childcare

Yesterday I participated in a Women’s Studies Quarterly Symposium on their recent Mother issue. Among the many excellent talks and readings, I was particularly struck by a talk given by Tamara Mose Brown, a sociologist at Brooklyn College and author of the forthcoming book Raising Brooklyn: Nannies, Childcare, and Caribbeans Creating Community (NYU Press, Dec. 2010). Dr. Brown discussed her own experiences as a graduate student and mother of West Indian decent researching West Indian childcare providers in Brooklyn’s public parks (as well as some of the reflections of her WSQ co-author, Erynn Masi de Casanova). In her talk, she reflected on how her subjects defined motherhood, and how they viewed her–she was clearly identified as a mother, since she often brought her son with her to the parks–as well as how she tried to deal with their expectations of how she should be mothering.

Because many of these childcare workers were also mothers, they viewed themselves as “expert” mothers and frequently gave her “lessons” about good West Indian mothering. As she writes in her WSQ article, these lessons included ideas about what was “expected behavior for a boy”–such as the expectation that boys should not play with strollers or wear dresses. Although she herself did not subscribe to this view of gender roles, she found herself watching her son more closely when she was doing research at the park, to make sure he did not wander over to a stroller. Subconsciously, she found herself seeking the approval of her subjects.

Her story resonated with me, a working mother who relies upon a Latina babysitter, L., to care for her children when my husband and I are at work. I like to think that in most ways I consider L. a co-parent as well as an employee. After all, I trust her with my kids; I trust her judgment and her ability to help us raise our children. Her daughter is much older than my kids (now in the dreaded teen years!) and L. has worked in a school, so she is “ahead” of me in this mothering job and thus an expert in ways that I’m not. And yet, I don’t consult her about certain ways that we’re raising our kids that may differ from what she herself has done. She’s very discreet, but I wonder what she thinks about some things.

For example, I’ve frequently wondered what L., a devout Catholic, thinks about the fact that we are raising our kids as non-baptized, non-Communion-participating Unitarian Universalists. Or what she thinks about the fact that my 3-year-old son loves to play with princesses more than my 6-year-old daughter. In general, I suspect she’s OK with all this; she’s tolerant to the core. And yet, precisely because she cares deeply for our kids, I do sometimes wonder whether she sometimes views our parenting choices as ones that aren’t quite right for our children.

I suspect that we might get a free pass on these issues; but I also wonder what L. thinks of the fact that I work. Dr. Brown noted that the West Indian childcare workers had very definite ideas about what defines a good mother and had this to say about their employers:

Motherhood means that you feed your children, you bathe your children, and you spend time with your children. These mothers go to work and don’t do anything for their children and then want the sitters or nannies to do everything; that’s not motherhood. See, you want to be with your children, feed them, give them a bath to be with them; that is a good mother.

— Child care provider in Brooklyn, New York, 2007 (Mose Brown and Masi de Casanova, “Mothers in the Field,” WSQ 37.3, 4)

When I heard this quote yesterday, it struck to the core of my anxieties! I don’t bathe and feed my children every day; most days, yes, but certainly not every day. It brought up the ages-old guilt about working, as well as the familiar anger: why do mothers still carry this burden? Why do they carry it alone? Why don’t we question the fatherhood of fathers when they are at work? For that matter, why don’t we question the absence of flexible work-life policies, not to mention childcare, at many of our workplaces? the absence of a national response to working families that might go a long way toward enabling mothers and fathers to work and parent? the frequent absence of childcare workers and their own families in these debates about work and family?

After all these anxieties subsided, I began to think about the historical, invisible, and yet very real forces that have created generations of West Indian nannies, caring for white children; and I began to think that one response, one way of finding self-empowerment and agency if you find yourself in this situation, might be to embrace the identity of expert mother who spends time with the children. There is some truth, after all, in what that West Indian childcare provider says. Not the idea that working mothers aren’t mothers, but the fact that there are probably some employers who ask a lot from their nannies. I am speaking here from experience: when you have a demanding job, and you have a babysitter, it’s hard not to ask. There are days when, exhausted from teaching and meetings all day, I really don’t want to come home and be a mother. On these days, while I am grateful to all that L. has already done, and even though I know that it’s my turn, I wish that she could stay. But L. has her own family to go home to, no doubt exhausted from mothering my kids, and perhaps even sometimes reluctant, herself, to contemplate the evening’s work ahead at her house.

