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Orchestration Of Work And Play Within Families
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A Bel! & Howell Information Company
300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor. M l 48106-1346 USA
313/761-4700 800/521-0600
ORCHESTRATION OF WORK AND PLAY
WITHIN FAMILIES
by
Loree Ann Primeau
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(Occupational Science)
August 1995
Copyright 1995 Loree Ann Primeau
UMI Number: 9614057
Copyright 1995 by
Primeau, Loree Ann
All rights reserved.
UMI Microform 9614057
Copyright 1996, by UMI Company. All rights reserved.
This microform edition is protected against unauthorized
copying under Title 17, United States Code.
UMI
300 North Zeeb Road
Ann Arbor, MI 48103
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90007
This dissertation, written by
under the direction of J f T .... Dissertation
Committee, and approved by all its members,
has been presented to and accepted by The
Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of re
quirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
C.
Dean of Graduate Studies
Date
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
Chairperson
...............
........
In memory of
Azaree Marie Lloyd
April 7, 1995
She sleeps with the angels.
To Kevin,
love of my life and best friend.
You have the vision to see what I do not
and you never fail to inspire me.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my guidance committee chairperson, Dr. Diane Parham, for
being my role model and for being the first to show me how exciting research and theory
development can be. I would also like to thank my mentor, Dr. Florence Clark, who has
always been there throughout my graduate studies and has helped to make my dreams a
reality. My committee members, Dr. Gelya Frank and Dr. Barrie Thome, were always
available to answer questions and to provide words of encouragement. Members of my
Ph.D. Research Study Group, including Ema Blanche, Louise Famworth, Linda Florey,
Susan Knox, Sheama Krishnagiri, Elsebet Pedersen, and Wendy Wood, gave me so
many different kinds of support for which I am forever grateful. I would like to
acknowledge my family for their confidence and faith in me and for their patience and
tolerance in the face of my frequent whining. Kevin Wardrop always made the time to
stop and listen to me, even when I was thinking out loud, and was not offended by my
sudden dismissals and mental absences as my thoughts took me away from the here and
now. His ability to joke about "being part of the study" as he completed more than his
share of the household work held my world together throughout the ups and downs of the
dissertation process. For these things and so much more, I thank him. Finally, I wish to
thank the parents and children who willingly and generously welcomed me into their
lives and, in so doing, found their way into my heart and memories.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
MEMORIAL...................................................................................................................... ii
DEDICATION.................................................................................................................... iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..................................................................................................iv
LIST OF TABLES..............................................................................................................viii
ABSTRACT........................................................................................................................ix
CHAPTER 1........................................................................................................................1
The Problem...........................................................................................................1
Background of the Problem .......................................................... 1
Statement of the Problem........................................................................3
Purpose of the Study...............................................................................6
Research Questions................................................................................. 6
Importance of the Study..........................................................................6
Summary..................................................................................................8
CHAPTER 2........................................................................................................................9
Review of the Literature.......................................................................................9
Introduction..............................................................................................9
Historical Influences upon Divisions of
Household Work......................................................................................9
Traditional Divisions of Household Work............................................ 16
Divisions of Housework Within Families............................... 16
Division of Child Care Within Families................................. 20
Orchestration of Household Work Within
Daily Occupations......................................................................24
Non-Traditional Divisions of Household Work....................................26
Parent-Child Play Within Traditional Families.....................................33
Parent-Child Play in Laboratory Settings................................ 33
Parent-Child Play in the Home.................................................36
Parent-Child Play in Non-traditional Families......................................41
Summary............... .......... .......................................................................46
CHAPTER 3........................................................................................................................ 48
Methodology......................................................................................................... 48
Introduction..............................................................................................48
Description of the Research Design....................................................... 48
Selection and Description of the Families............................................ 49
Selection Procedures................................................................. 49
Description of the Families....................................................... 57
v
Data Collection Procedures.......................................................................59
Participant Observation...............................................................61
Intensive Interviewing................................................................. 65
Household Work Questionnaire................................................. 67
Data Analysis.............................................................................................72
Effects of the Researcher upon the Research Process............................ 74
Researcher’ s Personal Characteristics and Experiences........... 74
Effects of the Researcher’ s Participation Observation..............82
The Researcher as Participant....................................... 82
The Researcher as Observer..........................................88
Summary.................................................................................................... 92
CHAPTER 4...........................................................................................................................93
Work Within Families.,,.......................................................................................... 93
Introduction ........................................................ 93
Division of Work Within Families.......................................................... 94
Gender Ideologies and Gender Practices................................................. 96
Donna and Tim: Separate and Unequal..................................... 99
Peggy and Brent: When Ideologies Conflict......................... 107
Susan and Bill: Shared Ideologies..............................................113
Linda and Sam: The Invisible Second Shift..............................119
Monique and Stuart: Reluctant Participants..............................130
Kim and George: His Work, Her Work, Their Work............... 139
Katie and David: Redefining Fatherhood......................... 149
Carol and Paul: Sharing the Second Shift................................. 158
Summary.....................................................................................................167
CHAPTER 5........................................................................................................................... 169
Play Within Families.................................................................................. 169
Introduction.................................................................................................169
Rough and Tumble Play.............................................................................169
Sedentary Play............................................................................................ 175
Imaginary Play............................................................................................ 179
Scaffolded Play........................................................................................... 183
Summary..................................................................................................... 199
CHAPTER 6...........................................................................................................................202
Orchestration of Work and Play Within Families................................................ 202
Introduction................................................................................................ 202
Play Within the Context of Daily Routines............................................204
Play Embedded in Household Work........................................................ 210
Parental Participation in Play Within Household Work 211
Scaffolded Play Within Household W ork.................................224
The Experience of Play Embedded in Household W ork 245
Summary............................................................ 252
CHAPTER 7.........................................................................................................................254
Summary and Conclusions....................................................................................254
Introduction.............................................................................................. 254
Research Questions...................................................................................254
The Nature of Parent-Child Play................................................254
Relationship of Divisions of Household Work to
Parent-Child Play........................................................................255
Orchestration of Work and Play Within Families................ 257
Directions for the Future......................................................... 261
REFERENCES.....................................................................................................................265
APPENDICES
A. Letter of Introduction and Consent Form......................................................277
B. Household Work Questionnaire and Coding Categories............................. 282
C. Interview Guides..............................................................................................287
D. Mean Percentage Participation in Household Work:
Family #3— Maggie and Colin................................................................... 295
LIST OF TABLES
TABLE
1. Family Characteristics...................................................................................... 60
2. Distribution of Home Visits Across Day and Time...................................... 63
3. Participant Observation Data........................................................................... 63
4. Mean Percentage o f Participation in Household Work:
Family #9~Dawn and M ike......................................................................69
5. Division of Household Work Within Families..............................................95
6. Mean Percentage of Participation in Household Work:
Family #7— Donna and Tim....................................................................... 100
7. Mean Percentage of Participation in Household Work:
Family #1— Peggy and Brent..................................................................... 108
8. Mean Percentage of Participation in Household Work:
Family #4— Susan and B ill........................................................................ 113
9. Mean Percentage of Participation in Household Work:
Family #8~Linda and Sam........................................................................ 120
10. Mean Percentage o f Participation in Household Work:
Family #10~Monique and Stuart............................................................. 131
11. Mean Percentage o f Participation in Household Work:
Family #5— Kim and George..................................................................... 140
12. Mean Percentage o f Participation in Household Work:
Family #2— Katie and David...................................................................... 150
13. Mean Percentage o f Participation in Household Work:
Family #6--Carol and Paul........................................................................ 159
ABSTRACT
Occupational science seeks to explicate the nature of occupations and how they
are orchestrated into the daily lives of individuals and their families. Occupations are
defined as chunks of personally meaningful activity that can be named within the lexicon
of a culture. Parental occupations within families include their participation in
household work and in play with their children. The division of household work
between women and men has become a popular area of study over the past several years,
but play between parents and their children as it occurs within their homes has been
given little attention in the research literature. Using a qualitative research approach, this
study described the play of mothers and fathers of preschool-aged children as it occurred
within the context of the daily occupations of families with traditional and non-
traditional divisions of household work. Participant observation, intensive interviewing,
and questionnaire data were collected from ten families with preschool-aged children.
