When “Best I Can” is Not Enough: Welfare Managers’ Appraisal of Clients’ Mothering Practices

The “mommy wars” are a cultural narrative of conflict between mothers that amplifies the scrutiny placed on mothering practices. While mothers at all social locations face criticisms for their choices surrounding parenting, mothers in poverty lack the resources to enact many socially mandated parenting practices and contend with additional scrutiny through participation in programs like welfare-to-work. In this project, I examine the parenting expectations mothers on welfare must navigate. I use 69 semi-structured interviews with welfare-to-work program managers in Ohio from 2010-2011 to examine which mothering ideologies they encourage and discourage clients to adopt. I find that managers are highly critical of clients’ (perceived) parenting practices and instead promote a combination of intensive mothering and economic nurturing. Managers promote intensive mothering and meeting children's needs—so long as it does not interfere with the work requirements of the program. Economic nurturing simultaneously allows managers to express concern for children and promote clients participating in the work requirements of OWF, implying that work and family needs are aligned and can be met via work.     

The impact of welfare reform on the parenting role of women in rural communities

Current family policy suggests that in order to restore family values we, as a society, need to focus on reviving a child-centered household. Full-time mothering is lauded as an honorable choice that will advance this goal and ultimately strengthen traditional family values. However, current welfare policy is contrary to this notion in that mandatory welfare-to-work programs deny women receiving public assistance the choice to be full-time mothers. Based on in-depth interviews with female welfare recipients in four rural Appalachian counties, this paper evaluates the problems women face as they confront the difficult choices of being either a “good mother” or a “good recipient.” From a feminist perspective, findings suggest that welfare reform programs in rural communities have put poor women in a proverbial “catch-22” with regard to effective parenting. Although many of the women strive to be ideal mothers as defined by societal standards, they often find that they cannot carry out the role effectively because of welfare reform regulations.     

The Effectiveness of Faith-Based Welfare-to-Work Programs

Abstract

This essay first highlights three major challenges of measuring program effectiveness. It concludes effectiveness can best be conceptualized in terms of program outcomes and that such outcomes-while difficult to measure-can be measured with sufficient accuracy to justify the effort. These considerations are then illustrated by data gathered from 17 Los Angeles welfare-to-work programs and their clients in order to assess the comparative effectiveness of faith-based and secular programs. The essay concludes that no one type of welfare-to-work program was more effective across the board than any other type of program. Instead, the different types of programs seemed to be especially effective in certain specialized areas. The faith-based programs were especially effective in providing welfare recipients with emotional support and a sense of having a sympathetic, understanding base of support. The for-profit providers were especially effective in providing needed training in marketable job skills and help in finding employment. The essay concludes by discussing two public policy implications that flow from this type of program specialization.     

The neoliberal mom: how a discursive coalition shapes low-income mothers’ labor market participation

Research has elucidated the conflict low-income mothers face when trying to comply with the imperatives of the neoliberalism and mothering discourses. Feminist scholars have argued that low-income mothers’ alternative conceptions of morality and behavior constitute an act of resistance to inferiorizing definitions embedded in these discourses. Drawing on this literature, I offer a new conceptualization of the seemingly contradictory discourses. Based on interviews with 48 low-income Israeli mothers, I suggest that the neoliberal ideology is not limited to the neoliberal discourse, which primarily measures the individual's commitment to the labor market, but rather has diffused into the mothering discourse, which sets the standards for good mothering. This diffusion constructs a discursive coalition of ‘neoliberal moms’, wherein the current hegemonic notion of good mothering and the neoliberal call for personal responsibility intersect and shape mothers’ perceptions and decision-making processes. Moreover, the neoliberal mom constructs an alternative morality: moral motherhood. Accordingly, the moral component of good mothering means taking personal responsibility to act in ways that promote one's children's future inclusion. I argue that the discursive coalition framework helps us to better understand mothers’ labor force entries and exits, and how these constitute a way of negotiating paths to social inclusion.     

