Blog #7

Julia and Jacqueline’s struggle to find quality healthcare is described in chapter 3 of Chaudry. Julia did not have the father involved very much in the life of Jacqueline. He did watch Jacqueline for awhile in the beginning, while Julia attended community college but then he left and eventually ended up in jail in New Jersey. Julia had to stay home during this time. Factors that contributed to Julia’s obstacles in obtaining child care include: lack of education, lack of work, discrepancies in welfare and other government programs, and a poor family life. Julia did not have a mother or family members who she could count on to watch her child. Her sister was able to provide care for awhile but that stopped when her sister had to get a job. Jacqueline stayed in a family home care environment for awhile, where she was looked after properly and enjoyed the environment. Julia experienced problems with her welfare. They were late with payments to the providers and on one occasion lost her paperwork. Julia had to alter her work schedule when she got hired full-time and this affected the current care she was receivin. Julia was dropped from her public assistance and because of this she no longer received food stamps or housing assistance and with the added expenses and she was forced to take Jacqueline out of the home care situation that Jacqueline so enjoyed. Chaudry points out that it was when Julia was provided with good child care that she was able to move up in the work world and improve her life. When her child care situation became difficult, she faced more struggle in her work life. Chaudry concludes that having good child care leads to an improved lifestyle and improved overall work situations.

Minimum wage jobs add to a poor woman’s ability to find and maintain stable and safe childcare and career improvements because it is extremely difficult to actually get ahead in a minimum wage job. The video, “American Low Wage Worker’s Tour”, describes how minimum wage jobs usually do not offer health insurance. Woman in minimum wage jobs usually live paycheck to paycheck and have to sacrifice certain necessities to provide for other ones. Child care is very expensive and if you only work a minimum wage job it is nearly impossible to afford decent childcare. Because of this, woman have to resort to less reliable sources of childcare such as an untrustworthy family member or a sketchy babysitter. Child care subsidies are difficult to receive and still do not cover all the costs. In a minimum wage job, it seems nearly impossible for a single woman to find and maintain stable and safe childcare, which makes it virtually impossible for them to improve in their careers.

Interview

I will be interviewing my mother for this assignment. I chose to interview my mother because she has always worked ever since she had kids. She was a mother at a young age of 21 and raised four children total. In order to make ends meet, she established her own business. She has always worked so hard for my entire life in order to provide for my siblings and myself and I have the utmost respect for her as a person. She has always encouraged us to be the best we can be and has always stressed the importance of having a good education. I am interviewing her because I think she provide excellent insight regarding the experiences of a working mother since she has done it for over 25 years. She has used various types of child care in order to be able to work and I think it is good to have opinions on various types of child care. I have basically used the model in Appendix C to form my interview questions.

Blog # 6 - Cost of Child Care

In Chapter two of “Putting Children First”, Chaudry describes a variety of child care options available to mothers. The chapter begins with the story of Brittany and Bethany and the struggle Brittany faced in finding consistent and constructive child care for Bethany. Bethany tried various methods of child care including kin care, work care, and family day care. The stories supplemented by single mothers in this chapter outline the pros and cons of the types of care made available for their children.

Kin care is the type of care where a family member watches the child while the parent works. Some mothers, such as Harriet, prefer kin care because they feel they can have complete trust in the person watching their child. Kin care is cheap and usually convenient. However, kin care is often short term and does not provide the structure and educational opportunities that other types of care provide. Family day care is a day care inside of a person’s home, with one care provider who watches over many different children. This is a licensed and subsidized form of care and consists of wide variations since the providers are all different. A major con of this type of care is that there are no learning opportunities. Center care is preferred by many mothers, even though there are differences as to when it is best to put the child in center care. Center care is beneficial for the child because it offers structure and learning opportunities. However, center care is much harder to arrange than kin or family care. In Edwina’s story, she had to lie to get her child into a center because the centers in her neighborhood had extensive waiting lists of around 500 children. Other care arrangements include father care, special needs care, and mother’s care while working. The Applied Research Center website provides substantial evidence regarding childcare. For instance, the amount of licensed centers has significantly decreased since 2000 while the amount of unlicensed centers has increased. Many mothers would prefer a certain type of childcare but simply cannot afford or attain it due to affordability, long waiting lists, insufficient subsidies, etc. However it appears that the majority of mothers' ideal child care is one in which their children are placed in structured and educational environments.

Many people are striving to improve child care conditions, such as Congresswoman Schroeder, who in her National Family Policy would like to acquire benefits for part-time workers and abolish unfair wages, meaning that men are still getting paid more than women in the same positions. Also, many care centers are created to make affordable care available and provide many opportunities for the children. In the “California Child Care Crisis News Coverage” video, one day care center is interviewed and while it cares for many children, the center remains a positive environment in their lives.

