Starting in Our Own Backyards
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Starting in Our Own Backyards

How Working Families Can Build Community and Survive the New Economy

Ann Bookman

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Starting in Our Own Backyards

How Working Families Can Build Community and Survive the New Economy

Ann Bookman

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About This Book

Containing interviews with more than 100 middle-class working parents in the Boston area, Bookman vividly illustrates the inherent conflicts faced by today's two-working-parent families and the often unfortunate consequences for the community. In an important departure from the ongoing debate, she offers a new paradigm for the relationship between paid and unpaid work that could invigorate both family life and the quality of civil society.

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Publisher
Routledge
Year
2004
ISBN
9781135950613

PART I

WORK, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY IN THE NEW ECONOMY

CHAPTER ONE
NEW TERRAIN FOR WORK AND FAMILY

MAKING THE COMMUNITY CONNECTION

Working families like Julie Taylor’s are at the heart of this book. I hope to portray their lives in a way that does justice to the daily challenges they face—captured in their full complexity and messiness —and Julie’s unwashed pots and pans are the least of it. These families have been significant contributors to this book. The stories that unfold use their narratives and their categories, so the book may at times seem more like a documentary film than social science research. Trained as a social anthropologist, and being a middle-class working mother myself, I walk a thin line between “observing” and “participating” in the worlds of these families—two cornerstones in the practice of ethnography.1 I draw an important distinction, however, between what is particular and what is universal in the lives of these families.
This book is based on the lives of 40 middle-class working families in which at least one wage earner works in the biotechnology industry.2 I first met these families as a member of a two-year team project on work and family issues in the biotechnology industry sponsored by the Radcliffe Public Policy Institute.3 My own part of the project was a study of the lives of biotech workers outside work, in their families and, most important, in their communities. In my view, discussions of work and family have given too little attention to community, either as a focus of research or as a matter for employer policy and public policy. I structured my investigation around three aspects of community: how biotech workers view the quality of life in their communities of residence; how they understand, create, and participate in “communities” beyond the physical ones where they live, such as networks of neighbors or friends; and what the factors are shaping their involvement as volunteers in community-based groups and organizations. I am particulary interested in this third aspect of community as a measure of shared social responsibility that can change institutional policy and practice to benefit the common good. These concerns place my project squarely at the intersection of two current debates: the debate on work and family, which is essentially a debate about gender roles and the benefits of women’s working outside the home; and debates about the health of our civil society. Let me begin by saying where I stand in this intersection.

