for love or money: the sociology of babysitting

If you're interested in the topic of the field exam I'm just finishing up, read this. My paper is so far titled For Love or For Money: somethingsomething. Its theme? The value of care. Is caring its own reward? Should we pay top dollar for care, and will that make it better? Should we test to be sure that our children are loved, in addition to receiving caring services? How much does that cost?

Case in point. In January, when I used to stay home with Edie part time, I needed a babysitter for about 12 hours a week. I placed ads for ten bucks an hour babysitting services, what I understood to be the going rate from a former student emphasizing in early childhood education. In practically no time at all, without even seeing the ad, a different former student said that she would love (note the word: love=good) to sit for Edie - and her schedule even fit our schedule.

I haven't written about this because this person reads my blog (and so does her Mom). But the sociological lesson I believe is a good one. Said student was visibly surprised at the ten dollar pay rate, so much that she agreed to do it for eight. I sort of felt bad reducing the initial promise for pay, a negotiation faux pas, where I should have started with less with a chance to increase later. But she was truly honestly fine with the $8, especially because she really wanted to help us out*.

Love as commoditity. What's interesting, and really what has always bothered me, about this is that we paid less to gaurantee better care. Paying the full $10 to someone answering our ad would have meant a stranger in our house taking care of our daughter. Maybe she would have been fantastic, maybe not.

Not to commodify care for a child, but in essence we replaced two dollars an hour with a gaurantee of love. Sociologists of care distinguish "caring for" versus "caring about." The first means that caring services are accomplished. The second means that someone genuinely has feelings for a person. For our money, we got both. We received $26 per week of love, and it was worth it.

We pay more now. I'm going overboard with the analogy, of course. But it's true that we deliberately paid less for better care. These days we take Edie to an in-home daycare four days a week, but we still pay Edie's favorite babysitter (thank you Ellen) on occasion. Sarah and I are working more and we can afford the full $10 per hour. But since our sitter is worth that extra $2 of love, really we are getting a $12 an hour value for her services, no?

All of this to make a point. When it comes to care, do you really get what you pay for? It would seem that the people you love are the ones better at the service, and paying your friends and family seems counter-intuitive. But what if you pay really a whole lot of money? Would private daycare be the best care Edie could get?

And the questions keep on coming. It's a good day to be a sociologist in the field of care.

* I should point out that when Edie was born she offered to watch her for free, so actually this is a signifcant increase in payment for the service.

working all the angles: men, housework, and sex

I'm so frustrated that I won't make this year's Council on Contemporary Families Conference in Chicago. Here I am, living in the city, researching fathering and other family issues, and a date I set over a year ago falls on exactly the same weekend. I'll be out of town.

What will I miss? The great men-housework-sex debate! It all started a few months ago when CCF published a white paper titled Men's Changing Contribution to Child Care and Housework. For decades now, sociologists have discussed a "stalled revolution" where men are not pulling their weight around the house. Coltrane and Sullivan suggest that a revolution doesn't happen overnight, and in the long term men are doubling (housework) and tripling (childcare) their efforts at home. Sure, women still carry much of the burden -- the second shift is every bit a reality -- but the men aren't always dead-beat partners, either.

But this story is more than about men patting themselves on the back. It's about how to package social science research for the public. Somewhere in the translation of the CCF white paper, the following headline appears in the Associate Press: Men Who Do Housework May Get More Sex.

Now that's some crafty marketing. Nowhere in the original white paper is there a single word on sex-life research. I suppose a study like this could be done, provided this information is covered on the time-use surveys. In lieu of this, the AP reports on a comment by another CCF member, Joshua Coleman. Coleman, author of The Lazy Husband (2005), another study that doesn't mention sex, suggests that men who don't do housework contribute to women's frustrations, something "that's not going to put her in the mood."

Take the converse of this comment, publish the white paper data, and voila! You've got international circulation for a good story. Now for a quick content analysis on the other news headlines*:

The Reason Men Do Housework
If you want more sex, do the dishes
Doing Dull chores could improve your sex life
Men who do housework get more sex from their wives
Men Clean, Women Swoon, Eyes Roll
Coming clean on the battle of the sexes

Note that only the AP article and number three from the top say "may" or "could." The rest factualize the account. It's verified. Men get more sex.

I shouldn't discredit the expert, though. Upon sharing all of this with my own partner, she first laughed but paused and said, "Well, I suppose it's true!" And that wraps up our packaging of the study: If it makes common sense, it's printable.

