as in the 1950s and therefore childbearing happens later.