Halving it All: “How I Did My Study”

Halving it All: “How I Did My Study” • Recruited 429 couples by a letter to dual earner couples at daycares and schools in New England • Word of mouth and snowball sampling • Random sampling using a local telephone directory • Result was 429 couples, each partner working at least 20 hrs a week and with at least one child under 18 Sociology 1201

Characteristics of sample • 96% white • Religiously diverse • Averaged 2 children • Average age of children: 5 and 8 • Over-represent upper middle class Sociology 1201

Initial telephone interviews • Asked to interview each partner out of hearing of the other • 15 minute interviews, asking about percentage of childcare by each, along with demographic questions • Key question: “Considering everything that goes into parenting in a typical week, what % do you do and what % does your spouse do.” Sociology 1201

Face-to-face interviews • Used the telephone interviews to choose 30 couples in each of five groups for face-to-face interviews • Equal sharers • Potential equal sharers (at least one spouse reported husband doing 50%+) • 60-40 couples • 75-25 couples • Alternating shift couples Sociology 1201

Face-to-face interviews II • Most participants interviewed at home • All interviewed by Deutsch • Interviews from 1-4 hours, averaging 2 hours • Questions listed beginning p. 243 Sociology 1201

Equally shared parenting • Many studies documenting that women, in the U.S. and in the world, do more than half of the parenting, even if: • They say they believe in equal sharing • E.g. Hochschild, Second Shift • They work comparable hours • They make comparable incomes Sociology 1201

My partner and I • Intention to share equally • First year after son’s birth: • Deutsch: “No matter how intensely you love them, caring for small children full time is incredibly hard work, much of it stressful, boring, and isolating.” • By second year and move to Duluth: • Dad teaching and Mom in nursing school • “Momdad” Sociology 1201

Creating Equality at Home • Deutsch: “As all parents do, they muddled through, adjusting as they go. Parenthood … has the capacity to change people’s deeply held beliefs, relation to work, relationships with other people, and even one’s identity. The magnitude of the changes parenthood entails almost always comes as a shock to new parents.” • “I had a complete mental image of parenthood that didn’t last twenty-four hours after Noah came home.” Daniel Sociology 1201

Creating Equality at Home • Many did not begin equal • Conflict/compromise • : e.g., Daniel and Janet—p. 22 • Kevin and Donna—the tasks chart • Often still involved specialization… • “Mary is more involved in their emotional lives” • “He(Kevin) is one of the few who truly share the mental work of parenting.” • Often the woman has the “higher standard” of what constitutes good parenting (Dan and Kaelene) Sociology 1201

Creating Inequality at Home • Helpers: “Eric will do stuff, but he wants to be asked.” Denise • Sharers: the men do more paid work but “when they are available, they are every bit as involved as their wives.” • Slackers: “the men who relax while their wives do the second shift”… see p. 46 Sociology 1201

Creating Inequality at home • Denise and Eric • Denise: “I have greater needs as a nurturer.” • Eric: “I’m either more selfish or I just don’t have the patience.” needs to nurture; Eric has more ambition. • Ethan and Peg: • Ethan: “I don’t have the opportunity or the desire… If I come home from work at six-thirty, seven, I’m tired, basically fatigued.” • Peg: “Sometimes I feel like I have no time for myself ever… There are days when I feel like I’m just going crazy.” Sociology 1201

Creating Inequality at home • Family myths? • Denise promotes the myth that Eric is the one with ambition (although she’s the one who went to graduate school) • Hochschild and symbolic interaction. The need to justify inequality if you’re going to accept it. • Deutsch: • “Notably absent from any of these explanations… is any mention of male power in resisting the work at home.” Sociology 1201

Fighting for equality • Dorothy: “I actually went on strike a few times.” • Roberta: “That is when we entered into our hard negotiations… I think I sort of learned to talk back—to sort of stand up for myself.” • Rita: “Of course we are always arguing about which way it’s tilted.” Sociology 1201

Fighting against equality • A husband: “She probably won’t sit still on a Sunday… She’s not happy unless she’s doing something. I’m different. I can relax.” • “Carol works 52 hours a week and also does virtually all the housework. When I asked how her husband responded to her desire for him to do more he said: “I just chuckle.” • …she seems resigned, perhaps because his behavior seems so normal…. “I see it in a lot of the guys.” Sociology 1201

Relationships and power • Class: what creates power in an intimate relationship? • Emerson: power/dependence theory • Hochschild, Second Shift, Peter and Nina: “the economy of gratitude” “I just kind of do it. He helps much more than a lot of fathers help.” Sociology 1201

Strategies of Resistance to equality “The raw spoken claim of male privilege seems to have become taboo.” • No initiative: “I’ll do anything you want… just tell me what.” • “I have to direct him and it’s just easier for me to do it.” • Passive resistance: “the kids could be yelling and screaming. He’s just oblivious.” Sociology 1201

Strategies II • Incompetence: “I wasn’t as good as Roz. Roz’s just good.” Many of the women learn these skills after they are married and the men could too. • Praise: “She’s wonderful as a mother.I feel lucky to have her as a partner because it takes a lot of the burden off me.” Sociology 1201