More often than not, this is when the TV seduces me with its nearly impossible-to-refuse offer: Kids entertained! Peace and quiet! No 1,001 demands while I’m trying to make dinner!

But sometimes, too, I start talking with my kids, and they tell me about the adventures of their day, and they blow me away with their ideas, and they make me laugh with their wacky and idiosyncratic knock-knock jokes–and I realize that this is the best moment of my day.

As I write this, I also realize that having the resources to hire a nanny, babysitter, or other childcare worker is just that–a privilege–and while this relationship is quite accurately described as employer and employee, it’s simultaneously a unique kind of relationship whereby the employee can become part of the family. And with family, as we all know, comes opinions and ideas about how we should live our lives and how we should parent, not always reflecting the deeply-held decisions we’ve forged for ourselves and our kids.

This is Alison Piepmeier, recovering well from brain surgery, and planning to be back on Girl with Pen really soon.  In the meantime, I’m delighted to introduce you to this month’s guest columnist, Eliza McGraw, writer, mother, and great friend of mine.

Earache

I’m here in Charleston, South Carolina visiting my pal Alison Piepmeier, whom you all know from her blog here on Girl with Pen.  Theoretically, I am helping her, Walter, and Maybelle out, given Alison’s recent brain surgery.  And I am bunking with the baby and did just now make some pumpkin muffins, but I am not sure that I am helping as much as I am just, as always–we have been friends since 1994, when we met in graduate school, I just have avoided putting my education to the same kind of productive use that Alison has–enjoying being with Team Biffle-Piepmeier.

To be here for the week did, however, entail a thorough job of organization on my part.  I live in Washington, D.C., and am a freelance writer.  I also am the primary caregiver, driver, cupcake-maker, room parent, tutor and hockey mom to my 6 and 8-year-old children.  My days are happily complex so the list on instructions I left behind–also known as “the matrix”–included such entries such as “Wednesday–bring in a green food for St Patrick’s day,” “Thursday:  put Simon’s lacrosse shorts in backpack,” “Friday is P.E. day–Macie
in sneakers.”  It had a long list of contact information for the many family members, friends, and neighbors who knew I’d be away, permission slips for various pickups, and a refrigerator roll call so my husband Adam would know what I had made to eat.

On Monday, I received an email from Adam inquiring when the pediatrician’s office opened, since Macie (my 6-year-old) had an earache.  We’re not an earachey kind of family, as a rule–no tubes, no audiologists–so I was concerned.  Macie has also wound up in the hospital more than once, so any time she develops the slightest sniffle, I get a little anxious.  Also, it was only day two.  Things were already falling apart already?

Adam is an architect, and while it’s not as if he were expected in the OR momently, he was supposed to be at work with roll of drawings spread out on the desk (my mental image of architectural design), not heading out to the pediatrician’s.  If you looked at the matrix, there was no mention of “Take Macie to pediatrician.”  (If there had been, I would have written, “Remember insurance card and to stop for bagel on the way
home at bagel shop on Connecticut Avenue.”)

Even knowing that Adam, eminently competent and adaptable, had Earache 2010 covered, I felt like something was a little off all day as I played with Maybelle, went to the grocery store with Alison, and generally existed here in Charleston, 539 miles from the situation room at home.  When I called and heard Macie crying in the background (over Adam’s shouting from the front seat “She’s fine!  We’re going to get medicine now!”) I experienced that sensation that makes you realize why people say hearts “sink.”  Even once I received the update that Macie was at my mom’s and tucked under the same animal-themed blanket I used to curl up with when I felt sick (nosebleed stains, 1970s brown and orange zebras) while watching Mulan, I felt like I should have been with her.

But as the day wore on–hearing Macie’s voice be a tad bossy about which of the previews she deigned amusing enough to watch reassured me that her health was stabilizing–I realized I only sort of felt that way.  I missed her, and hated to think of her in any kind of pain.  But I was glad to be here, with Alison, Walter, and Maybelle.  I learned that is possible to be in the right place, even if that place is not with my own children for a certain painful moment, the one thing even I never planned for.