Challenges of welfare-to-work programs

Governmental expectations of placement outcomes were often high given the severity of work barriers that were present in disabled welfare recipients in the United States [11]. The purpose of this article is to identify challenges that were inherent in welfare-to-work programs and solutions to these challenges. Although rich with opportunity, welfare-to-work programs presented the challenge of employing large numbers of difficult-to-employ individuals before their public assistance benefits expired\cite{5}. Many clients also had symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) secondary to childhood physical or sexual abuse (59%) or severe domestic violence (55%) [8]. Few funds were available for work training and education. Instead, the employment-first model was expected even though most consumers did not have a high school diploma, had not worked in years, and were fearful and resistant about returning to work [3]. Performance based payment systems presented a challenge because the program's future depended on the compliance of its consumers. There was an impetus for substance abusers to return to work even if they were still using drugs, which contradicted the teachings of many recovery models. This paper presents possible solutions to each of these problems and reports outcomes of one particular welfare-to-work program. By examining the challenges of welfare-to-work programs, by identifying solutions, and by realizing that these solutions are inherent in the basic principles of rehabilitation, this article provides therapists with tools and motivation to make unique contributions to this area of practice.     

The Moralities of Intellectual Property: Subtitle Groups as Cultural Brokers in China

This study investigates the moralities of intellectual property developed in the context of an underground network of Internet-based amateur translators in China. These translators are dedicated to unofficially subtitling and disseminating unauthorised US television programs and movies to Chinese audiences. I examine how translators have developed new moralities through their subtitling practices in the terrain of media technology. I explore how the subtitle community exists as a moral enterprise and how morality is constructed through subtitlers' disciplined practice, volunteer work and devotion to the media programs. I argue that regardless of their different opinions, subtitlers moralise their activities based on the conviction that Chinese youth and young adults want more knowledge, in spite of the state's media monopoly, and that fulfilling this need is a public good. Such a morality honours an unofficial moral code that is parallel to official state policy.     

Where Do Our Children Fit In?: White Mothering of Asian Children and the Construction of Racial and Ethnic Identities

Abstract

This research investigates white adoptive mothers' mothering related to their adopted children's racial and ethnic socialization. Drawing upon in-depth face-to face interviews with thirty-eight women who have adopted children from China, South Korea or the Philippines, this paper first examines why white mothers de cided to adopt an Asian child and then explores mothering strategies for deal ing with their children's racial and ethnic identity formation. The study contrasts "colorblind mothering," which I also call the "assimilative fitting-in strategy," and "color-conscious mothering," also referred to as the "birth-culture fitting-in strategy." This study also found significant variations in color-conscious adoptive mothers' mothering based in part on the level of the family's embracement of the adopted child's birth culture and on the level of social networking with and outreach to not only other adoptive families but also Asian or Asian American communities. Finally this study critically reviews how race matters to white adoptive mothers.     

Transitions to motherhood: young women’s desire for respectability,responsibility and moral worth

ABSTRACT

In the UK, teenage motherhood is depicted in the media and government policy as highly negative and problematic. Pregnant and mothering young women are constructed as socially excluded members of society who belong to an assumed underclass who lack responsibility and respectability. This article draws on the views and perspectives of pregnant and mothering young women in the east of England to examine how positive and successful subjects are defined and understood. It is illustrated how this group of working-class young women negotiated and resisted their positioning as ‘unfit’ mothers and ‘bad’ citizens. Central to their narratives was a desire to reassert themselves as respectable and responsible individuals through engaging in education and employment in order to achieve financial independence. It is argued that this notion of respectability provides a limited and limiting understanding of inclusion and moral worth for working-class young women.     

Cracks in the Seams: Durability of Child Care in JOBS Welfare-to-Work Programs

The success of recent welfare reforms will depend, in part, on the ability of local welfare programs to meet the child care needs of low-income parents. A key challenge is the integration of targeted child care subsidies into a seamless system for parents who are making transitions between welfare, training, and employment. This article uses data from a one-year panel study to describe program activities and child care use and transitions for participants in a welfare-to-work program. The results suggest that welfare clients were receiving significant child care assistance but services remained fragmented and poorly integrated. Adult clients engaged in multiple, often short-term job preparation and employment activities, and transitions between activities frequently resulted in disruptions in child care arrangements and loss of child care subsidies. Implications for welfare and child care policy are discussed.     

Decentering intensive mothering: More fully accounting for race and class in motherhood norms

In 1996 Sharon Hays published The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood describing the ideology of intensive mothering calling upon mothers to engage in a time-intensive, expensive, and expert-informed style of mothering. In this article, I describe the historical circumstances giving rise to intensive mothering and how structural and historical realities diverge across race and class. I argue that enactments of motherhood are varied, forming a mosaic of motherhood enactments informed by mothers' social locations, including their positions in racialized and classed hierarchies. Mothers operating from marginalized locations innovate and resist intensive mothering, while also being judged by these norms, despite often lacking the resources to meet them. Privileged, primarily White mothers, have been able to harness their resources to achieve intensive mothering and redefine what constitutes good mothering to match the style of mothering they practice. Among some privileged, predominantly White mothers, I contend an even more intense version of intensive mothering is being practiced, with some moving beyond being “expert informed” to positioning themselves as the experts who possess specialized knowledge superior to that of medical and educational experts. All told, I argue that mothering enactments are more diverse than is often portrayed by the concept of intensive mothering.     