This study, conceptualized and formulated within the domain of occupational science,
teased out the nature of parent-child play, its relationship to differing divisions of
household work, and how it was orchestrated within the daily occupations of families.
Several different types of parent-child play were observed, including those that have been
consistently described in the literature. In addition, this study identified previously
undocumented types of parent-child play. Although gender differences were noted in
parents' participation in some types of play, both mothers and fathers participated in a
wide range of play activities and were not limited to gender-specialized types of play.
Divisions of household work according to gender were found to be related to some types
of parent-child play, but did not account for differences between families. Parents were
observed to use two types of strategies to orchestrate work and play in their families.
Strategies of segregation resulted in parent-child play within the context of daily
routines. Strategies of inclusion resulted in play embedded in household work,
specifically parental participation in play within household work and scaffolded play
within household work.
x
CHAPTER 1
The Problem
Background of the Problem
It has been important to provide a vocabulary that allows women in
particular, but also men whose lives do not follow the model of a
successful career that our society has developed, to value their
achievements. To see it holistically, to see that the composing of a life,
the combining of the elements, the balancing and harmonizing of them,
is in itself an art form. (Bateson, in press)
Bateson (1989), while talking about women's ability to adapt to fluidity and
discontinuity within their lives as a consequence of the physical rhythms of reproduction
and maturation, referred to the act of composing a life as a work in progress. The
composition of a life is a process through which one puts together a mosaic of
occupations that resolves competing demands for one's attention and time. Bateson
generally attributed this process to women, but stated that it was newly applicable to
many men as the traditional male pattern of having a singular, focused, and linear career
became increasingly a thing of the past. This metaphor of composing a life resonates
with the focus of occupational science upon the human capacity to select and orchestrate
occupations throughout the life span. Occupations are defined as chunks of personally
meaningful activity that can be named within the lexicon of a culture (Clark et al., 1991;
Yerxa et al., 1989). Individuals create their daily experiences through planning,
choosing, arranging, and engaging in occupations. As the days pass and time goes on,
their daily occupations are placed within the frameworks of their lives and the context of
their personal life histories and goals (Carlson & Dunlea, 1995; Clark, 1993; Yerxa et al.,
1989).
Occupational science seeks to explicate the nature of occupations and how they
are orchestrated into the daily lives of individuals and their families (Primeau, Clark, &
Pierce, 1989; Yerxa et al., 1989). Parental occupations within families include their
1
participation in household work and in play with their children. Thus, parental work and
play occupations within families might include preparing meals, cleaning the house,
washing the car, cutting the grass, reading books with their children, going to the park,
riding bikes with other family members, playing games together, and watching
television. Families are the locus of sexuality, eating, sleeping, and other basic
biological processes (Thome, 1992). Because the rhythms o f families revolve around
bodily and subsistence needs and the demands of children, the daily occupations
conducted within families seem to be tied to biology. Given that women have been
historically defined by their procreative and mothering capacities, they have also been
ideologically linked to their biology. Consequently, their involvement in the work of
families has been made to seem natural (Thome, 1992). Feminist theorists have
questioned these assumptions and have demonstrated how families are socially-
constructed institutions organized to regulate sexuality, reproduction, mothering, and the
division of work based upon gender (Hartmann, 1987; Smith, 1987; Thome, 1992).
Currently, the number of women participating in paid work outside of the home
is higher than it has ever been (Schor, 1991). In 1992, three out of four mothers of
young children participated in paid work (Berry, 1993). The movement of women into
the traditionally-male domain of paid work has occurred at a faster rate than the
movement of men into the traditionally-female domain of household work (Kane &
Sanchez, 1994; Shelton, 1992). Studies of women's and men's participation in household
work have consistently indicated that women still remain responsible for most o f it
(Cowan, 1987; Googins, 1991; Hochschild, 1989; Major, 1993; Shelton, 1992; Spitze,
1988). Household work encompasses the activities conducted to maintain the home and
to care for children and, thus, consists of both housework and child care tasks. Most of
the women who participate in paid work and continue to complete the majority of
2
household work at home end up working a "double day" or "second shift" that adds up to
an extra month of 24-hour days of work over the course of a year (Hochschild, 1989).
Among corporate employees, married mothers spent an average of 84 hours a
week in job, housework, and child care tasks. Married fathers' combined hours in these
same tasks averaged only 72 hours per week (Googins, 1991). Regardless of
employment status and level of income, mothers were found to spend more time than
fathers in child care tasks. Not only did the time spent with children differ between
mothers and fathers, but so did the nature of the activities in which the parents
participated with their children. Mothers were noted to complete the child care work
tasks, including feeding, bathing, dressing their children as well as dealing with their
emotions, whereas fathers tended to play with and take their children on outings to the
zoo orpark(B eny, 1993; Lamb, 1987; Robinson, 1977).
Statement of the Problem
The division of household work between women and men has become a popular
area of study over the past several years (Pina & Bengston, 1993), but play between
parents and their children as it occurs within their homes has been given little attention in
the research literature (Cohen, 1987; Giddings & Halverson, 1981). What does parent-
child play within families look like? What types of parent-child play occur within
families? Do parents encourage specific types of child's play in the home? If so, what
are they? Do mothers and fathers differ in the types of play that they encourage? Many
studies have indicated that fathers engaged in greater amounts of rough and tumble play
with their infants and children than did mothers (Clarke-Stewart, 1978; Lamb, 1977).
Based on infants' positive responses, fathers appeared to be preferred play partners
(Lamb, 1977). Further analysis, however, revealed that mothers tended to hold the infant
more for caretaking tasks, whereas fathers tended to hold the infants for play only.
Although mothers spent more time playing with their children than did fathers, play
3
consumed a greater proportion of fathers' time spent with their children (Lamb, 1987).
Thus, child care tasks dominated mothers' time with their children, but play dominated
the time spent by fathers with their children.