Strategies III • Different standards: Women often care more about keeping the house neat. Why? S.M. Miller • Deutsch: “The problem of what the children need is a more troubling one” • Denial: the husband who says he does 35% (she says 25%) and thinks he’s great, probably compared to his father • D: “The myth implicitly promulgated by these men is that their wives do the work at home… because they notice it, they’re better at it, and they enjoy it more.” Sociology 1201

The social context • The larger culture’s assumptions about women who work too much and men who share equally. Coworkers, bosses, mothers-in-law • Creating a new social world • ¾ of the equally sharing fathers know someone else doing the same • Only 18% of the 25-75 fathers • “Equal sharers… actively work to create this alternative world.” Sociology 1201

Money, time, work, family • Time at work: In the 75-25 families, fathers averaged 14 more hours of paid work per week than their partners • In the 50/50 families, only 1 hour more. • Earnings: controlling for hours worked, no difference among the 50/50, 60-40, and 50/50 families. Sociology 1201

Money, work and family II • “Gender influences three important types of job-related decisions parents make: how much time to allocate to paid employment, whether to take or give up opportunities for career advancement, and how to take advantage of potential flexibility in their jobs.” Sociology 1201

Career sacrifices • Many occupations have some room for limiting hours, but almost always at a cost in terms of advancement (remember Amerco, where you couldn’t be a top manager without working 70+ hours a week) • “Male investment and female disinvestment in jobs then fuels the inequality in parenting.” • “Gendered choices at one time do not preclude gender-resisting choices at another.” Sociology 1201

Downshifting to equality • Accept that in order to be a really involved and equal parent, you will have to accomplish less in the world of work than someone with no family commitments. • “Even Jonathan lives with regrets about his career, but he also knows that his career sacrifices have allowed him the happiest parts of his life, caring for his children.” Sociology 1201

Why Couples Don’t Practice What They Preach • “Gender equality often just doesn’t feel right?” “Intellectually I believe all the right things. I don’t always feel them correctly?” Why? • Deep-rooted cultural images about women and children, men and work • Implicit messages from coworkers, parents, peers Sociology 1201

Men and work • “Jobs were often seen as a given, nonnegotiable part of men’s identities. We saw in the last chapter that men usually maximize their job opportunities.” Instructor: How much of this is based on the upper middle class status of many of the men in her study? Sociology 1201

Women and Mothering One mother discovered a “very strong gut feeling of wanting to be part of her children’s lives in a major way.” Another woman said of her infant daughter: “I want to be with her every minute.” “Yet for every unequal mother who told me she found infant care immensely satisfying, I found many more who were desperately unhappy during the years they spent at home without paid work.” Sociology 1201

Switching places?? • D: “Two other mothers I interviewed, happily working part-time, saw themselves as relatively advantaged compared to their husbands… Both women claimed their husbands would love to change places with them.” • “Despite these mothers’ claims, their husbands weren’t the least bit interested in changing roles.” Sociology 1201

Alternating Shift Workers • Among dual-earner couples with children under 15, 51% have a parent working a non-day shift • Often a very equal division of family work and paid work • But a very different set of values and motivations than most of the upper middle class “equal sharers” Sociology 1201

Why work alternate shifts? • Finances • Childcare options: • “I get nervous having to trust somebody. There’s too many crazy people out there.” • “I don’t let people outside my family watch my kids.” • Values: “We both have the same understanding of how we want to raise our kids, with all the same goals and values.” Sociology 1201

Impact on fathers • “No father has changed more than David. David and Theresa have been alternating shifts longer than any of the other couples. …Today David looks like the model of the new man. He’s learned the practical skills of taking care of children, has become more emotionally tuned to them, and has developed a different understanding of men’s and women’s roles in the family.” Sociology 1201

Traditional gender ideology • Men are the breadwinners, agree both spouses, although a number of the women earn more per hour. • The mother is the primary parent, and again both spouses agree. • Husbands tend to maintain that their wives work only out of financial necessity; many of their wives disagree. Sociology 1201

Egalitarianism • “Despite the ways in which these working-class men and women assert traditional gender identities, it is important to note the egalitarianism of their lives.” Sociology 1201

Equality Works • “Equality is good for children. It is simply easier for two devoted parents to meet children’s needs…” • “Equal sharing can strengthen a marriage because family work, when shared, becomes a bond rather than a barrier to intimacy.” Sociology 1201

What needs to change to make equal sharing more possible? • “Careers are designed for men.” • “Conventional careers demand the willingness to put in long working hours, to relocate for good job opportunities, to shield work from personal responsibilities, and to give work priority over family. Career building at its most intense occurs during the childbearing years.” Sociology 1201

De-gendering parenthood • “Perhaps the thorniest issue in inventing truly genderless parenting is how we can reconstruct the meaning of motherhood. I wonder how most mothers would feel if their identity was simply expressed by the word ‘parent’ instead of ‘mother.’” Sociology 1201

Final words from changing parents • A mother: “I think a child can have two number ones, I really do… I am not afraid of losing my role.” • “When I asked Barry if he thought his child had two mothers or two fathers, he was surprised by his own answer. ‘Boy, that’s a great question and as much as it’s an affront to my masculinity, I think it’s more like two mothers. Yeah I really do.” Sociology 1201

Halving it All: “How I Did My Study”