An Evaluation of Two Income Families
By Sherrie Benhumea
In the 1989 book, The Second Shift, Arlie Hochschild discusses how married parents cope with the demands of a career and parenthood. Hochschild interviews eight couples who are having problems equally sharing what Hochschild calls the "Second shift", or the work that remains to be done at home when both parents return from work. During the interviews she shows the wives a picture of a working mother striding forward with flying hair, briefcase in one hand, a child in the other, and the wives "... responded with an outright laugh" (1). Working women with families endure an incredible amount of stress and can not imagine appearing so care free. In an overwhelming majority of the couples, the women bear the responsibility of taking care of the second shift. "One national random sample ... found that working women averaged three hours a day on housework while men averaged 17 minutes; women spent fifty minutes a day ... with their children; men spent twelve minutes" (3). Hochschild estimates that women work an extra month of twenty-four hour days a year! No wonder working women are more tired and anxious than housewives (4).
Unfortunately, most men are reluctant to share an equal amount of housework and childcare even when both parents put in the same number of work hours outside the home. Even though the women usually decide to do the majority of work in the second shift, it is not without bitterness and resentment. In one instance, the wife agrees to take care of the second shift after many failed attempts to get her husband to help, but later she withholds sex from him as an act of deliberate punishment. She laments, "... I would not be this exhausted and asexual every night if I didn't have so much to face every morning" (42).
Another couple, both full-time attorneys, marries with the intention of honoring both law degrees equally (I 11). However, during the marriage, his career becomes more important and his wife becomes bitterly unhappy. The wife resorts to hiring help to fill the void that her husband refuses to fill. She has drivers, a full-time maid, babysitters, and gardeners to assist her so that she can keep up her demanding work schedule without sacrificing what needs to be taken care of at home. Hochschild observes that "... [she] had hired many parts of the attentive suburban mother; but she could not hire the soul of that person- the planner, the empathizer, the mother herself' (12 1). Not only do her children suffer from lack of maternal care, her husband "fantasizes about having the 'right' kind of wife" (119), or a wife who does not work.
Some mothers resort to the "super mom" strategy to stay ahead. According to Hochschild, "... supermoming was a common working mother's strategy for coping with the work at home without imposing on their husbands" (195). After a full day of work, one mother strives to spend quality time with her daughter, even keeping her little one up past her bedtime, but later sacrifices her own sleep by pulling an all-nighter to catch up on writing reports for her job as asocial worker. I don't feel any conflict between the job and the child that way at all" (55), she says.
One mother admits to wishing she could stay home to be "... a milk and cookies mom" (6 1), but her husband's meager salary is not sufficient to live on. During an interview, Hochschild feels that the wife expresses pleasure in working but minimizes it's importance in order for her to feel like she is playing the traditional role of wife and mother and not sacrificing her husband's ego. Hochschild finds it ironic that the wife feels this way. The wife gets to "... enjoy her work even when she wasn't supposed to." (63). Her husband tries to save his pride by explaining that she was "really at home," because she works at home as babysitter. With this rationalization in place he believes he is a traditional husband with a traditional wife.
One wife, a vice president of a large electronics firm, contemplates quitting her lucrative career to stay at home with her two children. She is expected to go on a business trip, yet her daughter is ill. She is feeling very torn between her company's expectations of her and her children's needs. Hochschild reveals that many working mothers of large corporations feel that management possesses anti-family attitudes. "It's all right to take time off to baby a client, just so long as it's not your own child" (96). Eventually, this mother quits. However, she feels an underlying sadness over what she has given up. Hochschild reveals that "... her career had been basic to her identity" (98).
For the majority of the women in this book, their pre-conceived ideals about what an egalitarian marriage should be like were replaced by the reality that most men still prefer to adhere to their traditional role. There are some exceptions, however. Two men in the book "... fully share the responsibility for actual work around the house" (173). Hochschild believes that these two men are leading the way into a third stage of manhood (187). She optimistically believes that eventually more of these third stage husbands will emerge to help all the mothers who will undoubtedly insist on having the best of two worlds.
Dana Mack, who writes The Assault-on Parenthood: How Our Culture Undermines the Family, says that there is no such thing as having your cake and eating it too. Dana Mack claims our society is anti-family. Mothers would stay home, thus solving many if not all of today's common ills, if society would not put so much pressure on them to work.