This finding, in combination with the finding that women carry a greater
responsibility for both child care and housework tasks, leads one to question to what
extent responsibility for household work within the home affects how parents play with
their children. Are differences in the play of mothers and fathers artifacts of the socially-
constructed division of household work according to gender? What happens to the play
of parents with their children when household work is shared equally between mothers
and fathers? The majority of the research on parent-child play has occurred within
families with a traditional division of household work (Pedersen, Cain, Zaslow, &
Anderson, 1982). The mother is the primary household worker and the father is the
primary wage earner. Families with non-traditional divisions of household work are
those in which the father assumes an equal role in housework and/or child care or where
the father is primarily responsible for household work (Parke, 1981; Pedersen et al.,
1982). Some studies conducted within families with non-traditional divisions of
household work have reported no parental play styles differences in certain types of play
(Lamb, Frodi, Hwang, Frodi, & Steinberg, 1982; Pedersen et al., 1982; Russell, 1982;
Sagi, Lamb, Shoham, Dvir, & Lewkowicz, 1985)
Equally important are questions about how parent-child play is incorporated into
families' daily lives. Where does parent-child play fit into the daily routines of
housework and child care? How do parents coordinate their child's play with their own
occupations, particularly their participation in household work? Power and Parke (1982)
found that parents tended to facilitate the infant's exploration of the physical environment
more frequently while engaged in housework than while engaged in caretaking,
individual or joint leisure, or play sessions. The importance of housework to mothers
was found to have significant effects upon maternal responsiveness and restrictiveness
and upon mother-child leisure (Olson, 1981). Mothers with high measures of housework
importance, when compared to mothers with low measures of housework importance,
were less responsive to their children while doing housework, were more restrictive of
their children's behavior, and spent less leisure time with their children.
Young children generally do not instinctively nor independently plan a daily
itinerary o f occupations. The task of orchestrating their children's occupations as well as
their own falls to parents (Primeau et al., 1989). How do parents, in the course of
composing their own lives, also manage to compose their children's lives? Bateson (in
press) suggested that mothers may coordinate their daily occupations with those of their
children by engaging in various tasks in an enfolded manner. It is precisely this
characteristic o f doing several things at once that has simultaneously allowed women to
accomplish so much, but yet has resulted in the undervaluation of their work. To an
onlooker, it may not appear as if a woman engaged in enfolded occupations were
completing any task, let alone several tasks. Consider the case of a mother preparing
dinner, cleaning up the kitchen, and supervising her children all at the same time. She
may be interrupted in the course of one task by the need to attend to another. The
mother’ s ability to move between tasks and divide her attention among them is essential
(Bateson, 1989). Fathers generally do not enfold occupations in this same manner.
When they are responsible for the care o f their children, they view what they are doing as
a full-time task and do not see their simultaneous engagement in other tasks, such as
preparing dinner, as a possible and viable alternative (Bateson, in press).
Women's work has been defined cross-culturally as comprising tasks that can be
completed simultaneously with care for children (Bateson, in press). Is the phenomenon
of enfolded occupations an artifact of the nature o f the division of household work within
families? Does the fact that women are responsible for the majority of household work
5
lead them to enfold their work in interlocking patterns in order to complete it in a timely
fashion? Would men also enfold their occupations if they shared equally in the
completion of household work?
Numerous questions about the occupations o f household work and parent-child
play within families guided the development of this study. Three central concerns were
(a) the nature of parent-child play within families, (b) the relationship of differing
divisions of household work to the nature o f parent-child play, and (c) the orchestration
of work and play occupations within families with traditional and non-traditional
divisions o f household work.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study was to describe the play of mothers and fathers of
preschool-aged children as it occurred within the context of the daily occupations of
families with traditional and non-traditional divisions of household work.
Research Questions
The research questions answered by this study were:
1. What is the nature of parent-child play within families?
2. Are traditional and non-traditional divisions of household work related to the
nature of parent-child play within families? If so, how?
3. How is parent-child play orchestrated within the daily occupations of families
with traditional and non-traditional divisions of household work?
Importance of the Study
The goal of occupational science is to systematically describe and develop an
understanding of the human capacity to purposefully pursue, select, and participate in
occupations in response to life's challenges (Carlson & Clark, 1991; Clark et al., 1991;
Yerxa et al., 1989). Occupations are believed to play a central role in an individual's
health, adaptation, and life satisfaction (Clark et al., 1991). This study was designed to
describe and elucidate the nature of parent-child play and its orchestration within the
daily occupations of families with traditional and non-traditional divisions of household
work. Previous studies in the literature have examined either household work or parent-
child play within families, but rarely have they studied both phenomena together, and
certainly not with a specific focus on their occupational nature.
Occupational science has been conceptualized as having a special feedback
function designed to enhance occupational therapy professional practice (Carlson &
Dunlea, 1995; Jackson, 1989; Primeau et al., 1989; Yerxa et al., 1989). The ways in
which mothers and fathers juggle their time spent in paid work, in unpaid work within
the home, and with their children may illuminate how work and play occupations affect
the experiences of health and life satisfaction of family members. The nature and
orchestration of work and play occupations within families and their role in the
adaptation of families to life's challenges become increasingly important in light of what
has been perceived as an escalating scarcity of time within today's society (Hochshild,
1989; Linder, 1970, Schor, 1991; Walljasper, 1991; Zerubavel, 1981).
One in four Americans in 1975 reported that they felt rushed most of the time
(Robinson, 1977). In 1986, 63% of American men and women who participated in paid
work stated that they experienced a lack of free time (Robinson, Andreyenkov, &
Patrushew, 1988). Knowledge of how work and play occupations are orchestrated within
families would allow occupational therapists to design interventions to help patients who
are experiencing conflicts in these areas. This study, conceptualized and formulated
within the domain of occupational science, teased out the nature of parent-child play, its
relationship to differing divisions of household work, and how it was orchestrated within
the daily occupations of families. The findings of this study may be used not only by
occupational therapists to guide and enhance their professional practice, but also by
7
scholars and practitioners within the fields of family studies, gender studies, and the
study of play.
Summary
This study addressed the nature of parent-child play and how it is orchestrated
within the daily routines of families with traditional and non-traditional divisions of
household work. The background of the problem and its importance were discussed and
research questions were formulated. Chapter 2 will provide an in-depth review of the
literature related to the problem of the study. Chapter 3 will describe the methodology
used in the study. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 will present the study's findings. Chapter 7 will
summarize the findings, demonstrate how the research questions were answered, and end
with an overview of directions for further research and theoretical development.
8
CHAPTER 2
Review of the Literature
Introduction
This chapter provides a review o f the literature related to divisions of household
work and parent-child play within families. First, the historical influences upon
divisions of household work are presented. Next, the literature on traditional divisions of
household work, including housework, child care, and the orchestration of household
work within daily occupations, is reviewed. Studies of non-traditional divisions of
household work follow. Then, a review of the literature on parent-child play within
families with traditional divisions of household work, including studies in both
laboratory and home settings, is provided. Finally, the findings on parent-child play
within families with non-traditional divisions of household work concludes this chapter.
Historical Influences upon Divisions o f Household Work
Women's primary responsibility for unpaid work in the home has a long history.