Recently, I had the pleasure of corresponding with sociologists Chloe Bird and Pat Rieker about their book Gender and Health: Constrained Choices and Social Policies (Cambridge University Press, 2008), credited as the “first book to examine how men’s and women’s lives and their physiology contribute to differences in their health.” I was curious how the authors see their research relating to some of the health topics that have made headlines in recent months.

Nack: Starting off with the topic of mental, health, you’ve written about sex-based differences.  Reflecting on recent articles, like NYT’s In Anxious Times, Medical Help for the Mind as Well as the Body, how does your book add to our understanding of and concern for policies like the Mental Health Parity Act?

Rieker:  Our book provides concrete data for why the Mental Health Parity Act is such a strategic and critical addition to general health care policy.  We focus on gender differences in mental health, particularly depression and substance abuse disorders.  Although the overall rates of mental illness are similar between men and women, if you look at it by specific disease, then you see large gender differences.  Women’s depression and anxiety rates are double that of men’s; while men’s rates of substance abuse and impulse control disorders are double that of women’s. Available research shows that individuals with serious mental health problems also have more physical health issues, including a lower life span. Both social and medical interventions are needed to prevent and treat these socially and financially costly conditions which create enormous health burdens on individuals, who may become unable to perform work and other social roles, and their families, Employers and society, as a whole, bear additional costs. 

Bird:  Also, differences in men’s and women’s lives can affect their utilization of mental health care and the effectiveness of specific interventions. We need systematic assessments of the effectiveness of treatments/approaches for both men and women, which can ultimately lead to better physical and mental health outcomes. The US has fallen behind Canada and other countries which require this approach in federally-funded research. 

Nack: How are the differences between men’s and women’s mental health problems particularly relevant as we consider the impact of the economic downturn, in general, and, with regard to healthcare coverage, the rising numbers of uninsured and underinsured Americans?

Rieker:  In the current poor economic climate, many men and women are experiencing increased stress/anxiety when losing jobs which may have provided dependable incomes and health insurance. Constant worry, itself, leads to ill health and exacerbates existing underlying conditions (e.g., cardiovascular and respiratory conditions).  Our framework of constrained choice illustrates how social and economic policy can reduce or enhance the options and opportunities for individuals to engage in healthy behaviors such as not smoking, not drinking to excess, eating well, and exercising.  While some individuals respond to economic downturns by temporarily limiting costly habits of smoking or drinking, we argue that more could be done at different policy levels to encourage positive health behaviors and coping strategies that improve physical and mental health. more...

As we celebrated Women’s Equality Day* yesterday, we want to talk about one of the most enduring signs of the gender equality gap — the differences in how men and women spend their time on an everyday basis. Many of you have probably heard of the term the “double-shift” when talking about women’s work outside and inside the home, and anecdotally, we all have examples (“I came home from a 12 hour work day and had to pick up his socks.” Or “After work I had to pick up the kids, clean the house, and cook dinner.”) The recently released American time use survey proves what we’ve known all along: women bear the burden of household work.

A couple of snippets:
• At 5:10 pm, 17% of women are doing household activities – 11% of men are.
• At 7:40 am, 11% of women are doing household activities – 6 % of men are.

Really, do check out the link – they’ve done a cool interactive chart where you can compare time use according to age, gender, race, employment, educational attainment, and size of household. Categories vary from “household activities” to “eating and drinking” to (our favorite!) “relaxing and thinking”. The only downside to the chart is that you cannot compare by multiple qualities – for example, are black women doing more household activities than white women at 5:10? Then black men? What about black single mothers? And Hispanic women over 65? (You get the picture.)

Internationally, feminist economists have been arguing for the inclusion of household work into overall GDP estimates – where traditionally, the bulk of women’s work was uncounted, as it did not take place within the marketplace. For the past few years, the United Nations Development Fund has been tracking Gender, work, and time allocation in its Human Development Report. Although only 33 countries reported on time allocation in 2007, the results are nonetheless interesting – globally women aren’t faring that much better in balancing free time and personal care and family care.

Even the “wunderkind” countries of Northern Europe women seem to be putting more time into the children and the chores then men. In Norway, while women and men spent approximately equal amount of time on themselves, women spent more time cooking and cleaning (2:14) than their male counterparts (0:52). Women also spent double the time (34 mins) that men (17 mins) did on childcare.

