Week 3- Mothering

Family & Work Blog
Week 3
Mothering

Ann Crittendon, “The Price of Motherhood.”

Crittendon opens her article with a good quote from Teddy Roosevelt, highlighting that a good mother is more important to the community than even the ablest man. I think this is a great quote to start her article, because it not only emphasizes the importance of mothers, but does so from a male influential perspective. She instantly gives credibility to her argument by quoting one of our nation’s greatest leaders. She then goes on to write that the very definition of a mother is selfless service to another, and that we don’t owe Mother for her gifts. I disagree with the second half of that statement, and personally believe that I owe my mother for everything she has done for me. I believe that I am very thankful to my mother but I know that there is absolutely no possible way to repay her for all she has done for me. It is true that in America, no figure is praised more highly than a mother, and I think that it should be no other way. Even many other influential people acknowledge that child rearing is the most important job in the world, because it is preparing the next generation, or as economists called it, creating “human capital.” However, despite these claims, female mothering is largely taken for granted.
Somehow, a negative stereotype of housewives has developed over the last twenty years. There are wrong assumptions that all they do is sit around and watch soap operas. This belief has even permeated into the minds of children, who despite all their mothers do for them show them little respect. This ideology horrifies me and just shows me how uniformed people really are. My own mother gave up her career to raise myself and my siblings, but I guarantee you that she works just as hard, and probably gets more work done in a single day than any of the “career” women. But care giving is not seen as a valuable asset in the workplace, and it is often penalized as seen in the three examples Crittendon lists. She was right on it when she wrote that the policies of United States government and business do not align with those of the importance of family. The policies of government, marriage, and work laws force mothers who take care of the children to be in the largest risk factor for future poverty. In pure economic terms it is very financially dangerous for a woman to be the mother society wants it to be. This is especially ironic that mothers are such a risk for poverty, when one stat from Crittendon’s research shows that for all the services they do, mothers should be paid six figures, and yet are paid nothing. This just shows something that I already knew; mothers are priceless.
Crittendon next makes an interesting comparison between mothers and our nation’s soldiers. Soldiers, like mothers, render a great service to our country. However, in the case of soldiers, they are rewarded for their efforts, shouldn’t mothers be as well? I agree with Crittendon that it goes beyond just wages or benefits for mothers. What is needed is a complete overhaul of the ideology behind every aspect of the system. It needs to be recognized that what mothers do is an essential component to our society. It is one that requires as much skills as any job today, and it is one that should rewarded, not degraded by the people in power, whom most likely, would not have gotten to the heights they have reached without their own mothers.

Michelle Budig, “The Wage Penalty for Motherhood”

I was not a big fan of this article, mainly because of the structure. It was written more like an article for a scientific journal, instead of one on sociology. That being said, Budig does provide some good evidence for why there is a wage penalty for women. Initially, she hypothesizes that there is this wage penalty due to four possibilities: lost job experience, less productivity at work, the choosing of lower paying mother friendly jobs, or discrimination by employers. These all seem like justifiable reasons for the apparent wage penalty and Budig than researches the validity of each claim. In the article Budig examines and critiques many past studies that she either has taken ideas from and gone further or that she finds relevant to her own presented research. Her major claim is that it is unfair for many aspects of society (future employers, peers, spouses etc.) to benefit from the proper upbringing of a child while the burden has been placed almost solely on the mother. Because of their motherhood, women often have to work for less wages, while at the same time creating a “free” asset for the future.
Budig shows that mothers do indeed earn less if they lose a job in the time of their child rearing. I believe it is illegal for a company to fire a woman for a pregnancy, but I know that it can be discouraged or frowned upon in the eyes of promotions or assignments. Budig also claims that women with continuous working experience have higher earnings that those with the same amount of time worked yet through interrupted segments. Another possibility that Budig addresses as a reason for the wage discrepancy is that mothers are less productive at work, because they are tired from or saving their energy to take care of their children. Companies value the ideal worker that places their work above all else, but that is just not the case with mothers. For most mothers, their children will always take precedence over their jobs. Considering these facts, women often seek “mother-friendly” jobs that are flexible and with paid leaves. However the irony of the matter is that, many of the jobs that come with those benefits are predominantly male jobs. Mothers are also a double disadvantage to the subtle discriminations in the work place. Not only are they subjected to the possible sex discrimination of being a woman, they also face some discriminations as mothers. And while there are laws against overt sex discrimination, there are no laws explicitly prohibiting parental discrimination.
A final, and interesting claim made by Budig is that motherhood and a lower wage are not necessarily causal, but possibly a spurious relationship. She believes that the same individual characteristics, like low academic skills or other factors that cause lower earnings for mothers also lead to higher childbearing. An interesting fact from the article was that there was a larger child penalty for married than unmarried, and for white than black women.
After spending a few pages addressing her materials, methods, variables and regressions, Budig comes to her conclusions. She found that there is indeed a wage penalty of about seven percent per child among American women. She found that one-third of this gap is caused by a loss of employment during the pregnancy or early years when time is taken off. She also found that the effects of motherhood are in fact causal and not spurious. She could not specifically determine where the rest of the gap is derived from, but she maintains that any of the hypothesized reasons could be correct. Lastly, Budig addresses the issue of society enjoying the “free ride” of well rounded children produced by mothers. She suggests that employers help to contribute more to mothers to make a broader redistribution of child rearing costs. However, this most likely will not be taken into effect as many businesses are simply struggling to get by in this economic downturn.