Prior to industrialization, both men and women conducted subsistence work, that is,
work required for survival, within their homes and on their farms (Cowan, 1983;
Strasser, 1982). During the 19th century, historical changes transformed household
subsistence work into the paid and unpaid work of men and women (Gerstel & Gross,
1987). Most of the historical research on household work is in agreement that by 1840
the idea that a woman's place was in the home had become widespread (Cowan, 1987;
Jackson, 1992; Strasser, 1982). They disagree, however, on the process through which
this occurred. Some writers theorize that women were kept out of paid work
participation by virtue of their pre-existing responsibilities for household work (Cowan,
1987; Strasser, 1982). As industrialization advanced, men and some unmarried women
began to trade their labor for cash by working in factories and mines. The technology of
9
the late I9th and early 20th centuries did not produce an effective substitute for the
unpaid work of women in the home, therefore, married women were required to remain
at home in order to complete the work (Cowan, 1987).
Critics state that this theory is incomplete and does not pay enough attention to
the ideological and sociocultural influences of this period in time (Jackson, 1992).
Married women did in fact participate in paid work in factories and mines throughout the
19th century. Some theorists have argued that the social construction of women's
responsibility for unpaid work in the home was a product of patriarchy, of men's control
over women's labor (Delphy, 1984; Hartmann, 1981, 1987; Jackson, 1992). Skilled
working class and middle class men began to agitate for the reduction o f women's paid
work outside the home using the exclusionary tactics of trade unions, protective
legislation, and demands for a "family wage" (Jackson, 1992). By the middle o f the 19th
century, the idea had taken hold that women's mission was to create a home as a retreat
for men from the pressures of the outside world. This domestic ideology prescribed
women's calling as one o f piety, purity, domesticity, and submission within the home
(Welter, 1966). Women and men were seen as naturally different and complementary,
meant to function in different areas of life; a woman's place was in the home and a man's
place was in the public world. Within the context of this ideology, "married women
began to be defined as housewives in the modem sense and their involvement in wage
labour came to be seen as 'unnatural'" (Jackson, 1992, p. 158).
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, a second domestic ideology
evolved in public discourse (Cowan, 1987; Smith-Rosenberg, 1985). This ideology of a
"feminine mystique" held that the fulfillment o f women's femininity occurred through
domesticity (Friedan, 1963). Thus, the contemporary American family in which the man
traded his labor for wages and the woman through her unpaid work converted his wages
10
into sustenance for the family was socially-constructed and idealized (Cowan, 1987). By
1950, this family pattern of a male breadwinner and a female homemaker comprised
nearly two-thirds of the households in the country. Given that one-fifth of married
women participated in paid work outside o f the home, the single-income family,
although clearly dominant in 1950, was far from universal. By 1990, families with a
male breadwinner and female homemaker had dropped to under one-quarter of all family
types. Families with both men and women participating in paid work now comprised
almost one-third of American households (Gerson, 1993). As of 1990, three-quarters of
mothers participated in paid work outside of their homes. Among mothers of preschool-
aged children, 58% were either employed or looking for paid work (United States
Department o f Labor, 1991).
These statistics demonstrate how women of all ages and family types have
coursed into the paid workforce, "rearranging the balance o f their ties to employment and
child rearing ... [and] challenging men's long-standing privileges both at home and in the
workplace" (Gerson, 1993, p. 4). This movement of women into the traditionally-male
domain of paid work has occurred at a faster rate than the movement of men into the
traditionally-female domain of household work (Coverman & Sheley, 1986; Kane &
Sanchez, 1994; Shelton, 1992). During the past three decades, a plethora of studies have
been conducted in the United States on the division o f household work between men and
women. Comparison between studies is problematic because the definition of household
work varied across these studies. Some studies looked only at housework, that is,
cooking, cleaning, and laundry, but others included child care, shopping, and running
errands. In addition, methodological differences often led to what appeared to be
contradictory findings (Pleck, 1985).
11
The methods used in studies on the division of household work within families
differed depending on how the research questions were formulated. Some studies were
interested in how household work was divided between women and men; others asked
what types of household work were typically completed by women and men and how
much time was spent doing the work. The first method resulted in proportional measures
of household work and the second method resulted in time-use data. Both methods have
their own sets of advantages and limitations (Pleck, 1985). Although proportional
measures are relatively easy to administer, they do not provide data on the absolute
amount of work done by the husband and wife and do not allow direct comparison
between couples. Time-use methods provide an absolute figure of the amount of
household work, but are expensive, difficult to conduct, and not necessarily
representative of a typical day. Nevertheless, no matter what type of methodology was
used, the studies consistently indicate that women were responsible for the majority of
household work even when they were employed outside the home (Barnett & Baruch,
1988; Baxter, 1992; Berardo, Shehan, & Leslie, 1987; Berk & Berk, 1979; Calasanti &
Bailey, 1991; Gunter & Gunter, 1990; Maret& Finlay, 1984; Model, 1981).
Two major time diary studies, conducted in the 1960s, provided comprehensive
information on women's and men's participation in household work (Robinson, 1977;
Walker & Woods, 1976). The most significant finding of these studies was that, when
paid work and household work hours were combined, employed husbands of employed
wives actually had a shorter work day than employed husbands of unemployed wives.
This finding was explained by the shortened paid work day of husbands of employed
wives. It appeared as if husbands of employed wives could afford to cut back on their
paid work day because o f their wives’ income contribution. This surprising conclusion
that husbands of employed wives did not participate in household work to any greater
12
extent than did husbands of unemployed wives created a controversy and precipitated
further research on household work (Pleck, 1985).
The Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan conducted time-use
studies on American national samples in the years 1965, 1975, and 1985. Comparisons
were made across all three studies reflecting historical trends in women's and men's
participation in household work over the past three decades (Coverman & Sheley, 1986;
Robinson, 1980, 1990; Robinson, Andreyenkov, & Patrushew, 1988). There were no
significant changes in the mean amounts of time that men spent in housework and child
care tasks in the decade between 1965 and 1975. In fact, although men actually
decreased the amount of time spent in paid work, they spent the time gained in leisure
activities and not in household work (Coverman & Sheley, 1986). Women were found
to dramatically decrease the amount of time they spent in household work during this
same period (Robinson, 1990). When the data were examined across the years from
1965 to 1985, men's time spent in household work was found to increase from an
average of 13.7 hours to 17.2 hours per week. Employed women's participation in
household work decreased from an average of 28.2 hours per week in 1965 to 26.2 hours
per week in 1985. Unemployed women decreased their average total time spent in
household work from 53.7 hours per week to 39.3 hours per week in 1965 and 1985,
respectively.