In Nicaragua, a moderately developed country where interestingly even the one country where women and men have relatively equal free time women, women are the primary caregivers for the children (1:01 hours compared to the 17 mins men spent with the kids), the cooks and cleaners (3:31 hours to 0:31 mins) and less likely to be involved in market activities 28% to men’s 74%.

It is no surprise that the least developed countries have the widest disparities with regards to time. Women in Benin spend much more time (8:03 hrs) on market and non-market activities combined than men (5:36 hrs). Beninese women don’t have much time for themselves (1:32hrs) their children (45 mins) or their household chores (2:49 hrs) and yet they still spend more time on everything, except themselves, than their men. I’m exhausted just blogging about it.

Virginia Woolf spoke of the need of one’s own room and time (and of course money) when writing fiction. And truly, all of these things are needed for most successes. Who knows how much more the world could gain from women if more men got more involved in activities beyond the market? There are signs that times are changing, however: although recent studies do not indicate more equality in household chores, they do point to a shift in younger men’s (Gen X) attitudes and behaviors around fathering. Looks like we are one step closer to taking ALL work activities seriously, whether inside the market or out. And that’s what we call equality.

* Don’t miss the National Council for Research on Women’s tribute to Women’s Equality Day on their blog, The Real Deal. (Full disclosure: both Tonni and I have posts up! We did them in our personal time.)

There’s so much Father’s Day goodness out there today I don’t know where to start.

Former NYTimes blogger Marci Alboher asks “Are Dads the New Moms?” over at her new Yahoo blog, Working the New Economy.

Lisa Belkin conducts a two part interview with The Daddy Shift: How Stay-at-Home Dads, Breadwinning Moms, and Shared ParentingAreTransforming the American Family author and Daddy Dialectic blogger Jeremy Adam Smith

Michelle Goldberg of ABCNews.com tells us What Laid-Off Dads Want

And I offer “Findings from from the Layoff Lab”— a Father’s Day assessment of recession-era dads — over at The Big Money! 

You can bet we’ll touch on many of these themes — and more, and from a fresh and feminist perspective — at the Brooklyn Museum tomorrow when the WomenGirlsLadies talk about “Dads, Dudes, and Doing It.” Event is free!  We’ll be giving books away!  I’ll be wearing straight-up maternity wear!  This is one you won’t want to miss 🙂

PS. Time Out New York just listed us as one of the “Ten Best Father’s Day events” in town!

I’m supershort on battery so may only get through part of this next session, but here we go…

Jeremy Adam Smith, creator of the blog Daddy Dialectic and author of the book The Daddy Shift, is introducing the panel by talking about the difference in attitudes about fatherhood among his grandfather, his father, and himself.

Panelists are:

Reeve Vanneman (he’ll be talking about The End of Gender Revolution?)
Oriel Sullivan (on Slow but Steady-ish Change)
Josh Coleman (speaking on The Ghost of Traditional Marraige in Contemporary Ones)
Mignon Moore (talking about Is Convergence Moot in Same Sex Copules?)
Amy and Marc Vachon, bloggers at Equally Shared Parenting and coauthors of a forthcoming book on the subject (on that)

Reeve Vanneman is up first:  There was a big shift in the 1990s, he notes, a stalling in gender revolution. But the question is, why?  Three possible reasons:

1. End of feminist protest: in the mid-1990s, media coverage of feminism declined…

2. Economics: in the mid-1990s, for the first time in a long time, men’s earnings increased.  They had stagnated in the 1970s, but during the early Clinton years, there were fairly broad-based increases in men’s earnings.

3. Culture: gender attitudes shifted (ie, when surveys asked questions like “do you agree that a working mother can have a warm relationship with her children?” the answer “yes” trended upward from the 1970s, then leveled off in the 1990s; other questions tracked were questions like “do you believe that men make better politicians”? etc)

In sum, we have evidence that there was a stalling of gender revolution in the mid-1990s. But we don’t fully know WHY.

ARGH! Hate to leave ya’ll hanging, but I’m running out of battery here…

My latest at Recessionwire.com is now up: Love in the Time of Layoff: Her Expendable Career. I go all politico over subsidized childcare in this one, so please check it out, spread the link, leave comments, etc! It’s very Girl w/Pen-nish, this time.