Blog #5

Chaudry makes the argument that “we are asking the less fortunate to strive and work harder, we are deeply discounting our public responsibility for the children born into poor families and disadvantaged communities” because of politics on welfare reform. Chaudry writes that since the government stressed that work is the way to rise out of poverty, it has actually created a variety of obstacles. Among these obstacles is finding affordable child care. In Chaudry’s story of Annette and her son Aaron, Annette has much difficulty in finding quality and affordable child care for her infant son while she struggles to work two part-time jobs. In Chapter One of “Putting Children First”, Chaudry emphasizes the inconsistency with child care among the working poor and the flaws of subsidies for child care. Annette received child care subsidies from one of her employers, yet she still had to use some of her own money to compensate for the leftover amount. It is difficult for the working poor to find child care at an affordable price where their children will also be encouraged to learn. I think that this discounts our responsibility toward children born into poor families because they are provided with fewer advantages from the start of their lives.

The video clips support Chaudry’s argument because they also discuss the inconsistencies of child care among the working poor. For instance, in “Living with a Hole in your Pocket”, the people discuss the “viscous cycle” of living paycheck to paycheck and never really getting ahead. These working poor are not able to save money for their children’s education, or even afford health or life insurance. In the “Working Poor” video, various individuals describe the working poor as people who earn a wage but still do not earn enough money to subsist at a higher level. In “Poverty in America”, we learn that 37 million people are living below the poverty line. According to the government, the poverty line equals a family of four earning less than $20,614.00 but the cost breakdown of living provided in the video proves that it is essentially impossible for any family of four to live comfortably on this income. Professor Katherine Newman draws attention to the fact that the close to poverty poor people are often not even considered in policy making agendas. Many of the close to poverty poor have been able to rise above the poverty line through acquiring debt, yet they still can not often even afford health insurance.

While I feel that these are extremely serious issues that deserve attention, I am still hesitant to say that more federal or state aid is the answer. I think many factors come into play when considering these situations. I do not believe that people should have children if they do not have the means to support them. I think Annette should have given her baby up for adoption rather than raising him in an unhealthy environment. I do believe that mothers like Annette need to take personal responsibility for their actions and if you choose to bring a baby into the world that you cannot actually afford to take care of, than there are certain consequences you will obviously have to face, and extreme struggle is among those consequences. Planned Parenthood offers extremely cheap birth control and free condoms and I believe that if you are irresponsible enough to get pregnant by some deadbeat than you must realize that you are going to have to seriously work hard to provide for your children. I think it would be nice if everyone had healthcare so that children would not have to suffer due to the status and choices of their parents. I think it would be great if more companies had an incentive to provide free or extremely cheap child care to their employees. These children are born into situations that they cannot control and it is unfortunate that because their mothers have to work so hard to provide for them, that they are not given the same advantages of children in the middle and upper classes.

Balancing Work & Family - Blog #4

Time, support, respect, and love are elements that constitute a good family life. Time should be spent between all family members so that strong bonds can be built. It is important for kids to spend time with their parents so that they will feel loved and cared for. It is important that parents have leisure time to spend with each other as well. I think supporting your family members is a huge characteristic of good family life. It is difficult to feel confident if you do not have family support. Respect is also important because parents should have respect for each other which sets an example to their children that both parents are equal and valued in the family. Families provide a sense of identity for their individuals. I believe it is these characteristics that shape strong, independent, and happy people.

Balancing a career and a family proves difficult for people who are faced with this challenge. In our time, often both parents hold jobs and have less time to stay at home with children. Women feel more guilt for having a career than men which is likely a cause to the notions set by society that women should be nurturers. To balance a career and a family is costly and stressful. For instance, having to provide daycare for your children proves to be extremely expensive. One woman in one of the video clips suggests that women who work but want to have children should start out with doing something flexible. It is more difficult to approach an employer and let them know that you want to work less. This situation must be presented professionally to the employer. Many factors contribute to the difficulty of balancing a career and a family. People in this situation feel as though they are constantly in a rush or exhausted. Not having enough leisure time to spend with yourself and with your family can be permanently damaging to everyone in the family.

Changes in the traditional gender roles has made work and family life more complex because both parents are constantly busy and trying to balance both aspects of this lifestyle. Two-thirds of spouses today both work. Men are taking on more household responsibilities, but women still feel that they are responsible for making sure the house is clean and that dinner is ready. The fact that more moms are working now has added much more stress for females. More families today are single parent families, which is very difficult because they have no choice but to balance both lifestyles and they have to do it alone. Men and women are frequently forced to get additional part-time jobs just to make ends meet. More and more people also go to school, work, and balance a family life, and with that added responsibility of school, life becomes even more intense.

Employers in the United States could look to the United Kingdom as an example for being sensitive to their employees’ family needs and obligations. Employers should allow people to have more flexible schedules – whether it is through shift changes or working from home – in order to balance both aspects of life without becoming too overwhelmed. As long as the employee remains as productive there should not be an issue in allowing this flexibility. Many times employers do not think about the stresses that people face outside of the work environmnet, especially women, who must balance work and family. I think it is important for people to be considerate of these obligations and put themselves in others’ shoes from time to time.