These historical trends indicated a decrease in the mean amount of women's time
spent in housework and an increase in the mean amount of men’ s housework time. Both
of these changes occurred in the activities of cooking and cleaning (Robinson et al.,
1988). Thus, men appeared to be making their primary contributions to household work
in the areas of cooking and cleaning. Over the same 20 year period, both employed
mothers' and fathers' mean amount of time spent in child care remained constant,
13
although the mothers' weekly contribution to child care was over three times that of the
fathers' contribution. Two other national surveys completed in 1975 and 1981 indicated
that mothers and fathers increased the time they spent in child care equally, but
minimally (Juster, 1985). The average amount of time spent by fathers in child care
increased from 2.29 hours per week in 1975 to 2.88 hours per week in 1981. The
mothers increased their average time spent in child care from 7.76 hours to 8.54 hours
per week over these same years. The resultant increases for both fathers and mothers
were approximately 35 minutes a week or 5 minutes per day (Juster, 1985). The
mothers' time spent in child care per week was still triple that of the fathers' time.
Time diary studies are useful in providing data on the absolute amount of
household work done by women and men, but studies using proportional measures give
an indication o f how household work is shared by women and men. Robinson (1988,
1990) analyzed the time-use data to demonstrate the changes in the proportional
distribution of household work between men and women in the 20 years between 1965
and 1985. The figures presented were averaged across all respondents. Men were found
to complete an average of 15% of the household work in 1965, the majority of which
was traditionally male tasks such as yard work and home repairs. This figure increased
to an average of 33% in 1985 (Robinson, 1988). In 1965, women did an average of 92%
of the cooking, cleaning, and laundry. This proportion decreased to 89% in 1975 and to
80% in 1985. Thus, between 1965 and 1985, men's participation in the cooking,
cleaning, and laundry tasks increased from 8% to 20% and from 7% to 13% in
traditionally male tasks. What these figures do not show is that while women decreased
the amount of time they spent in cooking, cleaning, and laundry tasks, they increased
their time spent completing traditionally male household work tasks during this same
14
time period {Robinson, 1990), thereby maintaining the status quo as far as inequality in
the division of household work within families.
Changes in the division of household work within the past decade have also been
documented. The Center on Work and Family at Boston University conducted two
surveys of 800 working parents, first in 1985 and again in 1992 (Mehren, 1994). Both
women's and men's mean time spent in housework increased over the seven years
between the surveys, but the mean increase in women's time was two and a half times
greater than that o f men’ s time. Although men's participation in housework increased by
an average of 5 hours per week, women's weekly hours spent in housework increased by
an average of 13 hours. Men's participation in child care seemed to fare better than their
participation in housework. In 1985, only 25% of the parents reported that they shared
child care equally with their partners; in 1992,49% said that child care was equally
shared (Mehren, 1994).
Parents magazine conducted a poll of 8,200 fathers in 1993 and compared its
findings to those from their 1984 poll (Louv, 1993). O f the fathers surveyed in 1993,
45% said that they were responsible for either watching their children or arranging for
someone else to provide child care while their wives worked for pay outside the home.
Among the men whose wives participated in full-time paid work, the number of fathers
who said that they were equal partners in child care rose to 64%. This figure reflected an
11% increase from the 53% of fathers who reported sharing child care equally in 1984
(Louv, 1993). A review of the literature on the historical influences upon household
work and trends in its distribution between women and men indicates that, while men
have increased their participation somewhat, women remain primarily responsible for the
work's completion. Research studies on traditional divisions o f household work will
now be reviewed.
15
Traditional Divisions of Household Work
Divisions of Housework Within Families
Berk and Berk (1979) gathered time diary information from 353 husbands and
wives in the United States that allowed them to reconstruct the typical household day.
Their goal was to obtain an understanding of the content and organization of daily
household life. They concluded that husbands tended to contribute to household work,
including child care, primarily when the wife was unavailable. For example, husbands
were most likely to play with children when their wives were involved in the meal
cleanup. Thus, husbands functioned as backup labor for work that remained the primary
responsibility o f their wives. This finding applied equally to employed and unemployed
women. Berk (1988) expanded upon this conclusion. She stated that husbands did
respond to an increased demand for their work when their wives were employed or when
they had young children, but that a need for their labor was not enough. Not only must
their wives' labor be unavailable, but also the type of labor that husbands provided must
be within a narrow repertoire of activities, that is, clearing the table, meal cleanup, and
putting the children to bed. "In other words, husbands with employed wives or with
young children do provide greater levels of work, but only for certain tasks, and only
when wives are unable to provide that labor" (Berk, 1988, p. 296).
The tendency for men to participate in a specific, narrow repertoire of household
work tasks has been referred to as gender segregation or specialization of household
work (Berk, 1985; Blair & Lichter, 1991; Ferree, 1991b). Men were found to spend an
average of 14 hours per week in housework tasks, but approximately one-third of this
time was spent in outdoor maintenance tasks. Their time spent in meal preparation and
clean up and housecleaning tasks accounted for another one-third of the total time.
Women spent an average o f 33 hours per week completing housework, over two-thirds of
which was comprised of meal preparation and clean up and housecleaning tasks (Blair &
Lichter, 1991). These findings demonstrated significant differences between men and
women in terms of the amount and types of household work in which they participated.
The authors concluded that men would have to reallocate over 60% of their time spent in
household work to tasks other than the ones they currently completed in order to achieve
equality in the division of household work.
Other studies found similar gender specialization within household work.
Women reported that they were primarily responsible for cooking, housecleaning, and
laundry, whereas meal clean up and grocery shopping were more equally shared between
them and their husbands (Ferree, 1991b). Responsibility for traditionally female
household work tasks remained with women. DeVault (1991) also demonstrated that
women continued to specialize in the work involved in feeding the family. Women
reported that their husbands shared very little overall in the completion of housecleaning,
cooking, dishwashing, and laundry (Goldscheider & Waite, 1991). Their participation in
these tasks averaged less than 25% of the total work and was closer to 10% for laundry
tasks. Even in the traditionally male tasks of yard work and home maintenance these
men averaged only 40% of the total, leaving the remaining 60% to their wives. These
findings suggest that, in addition to stereotyped female tasks, women are often
responsible for a significant portion of stereotypically male household work
(Goldscheider & Waite, 1991). Ferree (1991b) also found that although men and women
may cross gender boundaries to participate in household work traditionally allocated to
the other gender, wives were often found to complete the majority of the stereotypically
male and female household work tasks.
Robinson (1990) found that women spent more time than men in four out of
eight categories of household work. The figures reported were mean percentages of data
17
collected across all respondents. Women were responsible for 77% of the cooking, 83%
of the meals and cleanup, 78% o f the cleaning, and 88% of the clothing care completed
in the home. Men were involved in outdoor work 74% of the time and in home repairs
82% of the time. The two remaining categories of garden/pet care and managerial tasks
were shared equally. Further analysis revealed that the mean amount of time women
spent completing traditionally female tasks was much greater than the mean amount of
time men spent on traditionally male tasks or those shared with women. Cleaning,
cooking, dishes, and laundry consumed an average of 16 hours of the women's week,
whereas home repairs, outdoor work, and other traditionally male or shared jobs
consumed only an average of 6 hours of the men's week (Robinson, 1990).
