Parenting and Working

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Chapter 13

• Parenting and Working
• Pages 435-457

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Parenting and Working

• Our understanding of the topic is limited because
  of
• The many aspects to the work experience
• The many work and childcare patterns over time
• The different affect parents work have on each
  child
• The change in the affect as the work changes or
  societys adaptations change

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Dimensions of Participation in Work and Family

• Role each parent takes may be either
• Involvement
• Father may take care of children periodically
• Responsibility
• Mother is usually responsible for childcare
  arrangements
• List on page 435 has 6 areas of participation

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Types of Families

• 3 family types in terms of work and parenting
  characteristics
• 1.High-status
• Both parents high levels of education and job
  status
• Highly involved in work and more money
• Shared tasks equally
• Great deal of work overload and stress
• More marital conflict, less marital satisfaction,
  less love
• Children were not aware of the conflicts
• Conflicts did not affect how parents treated
  children

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Types of Families

• 2.Low-stress
• Both parents had low levels of work overload
• High marital satisfaction and love, low levels of
  conflict
• Both parents available to monitor children
• Improved functioning of children

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Types of Families

• 3.Main-secondary
• Fathers were main income
• Mothers provided small extra income
• Lowest incomes
• Most traditional organization of family
• Daughters did more feminine tasks
• Marital satisfaction and level of conflict fell
  between other 2 types

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Types of Families

• DeutschsFour patterns of working and parenting
• 1.Equal sharers
• Both parents shared equally in work and parenting
  responsibilities
• 2.60-40 couples
• 3.75-25 couples
• 4.Alternating shifters
• Parents worked different shifts
• Womens income is often important
• Women felt more power and appreciation

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Types of Families

• Deutschs conclusions
• Patterns of work influenced WAY of being with
  child, not total amount of time spent
• Equal sharers
• mothers spent less time alone with children than
  other groups
• Fathers spent more time alone
• Parents spent more time together with children
• Four groups did not differ a great deal in
  politics, education or class
• Differed in how they figured out issues of
  childcare and household tasks

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Types of Families

• 3 strategies for 2 career families to scale back
  work demands
• 1.Placing limits (30)
• Turned down jobs or promotions
• Refused overtime
• 2.Job-versus-career (40)
• One parent have an absorbing career
• Other parent having an income producing Job
• 3.Trading-off
• Parents shifted between career and jobs
  depending on family needs and career
  opportunities

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Types of Families

• Conclusions on scaling-back
• Private solutions to a public workplace problems
• Work can make demands on parents, but do little
  to help them meet family needs
• Families use many strategies to meet work and
  family needs

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Childrens Ratings of Parents

• Children generally give parents high marks
• Table 13-1, page 439 has results
• Some general conclusions
• Childrens attitude toward their mothers did NOT
  depend on work status or number or hours worked

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Childrens Rating

• Some general conclusions
• Unemployed dads were rated lower than employed
  dads in the following areas
• Making children feel important and loved
• Participating in important events
• Children gave higher marks when family was felt
  to be financially secure
• Ratings were higher when children spent more time
  with parents and it was unrushed

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Divergent Realities

• Divergences in Mens and Womens perceptions
• Work seems more socially and emotionally
  rewarding for mothers than fathers
• Home appears more relaxing for fathers than
  mothers

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Divergent Realities

• Divergences in Parents and Childrens
  Perceptions
• Children were more satisfied with the time
  parents spent with them than parents were
• 3 wishes that would change how work affected the
  family. Parents would
• 1.Earn more money
• 2.Return from work less stressed
• 3.Feel less tired

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Divergent Realities

• Divergences in Parents and Childrens
  Perceptions
• Children worry about parents
• Children felt that parents were less emotionally
  available to them than parents felt
• Children more concerned about parents anger than
  parents were

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The Flow of Work and Family Life

• Galinsky thinks that parents navigate the
  stream of work and family life.
• Parent-Child Interactions
• 8 basic needs of children are listed on page 441
• Focusing on Childrens Needs
• Especially need for relationship with parents
• Maintaining mother-child activities is important