Designing and implementing an evaluation of a national work support program

Welfare reforms in the 1990s have shifted governments around the world towards financial assistance conditional on work. While large-scale rigorous research on welfare-to-work programs has demonstrated effectiveness towards employment in other countries, no such micro-level evaluation of a policy has ever been conducted in Singapore. This article describes the process of developing a large experimental evaluation of the Work Support Program, which the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports started in 2006. The lessons learned from planning and implementing the research can be helpful to future researchers in negotiating long-term rigorous evaluations in an environment where collaborators lack sufficient research knowledge. Insights include ways to focus on the essentials, find alternative experimental designs, collaborate effectively, and adapt instruments across cultures.     

Single Mothers,Work(fare), and Managed Precariousness

Welfare-to-work initiatives represent a trenchant example of the expansion of the rules and norms of global capitalism and welfare residualism. A study of the everyday experiences of women who parent alone, this article is a case analysis of the residual welfare state as it functions according to the gendered and racialized logic of the market. I examine lone mothers' experiences of the design, delivery, and enforcement of workfare in Ontario, Canada. Specific attention is given to the operation of random and limiting employment-preparation programs; ambiguous and complex regulations; capricious and punitive service delivery; and managed precariousness. I conclude with a discussion of the ways in which women cope and resist, and a challenge to social service providers and policy makers.     

‘Who should do the caring’? Involved fatherhood and ambivalent gendered moral rationalities among cohabiting/married irish parents

Drawing on qualitative couple interviews with cohabiting/married mothers and fathers, this paper examines accounts of involved fatherhood in contemporary Ireland. It shows that while the ideal of fathers as heavily involved in day-to-day parenting is widespread, the reality is somewhat different – and this despite increased participation of Irish mothers in the labour market. Given this mismatch between fatherhood ideals and realities, it begs the question: how do we account for this inequitable division of family work? Gender-differentiated parenting experiences, I argue, are strongly influenced by ambivalent attitudes on the part of both fathers and mothers. I argue that mothers draw on ‘primarily mother’ moral rationalities that associates ‘good’ mothering with large amounts of time in direct provision of childcare, while fathers display a ‘primarily worker’ rationality associated with strong commitment to the labour market. It is the clash of these contrasting normative societal demands that gives rise to a pervasive sense of ambivalence about ‘who should do the caring’. This ambivalence, I demonstrate, is especially prominent in single-income families where the father is the sole breadwinner. In dual-income families, several parents go some distance towards reconciling these contradictory claims, these competing moral discourses.     

Re‐examining Cultural Contradictions: Mothering Ideology and the Intersections of Class,Gender, and Race

Hays argues the dominant ideology of mothering in the United States is intensive mothering. Women embracing this ideology are completely devoted to their children and cultural contradictions of motherhood make it difficult to juggle work and family. Rothman argues further that ideologies of patriarchy, technology, and capitalism shape our notions of mothering. I explore these ideologies in this paper, paying careful attention to the labor performed by mothers – paid, childcare, and reproductive. Finally, using surrogacy as an example of how these ideologies interact, I argue that Rothman’s identifications of ideologies helps explain how the cultural contradictions of motherhood vary among mothers based on race and class.     

Defending Motherhood: Morality,Responsibility, and Double Binds in Feeding Children

The ideology of intensive mothering sets a high bar and is framed against the specter of the “bad” mother. Poor mothers and mothers of color are especially at risk of being labeled bad mothers. Drawing on 138 in‐depth interviews and ethnographic observations, this study analyzes the discursive and interpersonal strategies poor mothers use to make sense of and defend their feeding and children's body sizes. Food beliefs and practices reflect and reinforce social inequalities and thus represent an exemplary case in which to examine intensive mothering, its ties to growing inequality, and how individuals are called to account for it. Findings demonstrate intersecting inequalities, meanings, and contradictions in mothers' accounts of meeting intensive mothering expectations around feeding, health, and weight. In light of moral framings around feeding and weight, mothers' experiences of surveillance, and the double binds they encounter in feeding children, mothers practice what the authors term defensive mothering.     

