Daughters’ Responsibilities in Financially Struggling and Stable White Families: A Comparative Study

• In Event: 4124 - Section on Race, Gender, and Class Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (100 min): Table 6. Families/Intimate Relationships

Abstract

Much of our understanding of family and childhood inequality centers around what parents do or don’t do for their kids. Mothers, as the most common primary caregivers, often indirectly bear the brunt of the blame for these inequalities, even as they also juggle the most unpaid household labor. In contrast, children’s household and family responsibilities are either ignored or condemned in our understanding of families. Despite the range of research documenting family inequality, the gendered division of household labor among adults, and the substantial responsibilities of low-income children, it seems we have yet to connect these stories. What responsibilities do daughters have in families, how are these responsibilities organized by socioeconomic status and financial struggle, and how do mothers’ and daughters’ responsibilities and experiences fit together? Using in-depth interviews with white mothers and adult daughters from 26 financially struggling, and 17 financially stable families, this work investigates how mothers’ and daughters’ responsibilities fit together and vary by a family’s experiences with major financial struggles. The findings suggest that while financially stable daughters have occasional household and childcare responsibilities that rarely vary based on mothers’ experiences, financially struggling daughters often have more extensive and regular physical, emotional, and childcare responsibilities that initiate based on mothers’ and families’ major financial and emotional crises. This work helps to think about the classed and inaccessible expectations of family life, as well as to expand how we think about the role of children in family functioning.

Author

• Annaliese Grant, University of Wisconsin - Madison