Patricia Hill Collins, “Black Women & Motherhood”

Like many of the articles we read, Collins starts hers with a quote that emphasizes some of the issues she is trying to address. This particular quote highlights the need for black women to honor their mother’s sacrifices. They need to get their own voice out there on the issue, because in history there has been a lot of talk and writing about black women by almost everyone except black women themselves. Due to this lack of true representation, there are many stereotypes or differing images of black women in the motherhood role. However, the strongest image is one of the “superstrong” black matriarch who should be admired and respected for her hard work in a harsh society. Most black men will be the first to praise their own mothers, but then do not elicit the same respect toward the young women they impregnate. They encourage the birth of the child and do believe that because their mother was strong enough to raise them, that these young girls inherently have the same characteristics.
Collins next addresses how many African American families use support systems of women to raise children. Many black children have “othermothers” who help share the mothering responsibilities. An interesting view was that Collins says women’s centrality in the family is not due to the simple absence of fathers but rather to the genuine significance of women. Women in the community often bond together to look after all the children and their develops what Collins terms “fictive” kin. But older women were not the only ones included in this team mothering approach. Young women, often as young as ten years old were asked to also help shoulder some of the load of child rearing. Giving true testament to the strength of these ideals, they remained intact even through the horrible period of slavery. In the periods after that though, when capitalism and the white middle class began to rise, children in that sphere began to be seen as “personal property” of the parents. Therefore the idea of community-raising ran as a direct challenge to the capitalist system.
Collins spends the next few pages examining the unique relationship between black mothers and daughters. Black mothers have the tough job of preparing their girls for necessary survival in their current life, while granting them the gifts and opportunities to create their own. They were forced to work in lower paying work so that they could provide and instill the right values in their own daughters who hopefully would strive for more. They really stressed the importance of education as the key to a better life. That is why it was devastating to many mothers when their teen age daughters became pregnant and defied their mothers wishes in keeping their babies. With a pregnancy, mothers knew that their dreams for their daughters to have a better life were fading. This belief is so strong that only 4 of 32 pregnant teenagers believed they could rely on their family members for support. The rest depended on friends, which only furthers the importance of a community to raise these children.
The next section is an interesting one where Collins talks about how black mothering can lead to political and cultural activism. Especially in the black community, the symbol of motherhood is one that elicits power and respect, a position that many mothers use to work on behalf of their children and community. This is not a feminist movement though, because these women are not fighting for their own rights, but for the rights of those around them. Mothers have a special place in the black community, and that is why many young women decide to keep their children in unwanted pregnancies. Their children provide them with a purpose and something to love, in a world that is many times lacking both. It gives them a sense of hope despite their harsh realities, and that is truly an encouraging thought.

Barbara Katz Rothman, “Women as Fathers”

This article by Rothman was another one that struck me as odd and took a truly unique look at the power struggle over children and parenting. Her thesis is that women, do not gain the rights to their children by being mothers, but instead by being “father equivalents,” as simply sources of genetic material. She claims that patriarchy is the central relationship in all society, and even quotes a Bible verse. She says that men contribute their “seed” as the most crucial part of child formation. Our current system is not classically patriarchal but is not a mother-based one either. As a person who understands biology, the patriarchal view that only the male seed is necessary is ridiculous, because women’s eggs are just important “seed” components. Rothman says that there was a transformation to the acceptance of women’s seed, and because now men and women were even on that front, that men’s economic superiority becomes more important.
Rothman next discusses something that I had never thought of before, the difference of control relating to genetic relationships. It is interesting that even though genetically speaking a parent-child relationship is identical to a sibling-sibling one, there are great cultural and social differences. Parents are bestowed special rights and claims that are not given to siblings even though they both are related the same genetically. This really highlights the importance our culture places on the parent-child relationship.
The next topic Rothman looks at is the diminishing specialness of motherhood with the advance of modern technology. Now there are so many options to true motherhood that it has possibly lost its meaning. Now it is possible for a different woman to be pregnant with another woman’s child, and it is pretty common for housekeepers or nannies to be the exclusive care givers. Because these social relationships are not between biological mother and child, there once again becomes an emphasis on the genetic ties to determine parenthood. Mothers who are unable to spend time influencing their own children are taught to bestow upon the hired caregivers the feelings and thoughts on how to treat their children. Many of these mothers want and need these caregivers to help them raise their child on a daily basis, but yet do not want their children to relate to or desire the caregiver more. Rothman brings up an interesting point that while caregivers might not try to be the mothering figure, they are asked to play that part and I do question what their thought process is or what they are feeling as they do the most mothering of activities to a child that is not their own. Rothman agrees that maybe in a better world people wouldn’t be hired to take care of other children, but that is not a realistic concept. Some people have to work and someone has to look after the children. What must be made clear though is that one person is not a replacement for another and that they are in fact there as a separate entity.