Support is hugely important when it comes to balancing work and family. If a person has no support from their friends, family, or neighbors, it makes it extremely more difficult to manage. With the support from these various people, responsibilities can be divided up and shared. For example, car-pooling with neighbors is a huge time saver and benefit for working individuals. Having a spouse who is supportive of dividing up responsibilities is going to be much more productive than one who refuses to help. Having support from the people in your life creates more leisure time, which is often hard to come by in this day and age and in our society. Balancing priorities with the support of others is significantly less stressful than having no support.

Sex Segregation and Socialization - Blog #2

Sex segregation means that there are boundaries that exist between males and females, which often result in unfair conditions for women. Sex segregation is created in our society through a variety of means; unequal pay between genders, stereotypes, and the media.

I have never personally thought about sex segregation in the employment at Arizona State University, however, the majority of my professors have been and currently are male. Since being enrolled at ASU (for the past two years), I have only had two female professors. Most of the teachers’ assistants tend to be women. I have encountered more women working in advising positions or service positions on campus than men. This could be a result of the belief that women are more likely to take positions that “assist” rather than aiming for the top positions in society.

Socialization in relation to gender is encountered everyday in every aspect of my life. Even when I do not realize that sex segregation is occurring, it is still constantly there. In my home life, growing up my sisters and I played with dolls while my brother played with cars and legos. We fed our dolls, read to them, cuddled them, and were “nurturers” in training from a very young age. I think while children are being raised, female children are raised to put family as a top priority whereas as male children are raised to put independence and hard work as a top priority. Gender roles play a huge role in shaping individuals because they are everywhere. In a school environment, boys are more likely to play sports, be playful and goofy, and be more independent while females are cliquey and more judgmental to their fellow female peers. Girls are also viewed as more gossipy than boys even though boys participate in gossip as well. Work environments produce gender roles because many women take secretarial positions or other jobs that are thought of as “a woman’s job”. When I worked in a law firm, it seemed that at least 90 percent of paralegals and secretaries were females, while the majority of attorneys were males. While many women are still struggling to become the breadwinners of their families, it seems more women than men are inclined to work part-time or quit their jobs completely once they have children. All of these societal gender roles larger contribute to our patriarchal society.

While women today are less likely to be laid off than men, according to the NPR report, “Moms become Breadwinners as Job Losses Hit Men”, there is still an uneven impact on the labor force. Women are still only making .77 cents to every dollar a man makes. Also, the types of jobs that women have are not likely to provide benefits such as life insurance and healthcare. Women are struggling to fill the role of the mother as well as the sole breadwinner and many women have had to take on second jobs. Therefore, even though more men are unemployed, women are still not reaping the same benefits from being the breadwinners as their male counterparts.

Home and Work/Public and Private - Blog #3

Personally I have not really had to experience carework within my family. I suppose you could consider helping out with babysitting my younger siblings so that both of my parents could work, as an example. Fortunately though, no one in my immediate family has gotten seriously ill. I lost an aunt and a cousin to cancer, and I know that it was extremely difficult for their immediate family to balance their lives to care for them. It is necessary for someone to always be around to take care of them when the situation worsens and the ill can no longer do daily functions by themselves. You also know that you have a limited time with these loved ones and want to take advantage of that time. I cannot imagine how extremely emotionally and mentally difficult it would be to have to give up your career in order to fully care for another person.

“Juggling Work and Care” demonstrated how different businesses within the UK are accommodating to employees’ need when they must also be a caregiver. Businesses enabled employees to work from home, work odd shifts, and offered support to caregivers. An internet networking site, where information, suggestions, and experiences of caregivers can be shared, was created in the UK to better assist people in this situation. By doing this, employers found that there was no decrease in work productivity, and that their employees became more loyal and committed to the company. With a plan like this, people are able to keep their jobs and continue taking care of their loved ones. These options create less stress for employees and overall are a really generous and efficient way to cater to the needs of everyone.

“Women’s work” is described as being all the household work; laundry, cleaning, cooking, taking care of the kids. “Men’s work” is everything outside of the home or tasks such as car repairs and mowing. These ideals of gender roles have existed since the beginning of time and in modern day “women’s work” is not always considered “real work”. Society needs to focus less on these gender roles through the media and through general notions that this is the way things should be. Almost all cleaning supplies ads are targeted toward women; showing women cleaning, cooking, and running errands. I think society should portray women in professional environments more frequently and display men in household environments more often. I think the public should educate themselves on the pay disparity between genders. Also, society should recognize care as “real work” and that it is also an economically stimulating aspect of life. If society could rid themselves of these engrained gender notions, I think it would help achieve gender equality.