Work and Family

As the youngest of three children, I always had a nanny present during my childhood. My mother worked and needed help around the house, especially having three children under the age of seven. The nanny I remember best was Theresa. She came from the Philippines and had left a family behind. She was probably my nanny from the time I was three until I was about ten years old. I felt that she wasn’t just my nanny she was like one of my friends. Because of this I am definitely able to identify with Hochschild’s article Love and Gold. Theresa took on many of the traditional mother roles: cooking, cleaning, caring for my siblings and me, and helping with homework. She was not just hired help; she came to be part of our family and even started to call my grandmother Bubbie (Jewish word for grandmother). I now can see how these women, mentioned by Hochschild, transfer their love that they should have for their family back home to the family and children they are currently living with and caring for. It is hard to feel a connection with someone who you haven’t seen for five years, and don’t even know how they will react towards you when you see them next. These nannys see the children they take care of everyday and so they know that the love they feel for them is mutual.

In Scaling-Back: Dual-earner Couples’ Work-Family Strategies, strategies are mentioned in order to scale back on the amount of time couples work in order to spend more time with the family. In my family my father is a dentist and as his own boss he is able to make his own hours. For our family this means that he ends work at 2:00 pm on Wednesdays and 12:00 pm on Fridays. This meant that he was able to spend time with us when we got home from school when we were younger. This article was contradicted by Hochschild’s article entitled Emotional Geography which stated that many people enjoy spending time at work as oppose to being home. This is probably due to the differentiation in family dynamics, ie: that some people come home to a happy peaceful house and others come home to chaos. I’m sure those who come home to chaos would rather spend a few extra hours in a calm office environment daily.

1. Do you think that the increasing amount of hours spent at work leads to more marital affairs?

2. Do you think that statistics found in Getting A Job would deter a mother from entering the workforce? Is there the same amount of gender inequality when the top boss is a female?

3. Does scaling back always lead to more time spent with the family? Does it lead to resentment? Do you think a child can read into this, in terms of the eavesdropping child?