Mack interviews parents who also commonly complain about the rising social and economic pressures that force women to work. When the entire family is driven from home, it leads to a destruction of the family life (17). Mack strongly feels that children need at least one parent at home full-time and is quick to show that the parents she interviews feel the same way. When parents are asked how their lives could be improved they say, "We need less work ... and more family time together" (22). Mack's position against a dual career family would almost seem contradictory because she is also a working parent, but she later announces that she has a househusband.
Mack discusses the advantages of not trying to "have it all." One father, after quitting his job as an electrical engineer, says "he has never looked back," and that "more than half his share went to day care and before and after care" (263). Women who left careers to stay at home said "... if they could 'revise history,' they would 'choose again to stay home' with their children, and although almost three-quarters of the women had professional training or college or graduate-level degrees, more than 60 percent of them had no firm plans to go back into the labor force" (263). It seems that once mothers or fathers give full-time parenting a try, they are reluctant to return to work. Mack also points out that the monetary benefits of a dual career marriage are not as significant as one might suppose because "... the average decline in household income reported by these nonworking mothers was just over $9,000 a year, less than the amount of money - including child care, clothing, transportation, and income tax- that it would cost them to go to work in the first place" (263).
Mack shuns feminism and professional childcare. Mack quotes Fox-Genovese as saying, "Traditional feminists, with their professional child care 'scenarios', are snobs who lack 'any sense of who will really take care of the children, unless, of course, you assume that children do not need much attention beyond that which can be provided by servants" (196). Mack also claims feminists are "spoiled' and "self obsessed."
Mack asserts "... many well-meaning parents often forget that their priorities should lie with raising their families and not with achieving a certain economic lifestyle" (52). Having more money through a dual career marriage is certainly an enticing incentive, but one must remember how much it may cost in terms of time sacrificed with one's children. Mack's sentiments are summed up by one father who says, "If I work forty hours a week and my wife works forty hours a week ... there is no time for the kids ... Don't just have the kids and not have time for them and then say, 'Well we have to go to work'"... (52).
Mack blames parents for possessing "... an ideology of expressive individualism that has ... driven them to put self-realization before their children's needs" (15). Parents should not be focused on their own personal fulfillment if it detracts from what should be their primary focus as parents, their own children. If parents are not focused on their children, Mack warns that the media, educators, as well as peers, will overly influence children in a negative way. One father says, "... you just pray that the seed you planted in them protects them from the temptations out there" (17).
Mack also attacks day care centers as being inadequate substitutions for the traditional mother at home. "Several studies in the 1980's indicated that grouping very young children together for extended periods may pose unnecessary threats to heir physical well-being... [and] ... the early day care experience had long-lasting negative effects on self-discipline" (18 1). Mack explains that the younger the child is exposed to day care the more detrimental the effects to the child's psychological health and development.
Many parents express a woeful longing to be with their children in addition to worrying about the possible harmful effects of group care. One mother mourns, "Someone else is raising my children." (19).
Mack then illustrates how public education, sex education in schools, child welfare reform, tax cuts for single people and childless married couples, and companies that discourage home-based work and flex time, undermine the traditional family. I believe Mack is successful in scaring to death any new mother who is planning to combine a full-time career outside the home with parenting. Perhaps Mack feels society needs a good scare so we can sit down and think about what is really important and what harm society can do to our children if we all not at constant vigil.
Mack began her project writing this book in 1992. She spent three years interviewing over 250 parents across the country. She used focus groups as well as private interviews. She also visited classrooms to overhear what was taught in sex and drug education classes. Mack also drew her work from an extensive list of works cited in her bibliography.
Hochschild's approach to her book was similar to Mack's in that she also used interviews to supply her with data for her work. She interviewed 145 people, including couples, baby-sitters, daycare workers, and schoolteachers. She visited their homes and mailed out questionnaires. When Hochschild was in a couple's home she used the naturalistic approach. She spent eight years getting to know many different couples intimately, but ultimately uses just eight couples for her book.
When I read Hochschild's book, The Second Shift my first reaction was dismay! As a child I had envisioned the dual career marriage as an ideal, something that I would certainly aspire to. I did not want to become just a housewife like my mother and grandmother, who repeatedly expressed remorse and sadness that they had not pursued a more interesting if not more fulfilling life. Many women in Hochchild's book expressed this same sentiment. One wife said, "Even though I had a newborn, I was still ashamed not to be working ... I had boxes of my mail delivered to my house because I didn't want the construction workers to think I was just a housewife" (98). However, when I married and made the decision to start a family, my previous ideologies about what I 'should' do just did not fit anymore. I knew that society would view me as unproductive and practically worthless as a housewife. When asked to fill in occupation for an application for a car loan, I was asked if I was sure I wanted to put housewife. They asked if I would like to instead write student, therefore indicating a positive move away from my now unfortunate predicament!