Motherhood,homeschooling, and mental health

Homeschooling fits neatly under the umbrella of intensive mothering, a prominent parenting style in the United States. Intensive mothering has been shown to increase the emotional distress of mothers, which may be exacerbated when mothers take on the additional burden of being responsible for the formal education of their children. Given that intensive mothering ideologies negatively impact maternal mental health, it makes sense to examine how homeschooling may exacerbate this outcome. In this paper, I examine the literature on intensive mothering, homeschooling, and mental health to demonstrate a need for further exploration to show how homeschooling mothers, encouraged by intensive mothering ideologies, may be putting their mental health, and more, at risk in their endeavors to be both “good mothers” as well as “good teachers.”     

The Moral Economy of Neoliberalism: How Voters Use Neoliberal Ideology to (De)Legitimate Undocumented Worker Access to Labor Markets

Neoliberalism is prevalent in American life. While researchers have documented the use of neoliberal ideology in institutional and macrolevel policy contexts, they have yet to investigate how voters use neoliberal ideology to legitimate their position on economic policy. I use data from semi‐structured interviews with 85 Tucsonans about why they voted the way they did on Proposition 202 (2008): “Arizona Stop Illegal Hiring”—which sought to reregulate undocumented worker labor market access—to address this gap. I found evidence of two distinct neoliberal ideological legitimations: “fair market competition” and “individual responsibility.” Furthermore, I use these data to shed light on the debate over whether neoliberalism spans partisan affiliation or converges with American conservatism. I found that voters across party lines who supported the measure paired neoliberal legitimations with conservative legitimations. We can interpret this bipartisan use of neoliberal ideology as evidence of a neoliberal “moral economy”—or consensus about the moral principles in which market action is embedded. Evidence of this moral economy indicates that moral principles from neoliberal ideology are simultaneously bipartisan and converge with American conservatism. These findings suggest that there could be a broader moral consensus among voters concerning the legitimacy of anti‐immigration economic policies.     

Intensive Mothering on the Homefront: An Analysis of Army Mothers

This research includes interviews with 10 U.S. Army wives and mothers to examine mothering within the military context. Findings reveal what I label “military motherwork,” a mothering style similar to civilian mothering described in the marriage and family literature. Similar to civilian mothers, they feel more responsible for maintaining the household and taking care of their needs, both physically and emotionally, compared to their husbands. They also often engage in what Sharon Hays (1996 Hays, Sharon. 1996. The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. [Google Scholar]) described as intensive mothering, in which parents use the majority of their resources and focus much of their time to improve their children’s lives. However, military motherwork is also unique in that mothers raise their children within the military institution and must adapt to deployment and all of the risks associated with combat. Intensive mothering within the civilian motherhood literature remains relevant to military mothers, as evidenced in interviews, but also modified to suit military lifestyles.     

Donning the Mask of Motherhood: A Defensive Strategy,a Developmental Search

Psychoanalysis has begun to place motherhood in a theoretical context, but mainly mothering is seen through the unconscious fantasies of children and adults in analysis who are reflecting on the mothers of their childhood. Little has been written about how mothers unconsciously view themselves and their mothering. Through the analyses of two women and their mothering anxieties, I focus on the intrapsychic conflicts of gender identity that can be masked by a culturally sanctioned obsessive preoccupation with their children. I describe how their developmental search for their female selves leads them to disavow states of being that they concretely deem as masculine.     

Casework Job Design and Client Outcomes in Welfare-to-Work Offices

Differences in performance across different locations of a humanservice program may be driven by client, managerial, organizational,policy, or environmental characteristics. While many of thesefactors are outside the control of local managers, other factorsmay be open to influence by local discretion and may have independenteffects on performance. One issue facing local managers is howto divide job tasks among frontline staff, but little evidenceis available regarding whether job design is related to performance.In this article, I examine the relationships between differentcasework task configurations and welfare-to-work office performance.Controlling for a number of client and office characteristics,I find that clients' average earnings are higher over a two-yearperiod in offices that primarily use unified case managementand in offices with a specialist who develops job opportunities.I find no effects on earnings in offices that use other kindsof specialists and no effects of unified case management orspecialists on welfare benefit receipt in the two-year period.Overall, the findings suggest that local managerial decisionsregarding job design help explain the variation in performanceacross offices and suggest a possible lever through which performancecan be improved.