Work and Family Commitments of Low-Income and Impoverished Women by Hennessy Judith;

Author:Hennessy, Judith;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

According to Gina, to be motherly is to be moral. Although, she agrees that women should have the choice to work and raise children, like others we heard from earlier, she believes that women who devote too much time and attention to work do so at the expense of children. Professional women are suspected of putting their careers first—a choice that puts them in clear violation of culturally prescribed expectations of work and family. Thus, Gina’s embrace of family commitment assigns poor and low-income women who limit paid work to spend time with children to a clearly superior moral status compared to professional working mothers.

Gina also turns the tables on stigmatized depictions of mothers on welfare. Earlier she stated that given the choices they face, she views women on welfare caring for their children as having their children’s best interest at heart. In fact, when I asked her what she thought of the idea that it was better for mothers on welfare to work than stay home with their children, she looked incredulous and replied “mothers work all the time.” Moreover, in her view, poor mothers are viewed as morally worthy as a group demonstrated by putting their kids first in contrast to the valorization of paid work over raising children. A mother’s willingness to place her child’s welfare above material gain becomes the criteria for evaluating moral worth.

It is apparent that Gina, like other respondents, holds a vision of motherhood defined through the mandates of the family commitment schema. If women must work outside the home and place their children in day care, this is understood as a choice that generates considerable anguish. Given a choice, according to Gina, good mothers would not choose to work full-time and mothers who have to work must strive to place a child’s needs above theirs.

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