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.