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The Flow of Work

• Monitoring
• Monitoring and supervising childrens activities
• Less well monitored boys have lower school grades
  and less skills in school-related activities
• Girls behavior is not as clearly related to
  monitoring
• Careful monitoring during early teens was related
  to lack of problems such as disobeying and
  fighting

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Flow of Work

• Intentional Parenting
• The time, energy, and focus that is needed to
  meet childrens needs
• Time should be spent on leisure activities and
  also on accomplishing goals
• Encouraging Family Cooperation
• Mens participation in womens work is a good
  example to children
• Children who do chores that benefit the family
  show concern for others welfare

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Flow of Work

• Encouraging Family Cooperation
• Recommendations for assigning work
• Problem-solving approach Who does this
  particular job?
• Negotiate using fairness, respect, and
  open-mindedness
• Division of chores
• self-care picking up my clothes
• family care loading the dishwasher

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Flow of Work

• Encouraging Family Cooperation
• Suggestions for handling work responsibilities
• Table 13-2, p. 446
• Key factors
• Maintain respect
• Stay flexible
• Focus on the positive benefits

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The Flow of Work

• Spillover from HOME to Work
• 70 of parents say that positive feelings from
  children carry over to work
• How mothers feel about their work can be an
  important factor in this
• Spillover from WORK to Home
• Work shapes family life in many ways
• Determines social status
• Has psychological benefits for parents
• May help develop interpersonal skills
• Offers friendships and support

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The Flow of Work

• Spillover from WORK to home
• Parents who have negative carry-over from work to
  home
• Put higher priority on work
• Have large responsibilities at work
• Have demanding jobs that are difficult to
  complete on time
• Jobs were either too stimulating or not
  stimulating enough
• Had less support in the task of parenting

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The Flow of Work

• Parents who had positive carry-over from work to
  home
• Were married
• Jobs demanded more days per week
• Had less stress and more autonomy at work
• Had supportive bosses and coworkers
• More parental support from family and friends
• Felt they were raising the children as they
  wanted to

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Strategies for Navigating Work and Family

• Parents can increase positive feelings by
• Keep job demands reasonable
• Improve focus at work by finding ways to work
  without interruptions
• Improve quality of jobs by learning new skills
  and finding meaning in work
• Encourage positive relations with coworkers by
• Appreciating support
• Making reasonable requests for modifications at
  work to meet family needs

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Strategies for Navigating

• To ease transition from WORK to home
• Have a ritual to separate work from home
• Allow time to be with children before preparing
  the meal
• Tell children about bad work day and take time to
  reduce stress
• To ease transition from HOME to work
• Prepare for work the night before
• Allow enough time in the morning

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Strategies for Navigating

• Suggestions for giving time to children
• Hang around
• Be available for conversations
• Support childs interests and activities
• Talk about your work

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Strategies for Navigating

• Deutschs recommendations
• Be proactive in choices that let both parents
  have careers and be parents
• Scale back on work time
• Allow family obligations to intrude on work
• Moms need to be willing to let dads have major
  responsibility for childcare and decisions about
  children

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Day Care

• There are many options for child care
• The most important factor is the quality of the
  caregiver
• Especially in the first year
• Then is the opportunity to socialize and have
  stimulating activities

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Day Care

• Quality of Care during Infancy and Early
  Childhood
• 2 kinds of measures
• Process measures
• Appropriate interactions
• Appropriate activities
• Structural measures
• Staff training/experience
• Staff turnover
• Staff ratio

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Day Care

• Availability of Good-Quality Care
• Shortages in infant and school-age care
• Expensive, even for mediocre care
• Currently it costs as much to have an infant in
  child care for a year as yearly tuition at a
  university (Iowa)

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Imparct of Nonparental Care on Children

• Because of the complexity of factors it is
  difficult to come up with valid conclusions from
  studies
• Results from a study conducted in 1991 are on
  pages 455, 456
• the primary conclusion is that parenting matters
  much more than does child care, so parents might
  make decisions that allow them to have quality
  time with their children. p. 456

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Day Care

• Gender Differences
• Conclusions from several studies
• Boys are more vulnerable than girls when mothers
  worked during early childhood
• Boys have more difficult time in dual-earner
  families
• Girls more problems in single-earner families
• Behavior viewed more negatively by mother
• Less time with dad
• Less encouragement for independence