From the moment my first child was born I never swayed away from the idea that it just felt right to be home with her. I could not fathom relinquishing my child's care to any other human being. I knew I was the most capable person to provide care for her, and I enjoyed my work immensely.
However, I could not help feeling inferior to the "flying hair" career women. I went back to school after an extended absence and looked forward to eventually having a career outside the home. Now that I will be graduating from L.B.C.C. this semester, I am even closer to my goal of becoming a teacher, and I have to admit, I'm scared! Reading Hochschild's book confirms my fears. I could not admire nor envy any of the working mothers in her book. I viewed their hectic lifestyles as stressful and unfalfilling. I know if I worked forty hours a week, it would be impossible to maintain the same standards I know impose upon myself, with regards to both my children and my housework. And if someone asked me if I really consider a tidy house and well being of my children above all else, I would have to answer yes. I feel sad that someday I will work and leave my traditional role behind. Our society does not consider that what I do now is work, and does not consider it a valuable profession. I wish people would accept my role as housewife, and not asked me, "But what do you really want to do?"
When I read Dana Mack's book, The Assault on Parenthood I was impressed that she viewed parenting as an important job. Unlike in the Second Shift where the women felt remorseful for cutting back their hours at work or depressed about quitting, the women in Mack's book wanted to have more family time and less work hours. The underlying message was that family was first. If you put your career first, Mack called you selfish, and I would agree. Children's needs should not be casually swept aside so parents can focus on pursuing careers. Careers may allow parents the ability to afford luxuries like a bigger home, a newer car, and pricey designer label clothes, but any young child will tell you that these things do not matter. I believe it is his voice that we should be listening to.
What also interested me about Mack's book was how the government, schools, and companies alike, undermine the family. I never even thought about the validity of Mack's ideas until I read her book and remembered my own personal experience. Last year when my daughter was enrolled in Head Start Preschool I got a good dose of unwelcome government intervention. When my daughter did not eat her lunch, the nutritionists called me. When she was shy and refused to talk the first few weeks of school, the school psychologists was notified. She was almost subjected to their "special needs program" when she finally decided to talk. When she weighed a pound over what the charts dictate as healthy, I was promptly accused of feeding her too many fast food dinners! I was required to attend parenting classes that made me feel like they thought I was too incompetent to even know the correct way to raise my daughter. I felt that I did not need to go to their classes and I did not want them to "help" me. I am a good mother and know how to do my job, but I never felt trusted by Head Start employees. They made me feel like I was a potential child abuser because of my low income status. Mack has a point when she said government programs can undermine the family. I suppose they are meant to help, but it left me feeling manipulated and mistrusted.
Hochschild and Mack have distinctively different ideologies. Mack criticizes Hochschild's work as "... betraying the fallacious assumption that in the modem world it is up to institutions, and not up to parents, to rear children" (21). Mack criticizes support for more day care institutions and believes it is better to support the family in fulfilling those obligations. Hochschild virtually ignores the needs of the children in her interviews with the couples, focusing instead on the needs of the wife to have her career and to have help at home, provided by either servants or her husband.
Hochschild's philosophy coincides with Mack's when she admits, "Devalued as the work of rearing children is, it is probably one of the most humanly rewarding occupations" (262). She also sadly mentions how children of working parents have to always hurry, and that time spent talking and cuddling is lacking. However, even when children are clearly victims of neglect by Mack's standards, Hochschild says that when grown children of two job families are "... asked to put the advantages and disadvantages together, both men and women felt the advantages won".
What does the future hold for our families? Will there be more extended day care services to serve the ever-increasing two income families, or a backlash of modem ideals and more stay at home mothers? Or will there be more egalitarian husbands that will share the second shift? I only hope that the children will not be forgotten in this world of people who want to have their cake and eat it, too.
Bibliography
Hochschild, Arlie. The Second Shift. New York: Viking Penguin, 1989.
Mack ,Dana. The Assault on Parenthood: How Our Culture Undermines the
Family. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.