Following on the heels of Stephanie Coontz’s awesome op-ed last week in the NYT (“Til Children Do Us Part”), notwithstanding the creepy illustration (left), my colleagues at the Council on Contemporary Families has released a research update on the subject, asking: Are Babies Bad For Marriage?

Man, I hope not.

But here’s the breakdown, cleverly bulleted below:

* Old News: Having a Baby Will Save Your Marriage
* New News: No, After Having a Baby, Satisfaction With Marriage Goes Down for Most Couple
* New New News: Having a Baby Won’t Improve a Poor Marriage, but Couples Who Plan the Conception Jointly Are Much Less Likely to Experience a Serious Marital Decline
* And Really Good News: Couples Who Establish a Collaborative Parenting Relationship After the Child Is Born not Only Have Happier Marriages but Better-Adjusted Children

more...

Dear Barack and Michelle,

I’m writing to you as the parents of beautiful girls, and as people who hold the future of this country in your hands for the next four years. I know that you both take seriously your job as parents as well as the way you can shape public policy to improve your daughters’ lives. Michelle has talked about supporting working parents and Barack has talked about fighting workplace discrimination so Sasha and Malia will not have to experience it as adults.

George W. Bush was a father to daughters, and so was Bill Clinton. But your perspective seems fresh, new, and dare I say the “f” word? Feminist. I think our friends at Ms. Magazine got it right:

Hallelujah. You recognize that the personal is political, and vice versa. Parenting daughters has clearly made you think about how you lead, and about how your political choices and policy decisions will shape your daughters’ lives.

Our country needs this framework, and your “to do” list is long. For example, I’ve blogged about my wish for some federal leadership on curricular reform, and I hope you’ll take a look.

But for now I’m content to wait and see what unfolds under your leadership and your parenting. I’m also raising an 8-year-old daughter, and I know that we probably share some of the same hopes and ambitions for our girls. I know for sure that I’m hoping to create a more equitable world for her, and yes, a more feminist one, too.

Sincerely,
Allison Kimmich
Executive Director, National Women’s Studies Association

This post is part of a forum.

This post was first posted on February 6, 2009 at NCRW’s The Real Deal.

-Allison Kimmich

Tonight is the This Is What Women Want Speak Out here in NYC. So here is what I want, what I’d like to tell the candidates, what I want them to hear. And a bigtime thanks goes to the National Council for Research on Women for their Big 5 website – a motherload of information for those of you similarly wanting to put it out there and help bring our issues to the candidates’ attention.

As a woman hoping to bring a child into this world, I have a lot of wants right about now.

As a working woman, I want guaranteed leave. Yes, it’s true, some limited unpaid leave is made mandatory under the Family Medical Leave Act. But I find it pretty disgusting that the United States is not among the 168 countries worldwide that provide paid maternity leave. And did you know, dear candidates, that mothers without paid leave in our country take fewer weeks off from work after childbirth than women with leave benefits, putting both mothers and infants at risk for health complications? And while we’re at it, nearly half (47%) of private-sector workers and 22 million women workers do not have any paid sick days. Nearly half the women who take off from work to care for a sick child give up their wages to do so. Three-quarters of women living in poverty sacrifice wages to look after sick children. If I sound frustrated, it’s because I am. Fix this, puleese?

When I become a mother, I’m going to want affordable childcare. Did you know, dear candidates, that nationwide, nearly 12 million children under age 5 are in childcare each week and, in every region of the United States, childcare fees surpass the average amount families spend on food? And of course, childcare costs are particularly weighty for poor and low-income families, who pay a significantly higher share of their income for care than higher-level income groups. Providing childcare subsidies reduces work schedule-related problems for single working mothers by about 56%. So why not supply more of these?

As the future mother of a future daughter or son, I want a personal promise from you that Roe v. Wade will never be overturned. And I want you, dear candidates, to take the lead in promoting women’s reproductive rights and health, especially the preservation of reproductive rights and health for low income women and women of color. I want honest sex ed in our schools, and an end to this federally-funded abstinence-only hoohah.

That’s for starters. What do YOU want? Tell it to mic tonight at LaGuardia Community College if you happen to be in the NYC vicinity. The “This Is What Women Want Pre-Debate Speakout” is taking place tonight @ 7:00 PM and it’s free: Mainstage Theater, 31-10 Thomson Avenue, LaGuardia Community College, Long Island City, Queens. More info available here.