Priceless Parenting: Sacred childrearing, capitalism, and early childcare choices

• In Event: 30467 - Intensive Parenting Practices from Early Childhood to the Transition to Adulthood

Abstract

Modern parenthood, especially in professional-class and affluent families (which are often used as the benchmark for acceptable childrearing practices (Manning 2021)) is highly demanding, with the expectation that parents will be deeply involved in childrearing, to an extent that many find unattainable (Kim and Kerr 2024). With demands in the paid workforce as well as persistent gender norms (Bianchi et al 2012, Churchill et al. 2023, Hochschild 1990), mothers are disproportionately responsible for juggling the competing responsibilities of work and family life (Boushey and Williams 2010, Blair-Loy 2003, Collins 2019, Milkie and Peltola 1999). This work asserts that, rather than giving up on ideals of intensive childrearing as they face pressure to be both ideal workers and ideal mothers (Blair-Loy 2003), high-earning mothers have adapted through subscription to a proposed model of priceless parenting, which considers the sacralization of parenting alongside the economic realities of childrearing in a capitalist structure. A priceless parenting framework elucidates the ways that professional-class and affluent parents (and mothers especially) adhere to culturally appropriate standards of “good” parenting through the mobilization of resources. This qualitative study uses the example of high-earning mothers navigating childcare arrangements in a privatized system to illustrate the practice of priceless parenting. Focus is drawn to mothers of babies and toddlers (0-3 years), as the Unites States has limited public support for care of children of these ages, making family spending especially important at this life stage (Stahl et al. 2018). In doing so, this work illustrates the role of personal resources in obtaining and defining ‘good’ childcare, revealing how priceless parenting practices provide a foundation for class reproduction from the earliest stages of the life course.

Author

• Talya Wolf, CUNY-Graduate Center