THE PERSONAL IS INTELLECTUAL
AND POLITICAL

There is little agreement about which institutions in our society are responsible for the care of families and communities. Some say that it is the private responsibility of individual families, and particularly the job of women in those families, excusing both the public and private sectors from investing needed resources. Others say it is the job of employers or the government to provide what families need, with special attention to the needs of the poor, but with little thought to creating sustainable resources. Still others say that local, intermediary institutions—secular and religious nonprofit organizations—are the answer, despite the fact that it may be difficult to determine the larger social good from the particular needs of particular communities. Most agree that no one sector can do it all, but few have articulated how to bring together the resources of multiple sectors to enhance the quality of work, family, and community life.
My previous engagement with work-family issues as a researcher and an advocate for workplace change and women’s equality has shaped my perspective on gender roles and the health of our civil society. I am not satisfied with the positions of conservatives, old-style liberals, or neo-liberal communitarians, which were briefly captured above. I do not agree with the way they frame the problem or with their solutions. Although I find some value in each perspective, I think that all three models perpetuate a false distinction between the private sphere and public sphere. This distinction—sometimes called the “separate spheres” model—perpetuates the division between male breadwinners and female caregivers, and re-creates the conditions for women to remain as the primary family-care providers.4 In addition, this dualistic framework, with business and market institutions on one side and non market institutions on the other, places community outside the sphere of business concerns with adverse consequences for increasing social responsibility for famile well-being.
As Julie’s story clearly demonstrates, the solution to work-family problems is inextricably bound up with issues of family care and gender equality, and many of Julie’s strategies are dependent on relationships with neighbors and community institutions. But many discussions of resolving work-family conflict leave out community, and many discussions on civil society seem to leave the family on the sidelines. This reinforces the false claim that familial relationships are private, and that families can “make it” on their own without some kind of community support. Even in the emerging movement for civic renewal (which goes to some lengths to learn from the patterns of civic participation among women’s movement activists),5 the issue of family care is not adequately addressed.6 If we leave the family out of “public problem solving” and civic engagement, then we are essentially leaving out the voices, needs, and interest of women.
I have worked for many years on the project of creating a society in which we recognize women’s voices, workers’ voices, and the interconnection between our personal and public lives. I have worked on expanding educational opportunities for women, on public policies that support children and families, and on raising workers’ wages and expanding benefits crucial to their economic security. I have done this as a labor union organizer, as an activist in state and local politics, as a policy maker at the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau, and as a teacher and scholar in higher education. I have also promoted these issues as a working mother and as a volunteer in community agencies that serve low-income families, in my own childrens childcare programs and schools, and in our synagogue. It is my experience that creating change on issues such as quality childcare, good schools, safe neighborhoods, decent wages, and family-friendly benefits is not something that families can do alone. Solutions require the resources of many institutions—we need responsible government, no matter what its size, and responsible businesses. Solutions require mobilizing the human and material resources of community-based nonprofit groups, both secular and religious. Solutions also require the ideas and participation of women and men mobilized at the grass-roots level.7 I believe that it is only by coordinating the resources and strategies of institutional and individual players that the needs of employers, working families, and communities will be met.
The present debate on the health of civil society does not acknowledge the extent of change in work and family life, nor the inadequate response of our basic institutions to this change. The question “Are volunteerism and community involvement today rising or falling?” is misleading. It is an “apples and oranges” question, because it compares two historical moments when work and family life looked totally different. Changing conditions call for changing concepts and definitions. I see several problems with the work of scholars who have emphasized declining voluntary groups and community involvement. These accounts privilege participation in membership organizations over other forms of association and informal networks. Some downplay the impact on civil society of the dramatic rise in the number of working women over the past thirty years, while others blame women’s entrance into the workforce for the decline in volunteerism. Although some studies have shown that employed women are more involved than women who are housewives, because they have more skills and education,8 these studies seem to misunderstand that many “housewives” either were formerly members of the workforce or are currently part-time workers, and both make substantial volunteer contributions. In my view, the volunteerism of both employed women and men is misunderstood, and its value minimized, because it looks different from what existed in the 1920s or 1950s.9
Much of the community involvement I have found among biotechnology workers and their families seems invisible because it is not associated with organizational memberships or leadership positions; it often eludes counting and large-scale surveys. I am certainly not the first person to suggest that we need to extend our definition of what constitutes community participation, particularly if we are interested in what women do,10 but I am suggesting that an expanded definition should focus on the informal connections formed to assist with family care, broadly defined. This type of community involvement is not clearly visible to those building a movement for civic renewal because their definition of “public problems” downplays the personal and familial dimension. The way we currently take care of children, elders, the sick, and the disabled—some of which happens in public spaces, and some in the private space of the home—is a public problem. The community involvement of the workers described in this book crosses this public/private boundary every day of the week, at least twice a day, and any viable movement for a stronger civil society will have to learn to cross this boundary too.
The meaning and scope of community involvement among working families can be understood only by acknowledging the enormous changes that have occurred in the social and economic roles of American women. The very foundations of family and gender roles have been shaken over the last three decades, and the dust has not yet settled. Women are in the workforce to stay, but neither the private sector nor the public sector has responded adequately. Most employers have not changed or added to their benefits, and government has not changed public policy to address these new realities. This lack of responsiveness has created an enormous work-family challenge to all major sectors of our society. This state of affairs is undermining the productivity, the flexibility, and ultimately the competitiveness of U.S. firms in a global economy. It poses a significant threat to the care of our children and our elders. It also threatens the quality of life in our communities.
Working parents are relying on community-based institutions and services to help them raise their families, so we as a society need to allocate to these institutions the material resources and volunteer labor they need to remain afloat. Working parents also rely on their employers—who are often left out of the “civil society” debates—to recognize and support their efforts to work and care for their families. We need employers to understand that the care and education of the next generation is increasingly taking place outside the home, in the community, and that ensuring the quality of this care and education will require some volunteer involvement from the working adults they employ, and some investment from private sector companies.
This book offers an alternative framework for thinking about the state of our civil society. The focus on “decline” in certain kinds of membership associations, like the Elks or the PTA obscures the growth of other kinds of community involvement. New forms of engagement have been catalyzed by the entrance of large numbers of women into the paid labor force, and the consequent changes in traditional family care arrangements have created a new set of conditions for building and sustaining community. There is now a strong imperative coming from outside the family toward more social responsibility for families, and new connections are being born out of this new reality. New forms of “social capital”—just as important as money in the bank—are developing among working families in both urban and suburban environments.11 These new relationships are binding us together and reshaping our communities in a literal and social sense.

