the return of lady professor

as most of you who are reading this probably already know, i'm on a term-long leave from teaching and have started a new research project. my blurb for the faculty newsletter went something like this:

Carrie is working on a new research project that will examine the transition to employed motherhood for women returning to paid work after the birth of their first child. US Census data indicates that over half of employed women who become first-time mothers return to work by the time their infant is three months old. The "fourth trimester" is a time of great change and adjustment for women and their families, and for many new moms this also includes the physical, emotional, social, financial and organizational challenges of integrating mothering and paid work. This interview-based ethnographic research will redress the lack of in depth, qualitative investigation into this transition and seeks to understand how employed women make child care decisions (writ large) pre-natally and whether/how they implement those decisions post-partum, as well as the meanings new moms attach to their strategies to integrate their lives as mothers and workers.

these past few weeks, i've been doing a ton of reading that has been, in equal parts, fascinating and exciting and frustrating. social science research on motherhood and mothering emphasizes the personal, relational and emotional triumphs and joys of being a mom while embedding all of these experiences in harsh political-economic realities--mothering is widely acknowledged to be the most important job in the world, but is still the least valued (to paraphrase ann crittenden). i love that this new project resonates with (and frankly, completely grew out of) my own experiences of being a mom and working for pay.*

i was recently reminded of advice from my friend sarah via another friend, lexi. sarah advises those of us who should be writing to start the day by writing something. anything. this feels like the perfect venue to share some of what i'm learning, as well as my own reactions and reflections. again, as when i started this blog, i can't promise myself that this will be a daily practice, but i know it will be a valuable one to help me process some of the stuff i've been thinking about. so here's my morning writing exercise:

yesterday i read about divorce. it was not fun. i grew up having very few friends whose parents were divorced. i always chalked it up to living in a predominately catholic neighborhood and attending parochial school through 12th grade, but now i see something i had been unable or unwilling to acknowledge.

divorce makes women and children poor.

divorce certainly can be emotionally devastating, but it's the financial part that can be the real killer. in my middle-class childhood neighborhood, most moms were at home full-time or worked part-time jobs. in many american families, it is women who are cutting back on hours or leaving work altogether because they want to provide a greater level parental care to their young children (why it is women who are overwhelmingly doing this is another massive can of worms, and i'm sure you can guess many of the reasons why). lots of the moms i knew were college-educated (that's where they met their husbands) but left their teaching or office jobs or stopped working full-time when they started having kids. a few sobering facts (paraphrased from crittenden's the price of motherhood):

-part-time workers (65% of whom are women) in the US are not entitled by law to earn as much per hour or receive proportional benefits as full-time employees, and on average earn about 40% less per hour than full-timers (p. 97).

-a survey by catalyst found that employees who reduced hours to part-time (most of whom were mothers) reported no change in their workload. 10% reported that their workload had increased (p. 97).

take home message: part-time employed moms make far less per hour of work than full-time employed dads and are expected to do just as much work, or more, in a shorter amount of time.
and as we know, neither non-employed moms nor employed moms get any compensation for the family work they do at home that allows children to be nurtured and thrive and allows husbands/dads to function as the ideal workers the marketplace demands--those who are unencumbered by domestic/family responsibilities, can work long hours, don't need to take time off to care for sick kids, etc.

but what about divorce? if the marriage ends, how are women compensated for functioning as non-ideal workers outside the home (and dramatically cutting their own earning potential in the process) in order to work more at home as primary care-giver for the child/ren and manage family responsibilities in a way that (presumably) both women and their partners think best? some more facts:

-neither a married spouse nor children have any legal claim to the other spouse's income aside from basic provisions of shelter, clothing and food for the kids (p. 111).

-no state court requires an equal standard of living for all members of a household after divorce (p. 151).

-though a survey of women indicated that 80% thought they would be able to get alimony if they divorced, only 8% are actually awarded any (p. 156).

-a 1992 survey conducted by the department of education found that only 6% of custodial (post-divorce) parents (mostly moms) expected any support from exes in paying for their children's college tuition (p. 126).

-when ann crittenden interviewed california state legislator bill morrow (R) about his opposition to that state's 1988 legislation to increase child support payments (where even high-earning dads were paying no more than $300 per month in support despite CA's high cost of living), he said, "my parents were children of the depression...they didn't have anything, and they got ahead. you don't have to be middle class to succeed. we can't guarantee that every child can be middle-class or upper-class even if dad is. that's not necessary or even desirable" (p. 174, emphasis added).

-approximately 40% of divorced moms end up living in poverty (joan williams, unbending gender, p. 115)

moms love their kids. sometimes women make decisions that greatly reduce their economic power (really, the only sort of power that matters much) both in and out of marriage to do what they think is right for their families, and especially their children.

women are smart. the moms in my neighborhood were smart. even if they didn't know that their chances of receiving any alimony or adequate child support were slim if they divorced, or that despite their college degrees that they'd likely end up poor, i am sure they sensed that their lives, at work and at home, would be radically changed if they divorced. to what extent did these women put up with ungrateful, unloving, cheating or even abusive spouses because they knew that they couldn't leave the marriage and know for certain that they, and their kids, would be able to make ends meet? i never thought to ask that question. now i do.


*it's sometimes tough to find the right words to describe women who are conventionally known as "working mothers." i was raised by a working mom who wasn't employed and was never remunerated for any of the countless hours of family work she did to care for me and support my dad. i am also a working mom, but one who does get a paycheck for her (non-caregiving) work.