The findings of inequality in the division of household work were repeated over
and over again in almost every study in the literature. In one study, women reported
spending an average of 29 hours per week on household work and men reported an
average of 7 hours a week (Bergen, 1991). In another study, employed women, on the
average, spent twice as much time preparing meals and triple the time cleaning up after
meals per week than did their husbands. Men spent no more than one-fifth of the time
their wives spent in housecleaning tasks (Shelton, 1990). Once again, shopping was
reported to be more equally shared between wives and husbands. Significantly, the
author of this study concluded that husbands' contributions to housework did not vary
with their wives' participation in paid work. Although men were found to increase their
time spent on some housework tasks under those conditions, they decreased their time
spent on other tasks. Consequently, their total time spent in housework remained
constant (Shelton, 1990).
In a study of fathers' participation in household work, their level of responsibility
for cooking, cleaning, shopping, and clothing care tasks was measured. Responsibility
18
for the task was defined as remembering, planning, and scheduling it. O f the 160 fathers
in the study, 150 of them were not responsible for any tasks, 8 fathers had responsibility
for one task, and only 2 fathers had responsibility for two or three tasks. This study also
found that mothers' employment status affected fathers' time spent performing these
stereotypically female tasks. As the time mothers spent in paid work increased, the time
fathers spent in cooking, laundry, and child care tasks increased correspondingly. The
results of these two studies (Barnett & Baruch, 1988; Shelton, 1990) confirmed the
conclusions reached in Berk and Berk (1979) and Berk (1988). Men's participation in
household work generally occurred in response to the unavailability of women's labor.
Most of the research conducted on divisions of household work within families
demonstrated not only that women performed more of the household work in absolute
and proportionate terms, but also that the tasks typically completed by women needed to
be done on a more frequent basis than those done by men (Beckwith, 1992; Coltrane,
1990; Gunter & Gunter, 1990; Robinson & Spitze, 1992; Shaw, 1988; Shelton, 1992).
Beckwith (1992) stated that inequality within divisions o f household work was based
less upon the number of tasks that were stereotyped as being female, but more upon the
labor-intensity and frequency of those tasks. Meal preparation and clean up, doing the
laundry, tidying up the house, and cleaning the bathroom needed to be completed several
times throughout the day or on a daily or weekly basis. Stereotypically male household
work tasks such as cleaning out the garage, washing the car, cutting the grass, taking out
the garbage, and making household repairs occurred on variable, but rarely more often
than weekly, basis. Women's participation in household work was noted to be more time
consuming and of more immediate necessity than was men's participation (Gunter &
Gunter, 1990).
19
Besides the limitation of men's participation in household work to stereotypically
male tasks, Meissner (1977) found that men's preferred contributions to household work
were characterized by (a) clearly defined boundaries as to what the job was and when it
was completed, such as cutting the grass or washing the car; (b) discretion as to when the
job could be done, such as household repairs or cleaning the garage; and (c) a leisure
component, such as playing with children or maintaining the yard. The discretionary
nature of traditionally male household work tasks was also discussed by Shelton (1992).
Outdoor maintenance can usually be delayed another day or even a week if necessary,
but meal preparation cannot be delayed until the next day. The time-bound aspect of
household work typically allocated to women requires conscious coordination with the
demands of paid work, whereas men's stereotyped household work tasks do not usually
intersect with their paid work participation. Their household work can be easily
scheduled to occur in the evening or on the weekends (Shelton, 1992). Indeed, the
majority of men's participation in household work (65%) was found to be completed on
weekend days; women's participation in household work demonstrated an almost even
split between weekdays (54%) and weekend days (46%) (Shaw, 1988).
Division of Child Care Within Families
When one considers the division of child care tasks within families, the
consensus of opinion in America today seems to be that fatherhood is in the process of
redefinition (Gibbs, 1993; LaRossa, 1988; Louv, 1993; Rabin, 1993; Roan, 1991; Smith,
1995). LaRossa (1988) suggested that the culture of fatherhood (shared values and
beliefs about fathers) and the conduct of fatherhood (the behaviors of fathers and what
they actually do) were asynchronous. The current culture o f fatherhood talks about a
new conduct of fathers, that is, father as nurturer.. The "new father" is an involved and
active participant in the daily care for his children (LaRossa, 1988; Louv, 1993; Roan,
20
1991; Smith, 1995). Unfortunately, while the culture or ideology about fatherhood has
changed, the conduct o f fatherhood has lagged behind. "There has been a shift in the
culture o f fatherhood-the way fathers and mothers think and feel about men as parents,"
but there has not been "a proportionate shift in the conduct o f fatherhood" (LaRossa,
1988, p. 452).
Across all social classes, and even within the upper-middle class where the
ideology of the "new fatherhood" has been firmly established, fathers' actions have failed
to follow their words. Figures from time-use data in 1965 indicated quantitative and
qualitative differences between the mean amount of time that mothers and fathers spent
with their children. Husbands of employed wives spent half the time that their wives did
in child care tasks, but half of that was spent in play. One-tenth of mothers' time with
their children was spent in play (Robinson, 1977); These quantitative and qualitative
differences persist today, no matter what the current culture of fatherhood might suggest
(Barnett & Baruch, 1988; Lamb, 1987; LaRossa, 1988; Nock & Kingston, 1988; Owen,
1995).
Lamb (1987) separated parental involvement into three components. They were
(a) engagement, time in which there was one-to-one interaction with the child, including
physical care or play; (b) accessibility, time in which the parent was in close proximity to
the child and, although doing something else, he or she was readily available to the child;
and (c) responsibility, which consisted of accountability for the child's health, welfare,
and safety through such things as ensuring that the child had clean clothes to wear and
attended doctor appointments. Within families where the mother was unemployed,
fathers were estimated to spend an average of one-fifth to one-quarter o f the mothers'
time in engagement activities and an average of one-third of the mothers' time in
accessibility activities. When mothers were employed, fathers spent an average of one-
21
third of the mothers' time in engagement activities and an average of two-thirds as much
time as mothers in being accessible to their children (Lamb, 1987). Mothers were found
to be responsible for their children an average of 90% of the time, regardless of their
participation or non-participation in paid work.
These findings have been supported by other studies on divisions of child care
within families. LaRossa (1988) found that fathers were involved with their children for
only a fraction of the time that mothers were and that they spent more of that time
engaged in play. In a study designed to examine father’ s participation in household
work, 160 mothers and fathers from the Boston area were interviewed for a period of two
hours in their homes (Barnett & Baruch, 1987, 1988; Baruch & Barnett, 1986).
Measures of fathers' participation included the quality of father-child interactions; the
amount of father-child interaction time; the total amount of father-child interaction time
proportional to mother-child interaction time; the amount of time spent by the father only
in child care and housework compared to the time spent on those tasks by both parents;
and the fathers’ responsibility for child care and housework as opposed to simply
completing those tasks. Overall, fathers' participation in household work was much
lower than mothers' participation.
Regardless of whether or not mothers were employed, fathers spent two-thirds
the time that mothers did with the child. Mothers averaged 44 hours a week and fathers
averaged 29 hours a week with the child. When time spent alone with the child was
considered, mothers spent almost 4 times as many hours with their children than did
fathers (Barnett & Baruch, 1988; Baruch & Barnett, 1986). Mothers' employment
affected the proportional measures of father-child interaction relative to mother-child
interaction. In other words, husbands of employed wives spent more time with their
child relative to their wives than did husbands of unemployed wives (Barnett and
Baruch, 1987, 1988). This finding was partially attributed to the employed mothers'
decreased interactions with their children when compared to unemployed mothers.
