{"id":1811,"date":"2019-01-08T14:28:23","date_gmt":"2019-01-08T20:28:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/?p=1811"},"modified":"2019-01-08T14:28:23","modified_gmt":"2019-01-08T20:28:23","slug":"diapers-depression-and-gender-matter-for-social-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/2019\/01\/08\/diapers-depression-and-gender-matter-for-social-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Diapers, Depression and Gender Matter for Social Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Psychology Today<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This column is another in the series of articles based on the new\u00a0Handbook of the Sociology of Gender<\/a>\u00a0 edited by Barbara J. Risman, Carissa Froyum and William Scarborough.\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

What do diapers, depression, and mothers have in common? That may seem like a trick question but the answer has implications for American social policy. Middle-class\u00a0parents<\/a>\u00a0simply take for granted that diapers cost money, one of the many expenses of having a baby.\u00a0But for poor mothers, who are often single parents, diapers, or rather running out of them, becomes a crisis that can trigger psychological stress, perhaps even postpartum depression.\u00a0<\/a>While parents are raising the next generation of American workers, we continue to ignore their needs, and pretend that every family has enough breadwinners to cover their basic necessities. But we know that single mothers, often struggling to live in poverty, face great obstacles. Our social safety net doesn\u2019t provide them with security, and the jobs available to women without college degrees can\u2019t support their families, even if they work so many hours a week they barely see their children. Perhaps poor mothers are the women in our society that are most disadvantaged by gender inequality.<\/p>\n

To illustrate this, we introduce you to Patricia, a 32-year-old mother of three. She receives cash aid on the 2nd of each month and immediately buys the 120-count box of store-brand diapers at her local supermarket for $30. \u201cIt\u2019s the thing we buy first because it\u2019s the thing we can least do without,\u201d she explained. Though she is\u00a0grateful<\/a>\u00a0that the cheapest diapers do not give her daughter Sofia a rash, she worries that they hold less and leak more. Patricia stretches the box as far as possible. She lets 18-month-old Sofia go without diapers at home, closely monitors and minimizes Sofia\u2019s liquid intake, rarely leaves the house, and \u201cprays she doesn\u2019t get sick because that means more diapers.\u201d When that box runs out, Patricia can usually scrounge up enough change for the smaller $4.25 pack by collecting cans, selling some food stamps, or breaking her four-year-old son\u2019s piggy bank with a promise to replace it. When she cannot, Patricia uses paper towels secured with duct tape. A victim of\u00a0domestic abuse<\/a>, Patricia has\u00a0post-traumatic stress disorder<\/a>\u00a0and often goes without food, toilet paper, and tampons to save diaper money because she told Randles: \u201cThe kids come first. Providing those diapers means I\u2019m a good mother who keeps them away from my\u00a0trauma<\/a> and money problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patricia\u2019s struggle is not rare. Diaper need\u2014lacking sufficient diapers to keep an infant dry, comfortable, and healthy\u2014is an often hidden consequence of poverty that affects one in three families in America. A\u00a0Yale University study in 2013<\/a>\u00a0found that mothers like Patricia who don\u2019t have enough diapers for their children were almost twice as likely to struggle with postpartum depression. Though the Yale study could not determine if diaper need caused\u00a0post-partum<\/a>\u00a0depression, mothers Randles recently interviewed help us understand the connection. As Trista, a 28-year-old mother of three confided, \u201cI experience extreme\u00a0anxiety<\/a>\u00a0when I use a diaper. It\u2019s worse than worrying about food because I can always eat less, be creative in the kitchen, and go to food banks. But when you run out of diapers, your child can\u2019t do one of their most basic human things in a dignified and clean way. It more than anything makes me feel like a horrible failure as a parent.\u201d Trista sold her blood plasma twice a week for four months solely to buy diapers for her two youngest children.<\/p>\n

