Stay At Home Mother example essay topic

Division of labor in a Household The division of labor in the household hold depends on the environment. Society creates gender ideology that affects the roles women and men take on in the household. In The Second Shift by Arlie Russell, she states three different ideologies of gender. There is the traditional, transitional and egalitarian ideology that determines what sphere men and women want to identify with, home sphere or work sphere. However, it depends what kind on the time period and society you live in that determines the "norm" gender ideology, which affects the division of labor in a household.

The society, which affected the Mendoza and Ortega family that I have observed and interviewed, constructs views of the appropriate roles for men and women in the family devotion schema. Historical An important period of United States history that affected the division of household labor was during the earlier industrial revolution. Before the industrial revolution in America, men and women work in the farm; it was a private family farm that both men and women worked. So around the 1830's these farms were taking over by corporation, and during this time there was a growth of factories, trades and business in the new cities of America, which attracted men and women away from the farm life. However, there was a transition in economy of America, which affected men and women, but it affected them differently.

The jobs that men were receiving were different from what women were getting. "In 1860, most industrial workers were men". While, men where working in factories women where working in more domestic jobs, but only 15% of women were working for paid. Hence, most women stayed at home to take care of the second shift, housework. When men started working in factories and women working in domestic jobs, this change the way people lived, especially family life. Now men are leaving their homes, where they use to work as farmers, to city to work, while women primary stay at home to work.

During this time period, the lives of men where changing more drastically, but women identity was still identifying with the home, while men were identifying with his paid work. Nowadays, women's lives have changed significantly due to the expansion of jobs that have gave women more opportunities for them to identify with paid job, instead with the second shift. Women's "wages has been increasingly needed at home, it has become that the 'women's turn' to move into the industrial economy". Women are working more and identify their womanhood with the paid work as men do. Hochschild has claimed that in 1950, 30% of women were in the labor force, but in 2002, 60%, of women were working outside the home in the labor force. Women are working more outside from the house was one change, but another significant transformation that occurred in the family devotion scheme was that women have fewer children then they use to.

During the 1800's women had eight children, but in 1988 the average less than two children. Having less children and working outside the house affected the house devotion scheme. With the shift from working at home (private farms) to working in the labor force, now men and women are working outside the home creating dilemmas with the second shift (housework). Today, it's 63% of all marriage with children is of two-job marriage. Some mothers work full time, but others work part-time due to the family devotion scheme. With mothers working either full time and part-time, there has been "mommy wars", coined by Nina Danton in 1990.

This dilemma, the mommy wars, constitutes of two socially constructed cultural images on how mothers should behave. One of the socially contracted images of mothers is the traditional mother or stay-at-home mom. On the other hand, there is a portrait of the "supermom" or the working mother. This notion of two different motherhood's was constructed based on society gender ideology norm. It could be seen that the society has identify child rearing, which is part of the second shift, with women, but not men. So how do all these changes in society and family affect the division of household labor?

Topic: Division of Second Shift Within Families Thesis Scholars have researched on how to integrate gender within the main organizing constructs of social life. One social realm where scholars have vastly research is family structure. The family institution has encountered much gender problem issue, starting with "who does the housework". During this period of time, where women are gaining more civil freedom in society, there has still been a struggler for equality within society and family spheres.

I investigated how gender role is significant within the family institutional context, especially in the division of labor in household. The second shift, which is used by Hochschild, "borrowed from the industrial life" is an "idea that homemaking was a shift", it is a second shift because the first shift is labor force". Moreover, the idea of the "devotion to family scheme" is a culture model that defines marriage and motherhood as a women's primary vocation. Therefore with these two notions on the family roles, the main driving question of this research is how do urban employed married couples with children divide the housework.

A main reason why there is a division of household sphere is the fact that society affects the way people identify their manhood and womanhood, which creates a family devotion scheme. In Hochschild, The Second Shift identified three types of gender ideology: traditional, transitional, and egalitarian. Traditional men want to identify themselves with work, and the women want to be identified with the home. Transitional men would support wife to go out to work, but expect the wife to still do the housework. Transitional women want to classify themselves with home and work, and want her husband to identify with the work sphere. The third gender ideology is the egalitarian, where men and women want to identify with both spheres the labor force and the housework, equally.

With these definitions of gender ideology within marriage couple resulted to the thesis of my paper. The answer to the question I purposed would be that there would always be a person who does more housework then the other person. My research To answer the main question, how and why do urban employed married couples with children divide the housework, I interviewed and observed two couples, that have younger children living in different boroughs of New York City. One of the couple, The Mendoza family, lived in Brooklyn, New York and considers themselves as middle-class family. The family composed of a wife, Gen, the husband, Antony, and two young children Dean and Kyra. Gen is an Italian woman who is 26 years old with a bachelor degree in Childhood Education.