The level of fathers’ responsibility for child care was low. Responsibility for a
task was defined as being responsible for remembering, planning, and scheduling it.
Among a total of 160 fathers, 113 of them stated that they were not responsible for any
child care tasks, 35 fathers reported that they were responsible for one child care task,
and 12 fathers reported responsibility for two or three tasks (Barnett & Baruch, 1988).
The time spent in being responsible for children on paid workdays comprised an average
of 1 hour, 12 minutes for mothers and an average of 36 minutes for fathers (Leslie,
Anderson, & Branson, 1991).
Moreover, mothers were found to spend much more time with their children on
their paid workdays than fathers (Nock & Kingston, 1988). Mothers within the United
States spent more time (an average of 10.7 hours) per day caring for their preschool-aged
children on weekdays than did mothers in any of the other nine countries surveyed
(Owen, 1995). American fathers were found to provide sole care for their children for an
average of 45 minutes per day and shared child supervision with mothers for an average
of 1 hour per day. O f all the countries surveyed, American fathers trailed behind the rest
in terms of the amount of time that they spent with their children on a daily basis.
Fathers from many of the other countries averaged 2 or 3 hours each day in shared
supervision of their children (Owen, 1995).
Yet, in 1988, approximately one in five American fathers with employed wives
were the primary care providers for their preschool-aged children while their wives were
at work outside the home (United States Bureau of the Census, 1992b). Although the
majority of child care within families is still provided by mothers, some studies have
demonstrated that this labor gap between mothers and fathers may be decreasing
23
(Gerson, 1993; Yogev & Brett, 1985). Studies supporting non-traditional divisions of
household work, including both housework and child care, will be presented later in this
chapter.
Orchestration of Household Work Within Daily Occupations
Comparing the content of early morning household activities carried out by
employed husbands of unemployed and employed wives, Berk and Berk (1979) found
that the employment status of the wife made no difference. Husbands of both employed
and unemployed wives spent the early morning hours preparing themselves to leave the
house and go to work. Employed wives, however, were involved in making breakfast,
making lunches, cleaning the bathroom, waking and dressing children, and chauffeuring
children as well as preparing themselves for work. Richter (1990) obtained similar
findings. In her study of dual-career couples, the men reported only self-care activities in
the morning, whereas the women were engaged in home chores in addition to self-care
activities. This difference in early morning responsibilities had consequences for time
use during the morning commute to work. Women made an abrupt shift in their thinking
from the home domain to the work domain during their commute, while men made a
gradual shift in consciousness that began before leaving home (Richter, 1990).
Hochschild (1989) also noted that the women she interviewed often did two things at
once.
The findings of these three studies speak to the phenomenon o f enfolded
occupations as discussed by Bateson (in press). Women were more likely to be involved
in or juggle several tasks simultaneously than were men. Thus, women were frequently
observed to be completing household work and caring for children at the same time,
whereas men were noted not to combine other work while caring for their children
(Bateson, in press). This greater likelihood for women than for men to orchestrate their
24
engagement in household work in this manner has also been documented in other
studies. Men were found to be less likely than women to do housework when they were
alone or with children (49% of men as compared to 70% of women) and more likely than
women to participate in housework or child care while in the company o f their spouses
or families (43% of men compared to 25% of women) (Shaw, 1988). Percentages
provided are mean percentages of data collected from all respondents.
In addition, women were more likely to be involved in a secondary obligatory
activity while engaged in housework or child care than were men (27% of women versus
15% of men), but men were more likely than women to be doing nothing else (59% of
men compared to 52.5% of women) or to be involved in a secondary free time activity
(26% of men as compared to 20% of women) while completing housework or child care
tasks (Shaw, 1988). Nock and Kingston (1988) reported that when fathers provided care
for their children while their wives participated in paid work during the evening hours,
their primary activity with their children was watching television. Similarly, when
fathers were observed playing with their children, their play activities tended to be those
which were secondary in nature (LaRossa, 1988). They were inclined to be primarily
involved in watching television or completing household work tasks and only
secondarily involved in the play with their children.
This section o f the literature review indicates that traditional divisions of
household work, ones in which women were responsible for most of the work, continued
to exist within families even when women were employed outside of the home. The
literature on non-traditional divisions of household work within families will now be
reviewed.
25
Non-Traditional Divisions of Household Work
Non-traditional divisions of household work have been studied within the
context of two-earner families with a specific focus on how the household work was
shared between men and women when women participated in paid work outside of the
home (Carlson, 1984; Coltrane, 1990; Ferree, 1991b; Gilbert, 1985; Hochschild, 1989).
Within a group of 51 two-earner families, 29 men (57%) reported that the housework
was "pretty evenly shared" with their wives and 21 of the 37 fathers (57%) in the group
reported sharing child care "pretty evenly" (Gilbert, 1985, p. 63). The study did not
define what constituted "pretty evenly shared", but implied that it went beyond "helping
out" with the household work. Two-thirds of the 29 couples reported that they shared
food shopping and preparation and housecleaning. One-half of them stated that they
shared yard work and clothing care and two-fifths shared financial management tasks.
Housework was more likely to be shared within families without children (69%) than
families with children (51%). Gilbert (1985) found the fathers in this study tended to
share child care tasks more readily than they did housework tasks. She hypothesized that
men may have perceived the experience of sharing in both types o f household work as
too demanding.
This hypothesis was also suggested in another study which included both
traditional and non-traditional families. Sixty families from middle and upper-middle
classes were divided into three groups according to their divisions of household work.
One group consisted of families where the mother was the primary caregiver and did not
participate in full-time paid work; one group comprised two-earner families where the
mother was the primary caregiver; and the final group consisted of two-earner families
where "responsibility for child care was shared about equally" (Carlson, 1984, p. 127).
26
Measures of participation in child care and housework were based on means of self-
reports and spousal reports.
Results of the study indicated that fathers who shared child care also completed
significantly more housework than fathers who did not share child care (Carlson, 1984).
An unusual finding of this study, probably related to the small sample size of the shared
caregiving group of families, was the lack of a positive relationship between participation
in child care and in housework within that group. In the two groups where fathers were
minimally involved with their children, such a positive relationship was found,
suggesting that paternal participation in one type of work increased the likelihood of
paternal participation in the other. The author hypothesized, similar to Gilbert (1985),
that fathers who were highly involved in one type of work were "absolved o f major
responsibility in the other" (Carlson, 1984, p. 131), whereas fathers who participated in
lower levels o f household work distributed their participation more equally between child
care and housework.
Another finding of this study, not found elsewhere in the literature, was that
fathers who shared child care participated in more housework than their wives. The
author suggested that this finding may have been specific to the nonrepresentative
sample of this study. She also speculated that it may have been related to women's
expectations for men's participation in household work, to the strength o f women's career
orientation, or to men's acceptance of women's careers (Carlson, 1984). This anomalous
finding was not confirmed in any other studies reviewed. In fact, most studies
contradicted this finding.