Debates on truth of the headline aside, the rest of the white paper is now printed in newspapers and blogs worldwide. Three cheers to CCF! I'm so sad I'll miss these guys this year.

*Thank, you Google News Search

A Valentine's Day Wishing Game

Why I don't like the Daddy Wars

I just can't get a phrase out of my mind: The Daddy Wars.

Especially as I consider the direction of my dissertation, I've been paying attention to the Daddy Wars (link: Rebel Dad) discussion (link: Evolution of Dad) brimming in part thanks to the USA Today article on fathers in the workplace.

Historically - as a feminist - I don't like the implication of "Daddy Wars." It reeks of Opt Out Revolution (link: Lisa Belkin) falsehoods (link: Heather Boushey), where working moms and at-home moms are unncessarily pitted against each other. Even from a class-based view the framing of a war between mothers is poor judgement. The true focus should be on government and work-based family friendly policies, rather than between the workers' so-called difference of choice.

You'd think the Daddy Wars would be like the Mommy Wars, where the stay-at-home dad revolution challenges fathers who work to consider a brave new paradigm. The sensitive dad now cares for kids and cleans up the house. This is not the head-of-household breadwinner your grandfather told you about.

But there's a twist! Rebel Dad re-visions the Daddy Wars to be something less dichotomous: a battle between workers and family-friendly workplace policies. We not only need paternity leave, but we need it to be socially acceptable in the workplace. Ah! Finally we have a catch phrase based in reality. This is a real problem that needs to be addressed, unlike the Opt-Out piece where the initial data was questionable.

My problem, very much like Devra at the DC Metro Mom's Blog*, is the phrase itself. The first thing I think of when I hear "Daddy Wars" is "Mommy Wars." This is the connection that many people make. It's violent, evokes parent against parent mini-battles, and doesn't represent the true spirit of what a caring society should look like.

Rebel Dad responded to the issue of Daddy-Mommy parallel, noting that Daddy Wars do not pit parent against parent. He quotes the original USA Today article to back his point:

As dads demand paternity leave, flexible work schedules, telecommuting and other new benefits, they've ignited what workplace specialists are calling the Daddy Wars.

Sounds good, right? But the same article begins by pitting two different types of dads against each other. Here are the first two paragraphs from the article:

Todd Scott, 32, has two children under age 5. Each workday, he leaves his job at Himmelrich Public Relations in Baltimore at 5 p.m. to be with his family — and even then feels guilty he isn't spending enough time with Hunter, 4, and Anna, 1.

Scott's approach to balancing work and family contrasts with that of his boss, Steve Himmelrich, 48, who has two children and is a more traditional-style dad, spending many long hours, free time and some weekends at the office. Himmelrich says he supports Scott's parenting strategy, but both acknowledge it has been a source of tension between them.

Reading this, we do see that the war is between manager and employee. However, the best re-framing of the Daddy Wars should be against policies, not people. If manager Steve chooses this workstyle, constraints notwithstanding, then he should be able to do so. Instead he's in competition with his employee. Steve states:

"I have a lot of respect for Todd and what he does. And I have a really great relationship with my kids."

If the war is not between two dads, then why is Steve so defensive? Perhaps Steve recognizes that in the trenches, the Daddy Wars turn out to be a battle between two types of working fathers. Hence, my short list as to why I don't like the Daddy Wars:

• Bad terminology. We're trying to acheive a caring society, so why persist in war rhetoric?
• Too many parallels to the Mommy Wars. No matter what work we do to re-frame the issue, we will still think back to the original term.
• What about full time stay-at-home dads? Notice that the war takes place entirely between working fathers.
• Too confusing! The Mommy Wars are simple: one group versus another group. So far, the Daddy Wars take justification, points of order, and there are plenty of grey areas. My fear is that when the Daddy Wars hit the evening news in a barrage of sound bites, that worker-against-worker will prevail.

Conclusion. The Daddy Wars to me are not helpful nor good. We should eighty-six the phrase before the New York Times picks it up. We don't need an "Opt-Out Revolution" for fathers. What we need are good caring policies for our families.

* Also see excellent 2006 post by Cali at work+life fit: Daddy Wars - Defining it? Why not just forget it altogether and focus on the real issues.

cooperative euphoria

That's our daughter Edie in blue!

Prologue.

My creativity has returned. Or perhaps my productivity, who knows. And really that's only true at the present moment but I have to take full advantage of it when it happens. I could spend this post analyzing reasons for why this disappeared in some post-holiday haze, but instead I want to write about our neighborhood's new child care cooperative.

