Media and Middle Class Moms by Lara J. Descartes Conrad Kottak

Author:Lara J. Descartes, Conrad Kottak [Lara J. Descartes, Conrad Kottak]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780415993098
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2009-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

DECIDING WHO STAYS HOME: WORK/FAMILY ADJUSTMENTS

[My husband would love for me] to get one kick-butt job, and he could just stay home and be Mr. Mom. He would love that, he’s got his gardening, he loves to bake pies, he’s actually more domesticated than I am.

—Cassidy, part time working mother of two, married to a full time working father

Gendered norms about marriage, child care, and breadwinning obviously also influence parents’ decisions about work and family. Audrey, for example, said when she and her husband had both worked they had experienced conflict about who would stay home when one of their children was sick. It was a relief for her to have that behind her once she stayed home full time. Several women reported that their husbands happily endorsed their decision to stay home. Ginny, a stay-at-home mother for several years, had worked full time until her second child was born, then went to part time, then stopped altogether:

Financially we didn’t want both of them in babysitting, and financially it wasn’t worth me working three days a week. I needed to work full time, and we never wanted to do that. [My husband] has always wanted me just to stay home anyways. And I did, too. I really wanted to be here for the girls.

Some parents said they had discussed having the father rather than the mother stay home, and many phrased this as “being Mr. Mom” (after the Michael Keaton movie of the same name) (cf. Deutsch 1999). Few, however, seemed to have considered it seriously. Viewing such an arrangement as a possibility seemed to meet a need to express ideologies of equality between the spouses. Not actually doing it fit with ongoing structural realities and cultural norms of female caregiving and male breadwinning. There were some exceptions. As noted, a few fathers stayed home when they suffered from health problems, and their wives took on more or all of the breadwinning burden. There also were some men who seemed genuinely frustrated with the narrowness of contemporary gender roles. Bryce was married to a woman who, because of a disability, could not work outside the home; she therefore served as primary caregiver for their child. Bryce said he would prefer a different situation: “I wish I could stay home and that [my wife] had the career. I would do it in a second … there’s nothing that has given me as much pleasure as my son, nothing that I have done.” Bryce described his impatience with standard gender roles regarding child care and work:

There’s one woman [at my old workplace], who [said], “I want to get married, I want kids, but I want to work. My husband doesn’t, but it’s the husband who should work.” … It’s just so caught up in roles that they think they should be doing. Here’s a case, she doesn’t want to stay home, her husband does. I don’t understand. I’d stay home in a heartbeat.

For most parents, however, earning the principal family income still was seen as a man’s responsibility.

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