PAID WORK AND COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

This book presents a multifaceted picture of community involvement among contemporary working families. In the chapters that follow, you will meet working parents who are involved with their communities and those who want to be involved but can’t be. Lily Huang, a research scientist, wants to volunteer in her four-year-old son’s preschool classroom one afternoon a week, but her supervisor says that someone with Lily’s level of training and responsibility cannot take time off during the work day. Mike Hallowell, a biotech production worker, manages his son’s Little League team and leads a Cub Scout troop, but since his promotion and his company’s relocation to a facility farther from the city where he lives, he has difficulty getting home in time to continue volunteering in neighborhood after-school programs. Helen Rafferty, a middle manager, has recently started volunteering in her childrens school; previously, her long work hours made this impossible, but when her company instituted an alternative work schedule, she became able to volunteer in the library and classrooms.12
Each of these stories raises an important challenge to the current structure of paid work. Each suggests a change in the workplace that could have positive results for family and community. For example, if Lily’s employer were more flexible about work schedule and location, then she could find a few hours a week for her son’s preschool. If Mike’s employer would consider restructuring the production process, perhaps starting runs earlier in the morning, then Mike could get home in time to coach. These stories open a discussion about whether it is incumbent on employers to change their policies, or redesign the organization of work in their firms, to facilitate the community involvement of their employees. Helen’s story prompts an examination of work schedules in particular, and whether alternative work schedules—including part-time work—can create conditions for increased community involvement.
These vignettes cannot do justice to the lives of the individuals involved, nor can they illustrate fully the difficult choices that working families face every day. However, when one considers that these stories are replicated in the lives of millions of working families, 365 days a year, one begins to grasp how the current work-family system is adversely affecting the quality of life in our families and communities. Individual stories are particularly useful for what they reveal about the systemic patterns and underlying structures in our society. And it is the way in which those patterns and structures shape our individual and social relationships that lies at the heart of two interconnected debates described earlier: the debate about work and family, and the debate about civil society.

WHEN WOMEN LEFT THE KITCHEN AND THE CRADLE: DEBATES ON WORK AND FAMILY

In the early 1970s, when women’s labor-force participation was starting to rise, there was alarm in many quarters. Even though women had made a major contribution to the war effort during World War II by working in many defense-related jobs, and the country had not fallen apart in the process, twenty years later when more women started to work, they were blamed for a variety of social ills.13 They were blamed for juvenile delinquency, rising drug use and other problems affecting children, as well as the rising divorce rate and other manifestations of marital dissatisfaction. It was not culturally appropriate even back then to say that women should “just get back in the kitchen,” but some people thought that would be the best solution to the family turmoil they could not understand. In the meantime, women themselves were going to college in unprecedented numbers, entering the professions, and trying to rise through the ranks of corporate America.14 Life wasn’t easy for them at work or at home, but they persisted—some because of economic necessity, and others out of their desire for fulfilling careers. Many fought for their right to a life outside the home and some degree of financial independence.
As it has become clear that working women are not going back into the home, the terms of the debate about women’s “proper place” have shifted. Some of those previously uncomfortable with women in the workplace have now declared that women are equal to men, and that no problems produced by this major change in the workforce remain to be addresse...

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