Background.
Last fall I began attending a Mom's group. For some reason I was never totally settled with the group, though I went to meetings for much of the fall term. I don't know if I wasn't settled because the buzz of tokenism wore off*, or if in fact this particular group was just not my scene. Might be the latter. Yet my stated goal of attending was to gain resources as a parent and meet new people. That, I did.

The meeting.
At November's meeting I met two new Moms, both with daughters around Edie's age, both neighbors across and down the street from me, both parents about my age. The meeting itself was so-so, a thorough presentation with not much time for discussion, but on the street following the session the three of us parents got to talking.

We were all new parents, all presently stayed at home (if part time), and all wanted to get back to some form of work provided we could find affordable child care. One Mom suggested a child care cooperative, where we exchange points or possibly fake money with neighbors for free babysitting. The other Mom and I thought this sounded great, and we all went home to check our Internets.

Organizing a cooperative.
Turns out there are lots of child care and babysitting co-ops across the country, which operate in various ways that work locally for that group**. The three of us became four, adding a coordinator to our local parents network***. We advertised an organizing meeting, which drew about 15 families, and just yesterday we held our kick-off event, where maybe ten different families attended beyond those at the first organizing meeting. That's perhaps 20-25 families to start. Really amazing.

Our system for babysitting exchange started out simple, got complicated, and then returned to simple again. We contact other parents in the co-op, make arrangements to sit for each other's children, and then report transactions to a secretary who manages accrued points on a spreadsheet. Once a month we all meet as a group to socialize, meet new members, perhaps troubleshoot some network issues. When we're not in person, we communicate and store our family profiles on a Google Group.

Cooperative euphoria.
This is brand new, but the idea that so many families - all practically in walking distance - are already involved is truly powerful. And the best part is that it's a good mix of both Moms and Dads. In some cases, both parents came with their children. In others, a parent came alone while the other stayed home with the child. In still others, Dad or Mom came along with a child. Not all families are dual parent, I've yet to tell much about sexuality, and not all of us are white non-Hispanic. Word of the group spread very quickly, and many of us are way excited that something like this is happening in our neighborhood.

This is all just to say that thanks to getting out there and not caring about identity (or better gender) politics, I've accidentally tapped into an entire other network of parents looking for the exact things we are. I'll still pop in at the Mom's group from time to time. That combined with this new cooperative makes for a very rich parenting community.

*I mean really, once you get over the novelty of a guy being at a Mom's group, then what? Most of my conversations ended up being with people that hadn't met me yet, starting with something like, "Oh, I've heard about you!"
**In fact, there's even an online social networking tool if you so choose.
***Who knew! About the same time I started attending the Mom's group, a meetup group started in our neighborhood, now over 140 families strong.

the wrong message to send our teens

I can't even find the words to say how horrific these ads are. I have to post them, since among the list of backers for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy is the U.S. Government.

The text on the poster reads:
I want to be out with my friends.
Instead, I'm changing DIRTY diapers at home.

Would you like a little social stigma with that objectification? Even worse, here's a companion website that tells you exactly how to be a teen: stay self-centered, bratty, a slacker, not pregnant, and you're a proper teen! And if you're concerned about innuendo of race and sex, don't worry, they've got more posters. See the rest via sociological images. Really worth the click.

Presidential Work-Family Survey: Only Democrats Respond!

A survey issued to every Presidential Candidate was released last month by Take Care Net and partners. They asked questions of policy support on issues of child care, child care workers, other paid and unpaid family caregivers, and victims of domestic violence. The survey focused on how people are best able to be both good workers and good family members. Every invited Democrat responded, and not a single Republican candidate bothered to reply.

Isn't this astounding? Not a single Republican responded that even one of the issues in the survey is worth legislative thought. The press release is here (word doc) and survey results here (pdf).

Of most interest to me were the questions related to the FMLA. All Democratic candidates indicated support for expanding the act to include regulations for paid parental leave (hooray!), but Clinton, Obama, and Edwards all disagreed with expanding the act to include "gay and lesbian partners, parents in-law, adult children, siblings, and grandparents." In short, the top tier contenders are still supporting cases for heterosexual nuclear families only. Second tier candidates Dodd and Richardson did support expansion for other caregivers. Kucinich was not considered a "major contender" and was not polled.

At the very least, I look forward to discussion of paid parental leave. I just wish that the frontrunners would include in that discussion that legal parents and spouses aren't the only ones out there caring for loved ones.