Forty-five percent of U.S. children younger than three\u20145.2 million\u2014live in low-income or poor families that struggle to provide diapers as a basic need of early\u00a0childhood<\/a>. Yet, for the most part, U.S. social policy does not recognize diapers as a necessity. Diapers are categorized as luxury \u201cunallowable expenses\u201d under public programs that provide food for young children, including the Supplemental\u00a0Nutrition<\/a>\u00a0Assistance Program (SNAP) and Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Though parents can use welfare cash aid for diapers, the $75 average monthly diaper bill would alone use between eight to forty percent of the average monthly state benefit. Only one state\u2014California\u2014currently offers diaper vouchers for welfare recipients, and most states still tax diapers based on the logic that, unlike\u00a0drugs<\/a>\u00a0such as Viagra, diapers are not medically necessary.<\/p>\n

This oversight is not unique.\u00a0Most policy in the United States ignores the bodily needs of women and children.\u00a0<\/a>Most states also still tax feminine hygiene products. Diaper need and how mothers like Patricia and Trista manage keeping their babies clean and dry are deeply gendered issues. Mothers do most of the physical labor of diapering. Beyond this, poor mothers are more likely to be single mothers, and so do most of the planning and emotional labor for their children. But even mothers with partners told Randles about the\u00a0stress<\/a>\u00a0of the cost of diapers and the work of managing diaper need. When Randles talked to middle-class mothers about how many diapers they had on hand, they casually responded with answers like, \u201ca few boxes in the closet, an extra pack or so in the car, and drawers full near each of the changing tables.\u201d Poor mothers were more likely to respond as Patricia did when she said, \u201cI have seven in the house, two in my purse, and one that I\u2019ve hidden in case of a dire emergency. Based on how often my daughter goes to the bathroom and the likelihood that she\u2019ll pee twice as often as she poops, I know those ten diapers will last me exactly two days before I run out and have to figure out how to get more.\u201d This degree of specificity was perhaps most telling about how diaper need can cause anxiety for poor mothers. The problem is not just that they have fewer diapers, but the amount of stress involved in calculating, saving, and sacrificing to stretch limited diaper supplies as far as possible. Diapers are not a luxury. The taken-for-granted ability to buy ahead, stock up, and not give much thought to running out certainly is.<\/p>\n

The near political invisibility of diaper need and mothers\u2019 efforts to manage it reflect what Risman calls the gender structure, or how gender inequality affects all aspects of our of \u00a0lives.<\/a>\u00a0Women\u2019s continued primary responsibility for unpaid care, including diapering, remains a linchpin of inequality. As a society we continue to devalue the care of others. For poor mothers, most likely to be single, the social, economic, and political devaluation of care creates an overwhelming burden. By failing to account for the real needs of families, parents, and children, social policies enforce gender inequality and lead to children\u2019s suffering. In the United States, we pretend as if individual parents alone should be responsible for children. Parents are tasked with meeting all the practical and emotional needs of families. But we need a village to support today\u2019s children, especially those born into poverty. Policies intended to support families must take into account that mothers, often by themselves, are the ones struggling to keep their children fed, dry, clean and clothed. The invisibility of the need for diapers provides a clear case of how ignoring gender inequality in social policy can have disastrous effects for women, and their children. We\u2019ve successfully confronted similar problems before through targeted gender policies such as WIC that recognize the basic needs of mothers and their families. For the sake of Patricia, Trista, and the millions of mothers like them, it\u2019s time we do it again with diapers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Jennifer Randles is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Fresno State.<\/em>\u00a0Barbara J. Risman is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago.\u00a0 She is also a Senior Scholar at the Council of Contemporary Families.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Psychology Today This column is another in the series of articles based on the new\u00a0Handbook of the Sociology of Gender\u00a0 edited by Barbara J. Risman, Carissa Froyum and William Scarborough. What do diapers, depression, and mothers have in common? That may seem like a trick question but the answer has implications for American […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2095,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[8959,55,3109],"class_list":["post-1811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-families","tag-gender","tag-motherhood"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2095"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1811"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1849,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1811\/revisions\/1849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}