Women have been expected to do housework and childcare endlessly without pay or complaint for centuries.  Most of the time this type of work is not just unpaid, but it is also overlooked and undervalued.  So why would a woman keep putting herself through this agony?  Why would a woman work herself ragged just to have no one notice at the end of the day everything she has done?  There may not just be one answer to these questions; it is, however, clear that woman have been socialized over time to sacrifice themselves and show love for their families by taking most of the responsibility of the ongoing housework and childcare burden alone.

For my paper, I interviewed, Morgan, who is primarily responsible for the childcare and housework in her family.  She is a forty-year-old stay-at-home mom.  Morgan has been married for fifteen years to her husband, Brad, and they have four children, whose ages range from ten to two.  Of the fifteen years Morgan has been married, she only received pay for the first five years working as a teacher.  Since her first child was born, she has been a stay-at-home mom receiving no pay for her work.

I want to first discuss Morgan’s gender identity.  Gender identity is a person’s own perception of what it means to be a man or woman, husband or wife, or a father or mother.  People often feel very strongly about these ideas and if confronted tend to defend them.  Morgan had very strong feelings about what it meant to her to be a good mother and wife, and those feelings revealed that she has a very traditional gender identity.  Morgan felt that being a good mother was being a positive role model for her kids, listening to her children, driving the kids wherever they need to go, and fulfilling all of their needs.  She believed being a good wife included supporting her husband in all of his decisions (especially work decisions) and being a good listener if he had problems or concerns.  Along with taking care of the emotional needs of her husband, she also thought she should feed him, do his laundry, and provide him with a clean home. 

Early on in the interview when Morgan talked about what tasks she believed men and woman should be responsible for in the home, she gave a very automatic answer that I have heard other women answer in the same way.  She thought that Brad should be responsible for taking out the garbage, filling cars with gas, repairing things around the house, taking care of the dog, doing all yard work, and straightening the basement.  She also added after those tasks he should take turns with her giving the kids baths and putting them to sleep. 

When I asked Morgan where she got the ideas of what it means to be a good mother and wife and why they divide the labor in the house like they do, she said it came from her parents.   Since they had a successful marriage with a traditional arrangement, she figured it would be equally as successful for her.  She said her mother took care of almost all household work and childcare and worked nights as a nurse. Her mother did all inside cleaning, cooking, laundry, shopping, and got Morgan ready for school when she got home from work in the mornings.  Her father did all outside work, all repairs, and pretty much everything else that fell under a “man’s domain”.  She said her dad did help watch her while her mom was at work, but since her mom worked nights there was usually not much work that needed to be done as far as childcare went.  Morgan said that everything she knows about cooking, cleaning, and childcare came from her mom.  Morgan’s mom taught her as she was growing up that a wife was supposed to create a “happy, loving home for her children and husband” with out complaint.  The way Morgan’s mom stressed the idea of creating a happy, loving home was teaching Morgan that a woman should do the household chores and take care of the children because the men were tired after a long day of hard work.  Morgan’s mom justified all the work she did by saying it was only fair she did the household work because her father made more money than she did.

Morgan carried the idea of what a happy, loving home should be like and what a good wife and mother should be with her as she grew up. She said that about the time she was ready to start a family in the nineties, the media was stressing that the white, middle class American woman’s dream should be to be a stay-at-home soccer mom. Morgan said the media ran commercials that showed white women who loved staying home and taking care of their families.  Seeing the happy stay at home moms on the commercials reinforced to Morgan why she loved to be a stay-at-home mom herself.

I see Morgan’s view on work as consistent with the love/work dichotomy.  The love/work dichotomy is the idea that labor in the home is not work but a way of expressing love for your family.  I would say that Morgan calls the tasks she does “work”, but I would also say that she views it in a very different way than she does the paid work done by Brad.  Morgan said the work that Brad does is work that supports the family so they can have all the things they need.  Morgan described her work as work that has to be done everyday and is ongoing work with out breaks or pay.  Morgan feels that if you love your children and husband that you love all of them including the work that comes along with them.  Keeping a clean house, cooking meals, and being a constant presence in her children’s lives was her way of saying I love you and I am going to take care of you.

Morgan came across as having an egalitarian gender ideology.  Morgan’s gender ideology is different from her gender identity because her mother and the media have socialized her to have a very traditional gender identity.   Morgan’s gender ideology is a moral construction of what she believes men and women should be doing in the household.  As happy as she was to be a stay at home mom in the beginning of the interview, it later seemed that deep down she was not happy all the time doing most of the housework and childcare.  Morgan said that she expected Brad to do just as much housework as she does.  She wants him to clean, be able to feed himself, and help take care of the kids when he gets home.  Morgan said she does not want him to just sit down and expect to be waited on.  She said she works just as hard as he does during the day regardless if she gets paid for her work or not.  Morgan made the point that she probably works harder than he does because he sits at a desk all day and she stands on her feet most of the day taking care of the house and the kids wants and needs.  Because Morgan has an egalitarian gender ideology, she did not think it was fair that she did all the work just because her husband brings home a paycheck.

            While talking to Morgan, it seemed that there was a family myth occurring.  A family myth is a story of fiction that someone tells himself or herself to avoid conflict in the home.  Morgan’s family myth was that she was telling herself the jobs she does are women’s jobs only and so she should do them not her husband.  She was also telling herself the jobs he does are male jobs, and women should not do them.  Morgan said that compared to other guys, Brad seemed like the “dream man” because other husbands can not even take care of their “manly” duties much less help with any of the woman’s duties.  Morgan said the way they split responsibilities in the home was fair because Brad did take care of his tasks along with working all day.  She said Brad would not be able to handle the stress of many more responsibilities without getting edgy and irritated with the family, so she would just do the rest herself.

It seemed that Morgan had been socialized so much in her life to have a traditional identity, that to her it was unacceptable to let her true egalitarian beliefs show through.  Morgan was telling herself that the way order and structure were kept in the family was by Brad making the money to financially support the family and by her doing the housework and childcare to balance the amount of hard work he was being paid for.

 Not only had Morgan been socialized as she was growing up, but she was continuing to be presently socialized by her mother to meet a certain stay at home mom expectation.  Morgan made it a point to tell me that she still feels pressure from her mother to be a good mom to her children and a good wife to Brad.  Morgan said that her mother even tells her to put her needs aside and be very understanding and supporting of her husband, because he after all is bringing in the paycheck that keeps them all alive.  Morgan’s mother also expects Morgan to do most of the housework.  She tells Morgan that Brad is tired after a long day and he needs to come home to a warm house and a home cooked meal on the table. 

            Morgan’s gender strategy, like her identity, is very traditional.  Gender strategy is what actually happens in the household concerning housework and childcare.  Gender strategy often shows where the conflict arises between gender identity and gender ideology.  In Morgan’s case, I would say that there is a conflict between her identity and ideology.  It seemed that Morgan’s egalitarian beliefs or ideologies showed that deep down she wanted more help around the house.  However, her gender strategy showed that in the end she just could not get away from her traditional identity and being the happy homemaker.  Morgan has been preparing and learning her whole life how to be the perfect, traditional mother and woman by her mother and society; so as much as she would like to believe that men and women should share tasks equally this day and age, she cannot make her beliefs a reality.  To keep her family together, Morgan resorts to a traditional gender strategy where she does all the unpaid housework and childcare herself.