She works as a second grade teacher in one of the New York City public school. Antony is originally from Ecuador who is 30 years old with a Bachelor degree in computer engineering He works as a computer programmer in a non-profit origination. Dean is a three years old boy and Kyra is 6 months year old girl, both children where born in New York City. The neighbor that they live is consider as low-middle class community. In their neighbor, most family has both parents working due to financial needs. The children of these families are either taken care of family members, which Dean and Kyra are, or daycare centers.

Gen and Antony would consider themselves as egalitarians couple. One the other hand, the other family, the Ortega Family, I observed identified with another gender ideology. The Ortega family consider themselves as upper-middle class family living in Queens, New York. The family composed of a wife, Sherry, husband, George, and three children, George Jr., Daniel and Evan. Sherry is American who is 43 years old. She is a full time stay-at-home mom and is a high school graduate.

She use to work as a sectary, but when she gave birth to her first son, she quite her job to take care of her son. George is originally from Ecuador and is 45 years old. He is a manager of a well-known company (due to confidential, I cannot say where he works.) and has a MBA. Their older son George attends Dalton School, and is 16 years old.

Daniel is 14 years old boy and also attends Dalton. The youngest son, Evan is 8 years old and attends a local public school. The neighbor that they live is consider as upper-middle class community. In their neighbor, most family has mostly the man working, while either work part-time or are stay-at-home mothers. The children of these families are mostly taken care by the mother or are in school or are involved extra activities Sherry considers herself as a traditional mother, and George considers himself as a transitional man. Both families were asked the same question, which were based on analysis of the division of labor in the household.

The questions were: Who does most of the following jobs- child rearing, meal preparation, cleaning the house and other chores. Who pays the bills and who decide how the household surplus income is spent? And who does paid work and where do hey do it. With the answers to these questions by both couple, I compared the result with other studies such as The Second Shift by Arlie Hochschild, and Competing Devotion: Career and family among Women Executives by Blair-Loy, and Sharon Hays, Mommy Wars: Ambivalence, Ideological Work, and the Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood. These three texts were my primary source, but I used other sources as well.

Findings The Mendoza family claim to be egalitarians couple. When I observed and interviewed, I found that they do not share the second shift. However, they tried to share the second shift and thought they did, but when calculation of the hours each person spend on house chorus was made, its showed that it not an equally amount. When I asked who does more childcare both said it's equally spent between one another. However, my observation results were that Gen does much more childcare than Antony. Gen is the one who bathes the children, and most of the time is the one feeding both children and putting Dean to sleep.

Antony, on the other hand plays with children, while Gen prepares dinner. When Gen is putting Dean to sleep, Anthony is putting Kyra to sleep. A statement made by Antony to support his claim on his gender ideology was", Gen puts Dean to sleep and I put Kyra to sleep. Gen cooks the food, and I wash the dishes.

Gen bathes the children and I sweep the floor. Gen does more work with Dean because she is naturally better with the children. Therefore one does one job, and the other does another job. We are both sharing the housework. It is balance in our family.

"This statement made by Antony is not completely true. Yes, they do those jobs, but the time each job takes creates one person to do more second shift then the other. Lets take putting the kids to sleep as an example to show that there is not a balance in the second shift. It takes Gen about 45 minutes to put Dean to sleep because he likes to be read to, at least two books and then sang to until he falls to sleep. On the other hand it takes Antony about 20 minutes to put Kyra to sleep because she is a baby. Antony gives a bottle to Kyra and rocks her until she falls asleep.

Another example, that shows that Gen does more then the second shift, is meal preparation. It takes about a 1 hour to prepare a meal, while it takes 15 minutes to wash the dishes. Once again, Gen is doing more housework because it takes her a longer time to do her part of the house chorus. In one aspect of the household sphere, that supports their ideology was that both, Gen and Antony, pays the bills and both decides how the household surplus income is spent. Antony does contribute to the household income more then Gen, but it does not give him the right to spend the money they way he wants.

Antony and Gen would ask one another if they should buy something. They do not ask each other when they buy personal amounts, but with household materials, like radio or a television; they ask one another before buying it. The Mendoza family divides the house chores as equally as they believed it could be. It is based on the balance of amount of housework, but it is not balance when it comes to time spent on the housework. They developed a family myth as describe by Hochschild as "versions of reality that obscure a core truth in order to manage a family tension". Mendoza's family myth is based on the definition of the egalitarian ideology, but not on the reality of their actions.

Similar to the Tanagaqa family, in Hochschild study, Nina Tanagaqa was "naturally" better with the children because she spends more time with them, therefore does more of the childcare, which is what Antony describe why Gen does more of the childcare with Dean. Moreover, they both "share" work because one does one job, while the other does the other chores; therefore they are equally doing the second shift. The interviews and observations of the Ortega family did support their claims on their gender ideologies. Sherry is a stay at home mother and does almost all the second shift. She does all the child rearing, laundry, meal preparation and house cleaning. She stated", I love watching over my children.

