UNIT B: Blog 10: Working Women's Unpaid Labor, Reform

Blog # 10


After the Welfare Reform mothers had to adapt to their new conditions. These mothers that were living on welfare now had to be more flexible, change their working situations so it would fit into the child care schedule, and they had to be creative in the fact that in order to get center child care they had to use their money and “work” subsides ( PowerPoint Ch. 5 & 6). These mothers that were adapting to the welfare reform were using the strategy of bring together their work and child care and planning them based on one another in order to get public subsides. After they did this then they could afford a higher quality, more consistent, and more reliable place of child care for their children. The mothers in Chaudry’s study that he spoke to in Chapter 5 of his book clearly stated that they “saw work and care strategically interrelated.” This means that they planned their child care around their work schedules and some other mother did the opposite by scheduling their work around their child care schedules. In all cases, Chaudry states, that all the mothers did not know what to put first when dealing with work and child care. They thought of the process of deciding work and child care as a simultaneous process that they had to figure both out at the same time (Chaudry, 180).

An example of this strategically interrelationship is of Cassandra and her son Cedric. Cassandra was a nurse and when her son turned two she was tasked with making a work schedule and finding a good child care facility for her son. She first changed her work schedule so that it would fit into the child care schedule, but after this strategy she had to switch this idea and change her child care needs according to her work schedule (Chaudry, 180). These new strategies of the health car reform point to interrelations between work and child care for these mother because in order for them to survive, make it through the day, make money, and still provide great care for their children they need to intertwine, strategize and work both of the work and child care schedules together in order for them to work.

These women struggle and face many obstacles in their every day lives because of their options. The problem in the United States is that there are no unified systems of child care, the child care that is provided is limited and help is limited PowerPoint Ch, 5 & 6, slide 10). This is the problem with these obstacles, the children of the United States are our future, but yet the United States does not provide adequate child care and policies for all children. In order to fix these injustices the government, as Chaudry states, needs to increase the funding for children programs, unify are broken down system of child care, the United Sates needs to create a policy for working single mothers that acknowledges them and helps them, and they need to work and strive for a policy in which we can break this cycle of poverty (PowerPoint Ch. 5 & 6, slide 12). The fact is the statistics show that these recommendations are just and need to address in the United States. Statics and our reading alone show that there are millions of families struggling, families that can not afford food, families that can not get adequate child care, families because they can not get child care can not work, and so on. There are millions of people struggling day to day and paycheck to paycheck and the government needs to do something about this. For example, to make a point that these things need to be fixed, is from our readings “US Families struggle to Eat.” The family in this story is the Hamilton’s. They are a hard working family, which the parents try to get any job they can, save money, are always worrying about money, and are trying to raise their children. The father can only make $15,000 a year and they are struggling to make payments on rent even with subsides that they are getting. They are to the point where the have to hunt for food. On thing that does help is the Salvation Army in the summer where the go to the park and get lunches for their children where hundreds of other children gather for the same reason ("US Families Struggle to Eat" video).

The government needs to change their policy and structuring of the welfare plan to help these people. We need to implant more programs such as the Salvation Army does because they help these people out more than anyone thinks. These are hard working people that are stuck in the poverty cycle that the government needs to break.