I cannot see myself doing anything else. I did work before my children where born, but I believe that children should be taken care of by their mother not by a stranger, babysitter or daycare. I also had to do it only because of our finical ly status. But now we are financially stable, George is the one that does work, and I say home with my children.

We are both happy". George, on the other hand, does all the paid work. He could come home to rest and / or help with the children homework. Unlike Antony, he does not wash the dishes or sweep the floor.

The only thing he does in the second shift, is taking out the garbage. When I asked him why he does not do some laundry or help prepare meal, he stated:" I work from 8-6 and commute to the city (Manhattan). When I come home I want to rest, because I have a tough job, it is mentally draining. I know that Sherry likes to do the housework and she choose to be the primary one who works at home. I would not mine if she went to work outside the home, but then we would have more money to get extra help in the house". Here George identify himself with his job, and identify Sherry with the home, hence his transitional ideology.

Also, Sherry identifies her womanhood with the second shift, especially with the children, which depict her traditional ideology. Similar with the Delacortes family, in Hochschild study, Carmen Delacortes wanted to stay at home, because she wanted to be taken care of like Sherry, but Carmen had to work due to economic problems like Sherry in the beginning of her marriage. Another example, where Sherry traditional views and George transitional view is illustrated is paying the bills. George is in charge of paying the bills and has the last saying on it.

Sherry feels that she cannot be in charge of their household surplus because she does not contribute to it. With the examples from the roles Sherry and George takes on in the home is due to their gender ideologies. Both couples depicted my hypothesis, that the second shift its not equal share, no matter what gender ideologies you claimed to believe. Moreover, it proved Blair-Loy claim on the family devotion scheme. She stated", the family devotion scheme assigns responsibility for housework and child rearing to women". We could take both mothers, Gen and Sherry, as a support of this claim.

Both women did most and / or the entire second shift. Gen was responsible for bathing the children and papering meal, and Sherry did all the cooking and cleaning in the house, her primary and only responsibility was the house. Moreover, Blair-Loy studied twenty-five women and stated that some of those women did not question why the husband does not cut back in the paid work to spend time with the children. In the Mendoza family, Gen did not cut back her work hours to stay with the children, but did no question the claim Antony had which was that Gen was "naturally" better with Dean. In the Ortega family, Sherry, never question the he decision for staying home because she's views motherhood with the home, it's because of her traditional views. Due to Sherry's traditional views, Sherry is similar to some of the women in Blair-Loy studied because some women " adamantly distinguish themselves from full-time employed women, whom they believe fail to provide day-to-day intensive women".

Therefore, Sherry views Gen position on household as a negative notion. A statement that Sherry agreed with when I read it to her was, "Stay -at-home mothers imply that all these problems of kids who lack guidance, love, and support are connected to the problem of mothers who put their own interest ahead of the interest of their children". Sherry believes that it's a mother's job to take care of the children, and it should be mothers primary concern. Gen, is a working mother, and at times does feel guilty for working and not spending enough time with her children, especial Kyra because she is a baby. A woman named Angela, in Hays studies felt "guilty that she may not be spending a sufficient amount of time with him (her child)... ". due to her working outside the house. Sherry statement of working mother was due to the gender ideology norm of family roles, which has created the "mommy wars".

Gen on the other hand, did not claim stay-at-home lazy or uneducated, which is usually viewed as in the "mommy wars", but share the same notion of intensive mothering. Society still till this day, view the home sphere with women, but not men. Conclusion The family devotion scheme depends on a complementary but unequal relationship between husband and wife. This is caused by the stigma by society on family. Women are still seen as the primary responsible of the housework.

Even with The Mendoza family, where they claim to be egalitarians, there was not a balance relationship in the division of household labor. In the Ortega family, Sherry claimed to be the traditional wife, where she took care of the house while the man goes off to make the money for the family. "In the absence if patriarchy we would expect to find an equal sharing wage of work and housework: we find no such thing". Even, in this society where there is more freedom then the past, men are not connected with the home. We could see these in both families, where one family is an employed marriage, and the other has only one person working, still the women were the one who did most of the housework.

The placement of living also had an affect on their lives as well. As a native New York, the part of queens the Ortega family lives, would be consider as "suburbs" and the part of Brooklyn, the Mendoza family live in would be considered as the urban. Their surroundings affected their affirmation of their choice of gender ideology. In Queens, most women were stay-at-home mothers and expected the man to provides the finical needs. Sherry affirmed her notion of traditional mothers by giving examples of her neighbors to state that it's the "norm" to take at home and take care of your children. On the other hand, Gen lived in an area where most of the mothers worked outside the homes.

She stated that today, "women should not identify herself with only the home, but with the labor force as well". Both families' neighbor encouraged them to believe in their gender ideologies, which had some contradiction between what a person said they believed, their gender ideologies and what they actual did in the second shift. The Mendoza and Ortega family had one person, the wife / mother, doing more of the second shift, housework.