Hochschild (1989) interviewed 50 couples in a qualitative study of two-earner
families. She divided household work into three categories: (a) housework; (b)
parenting, including both physical care and education of the child; and (c) management
27
of domestic life, that is, the remembering, planning, and scheduling of household chores
and events. Most of the women were found to spend proportionately more of their time
in housework tasks and proportionately less of their time in child care than men. Of their
time spent working at home, most men devoted more of it to child care than to
housework. Of the 50 couples included in her study, only 20% o f the men shared 45-
55% of the tasks in these three categories. These men did not necessarily complete the
same tasks as their wives but they did do half of the tasks overall in each of the three
categories.
A 60/40% split of household work between women and men was often cited
within the literature as being evidence of an equitable division of the work (Bergman,
1986; Ferree, 1991b; Schwartz, 1994; Smith & Reid, 1986). Household work was
considered to be shared equally within families in which neither women nor men
completed more than 60% and less than 40% of the household work. The literature
reviewed clearly demonstrated that divisions of household work within two-earner
families varied in the extent to which they were equitable arrangements. Bergman
(1986) developed a typology of two-earner families with four distinct categories: (a)
semi-housewifes where women participated in fewer than 30 hours of paid work per
week; (b) cash-paying households in which the combined household work of men and
women was less than 12 hours per week; (c) two-housekeeper marriages in which women
completed 60% or less of the household work; and (d) drudge wives who participated in
more than 30 hours of paid work per week and completed more than 60% of the
household work. Based on 1976 data, 66% of all two-earner families were from the
categories of the semi-housewife and cash-paying households, 24% were from the
category of drudge wife, and only 10% were two-housekeeper marriages.
28
In 1989, 382 two-earner families were surveyed to measure current divisions of
housework, (child care was excluded), according to this typology (Ferree, 1991b). Of
this group, 24% were categorized as semi-housewives, 9% were cash-paying households,
29% were drudge wives, and 38% were two-housekeeper marriages. Ferree concluded
that the division of household work within two-earner families was more equitable than
it had been in 1976 because the number of women in two-housekeeper marriages (where
they were responsible for 60% or less of the housework) now outnumbered the drudge
wives (who were responsible for over 60% of the housework). Within the families from
the drudge wife category, women completed an average of 71% o f the housework and
men participated in housework at an average rate of 10 hours and 1.3 stereotypical
female tasks per week. Women within two-housekeeper marriages completed an average
of 51% of housework and men participated in an average of 17.6 hours of housework and
2.1 stereotypical female tasks per week (Ferree, 1991b). Thus, 38% of the men in two-
earner families completed an average of more than 40% of the housework.
The need to distinguish between housework and child care when studying
divisions of household work within families has been recognized within the literature
(Baxter, 1992; Blair & Lichter, 1991; Goodnow & Bowes, 1994; Shelton, 1992; Kibria,
Barnett, Baruch, Marshall, Pleck, 1990). "Doing one does not necessarily mean doing
the other. Moreover, sharing the one does not necessarily mean sharing the other"
(Goodnow & Bowes, 1994, p. 12). As the literature reviewed has shown, men have been
generally found to be more likely to participate in child care, especially those aspects of
care with a leisure component such as playing, than to participate in housework tasks.
Something about the nature of housework seems to keep it gender-specialized with
women remaining responsible for most of it (Goodnow & Bowes, 1994). Survey data
collected on several thousands o f men and women indicated that the only types of
29
household work in which men took on more than a quarter of the work were yard work
and home maintenance and child care (Goldscheider & Waite, 1991), The mean
percentages for the men's share of this household work were 40%.
Child care tasks were found to be more readily shared between mothers and
fathers within a small group o f highly educated, moderate-to-middle income two-earner
families than were housework tasks (Coltrane, 1990). The parents in these families
shared both child care and housework. The mothers were found to be primarily
responsible for only one-third of the household work, whereas studies within families
with traditional divisions of household work indicated that two-thirds of the household
work was the primary responsibility o f women. The families in this study were non-
traditional in the sense that household work was shared, but mothers continued to
complete more housework tasks than fathers. Although the fathers shared most direct
child care tasks and many of the indirect child care tasks as well, there was a wide
variation in the other types of household work that they shared (Coltrane, 1990).
Some of the fathers provided as much child care as their wives, but participated
in little of the rest of the housework typically completed by women. Other fathers who
also shared child care with their wives concentrated most of their participation in
housework in a specific area such as cooking. And finally, other fathers were found to
share child care and many of the other housework tasks. All of the fathers participated in
some type of housework traditionally allocated to women, but 40% of the mothers
reported that they were still primarily responsible for the planning and management
aspects o f the household work. Based on these findings, Coltrane (1990) suggested that
definitions of non-traditional divisions of household work should focus on and take into
account men's participation in household work that has been stereotyped as women's
work. The instances in which men cross gender boundaries to complete housework
generally allocated to women provide opportunities to investigate gender equality or
inequality in divisions of household work.
A study o f268 mostly well-educated, upper-middle class two-earner families
was designed to measure the tendency for credit-taking for child care on the part of
mothers and fathers. The fathers' overall average contribution to the work of child care
was 40% (Deutsch, Lozy, & Saxon, 1993). Their average percentage contribution to the
planning and management tasks o f child care was much lower, only 29%. These figures
were based on both fathers' and mothers' percentage estimates of the fathers' contribution
to child care. Although the fathers' estimates of their percentage contributions exceeded
the mothers' estimates, the differences between their estimates were small. The authors
concluded that research focused on divisions of household work within families should
not rely on one partner's report on the distribution of the work. The small magnitude of
the discrepancy between the parents reported in this study, however, supported the use of
averages of both partners' reports on their contributions to household work.
A study on equal parenting within Sweden explored the relationship between
fathers who took parental leave and their continued involvement in child care after
returning to paid work (Haas, 1992). Mothers were generally found to report less sharing
of child care than fathers did, however, parental responses were averaged to even out
these differences in perceptions as to how the work was divided. Fathers who had taken
parental leave were significantly more likely to share child care than were fathers who
had not taken leave (Haas, 1992). O f the fathers who had taken leave, 41% of them were
found to share equally in the responsibility for child care; only 20% of the fathers who
did not take leave shared the responsibility in caring for their children. The tasks of food
buying, cooking, feeding, diapering, bathing, reading, comforting, getting up at night,
going to the doctor, and laundry were more likely to be performed by fathers who had
31
taken parental leave than by those who did not. No differences were found between the
two groups in terms of playing, teaching, arranging for baby-sitting, and shopping for
clothes. Both groups of fathers were equally likely to play with and teach their children
and equally unlikely to arrange for baby-sitting and shop for clothes.
The amount of time fathers spent with their children was unaffected by their use
of parental leave from paid work (Haas, 1992). Fathers who did and did not take leave
both spent an average of 3 hours on workdays and 10.5 hours on non-workdays with
their children. On non-workdays, fathers' mean time spent with their children comprised
45% of all the time spent by the parents. This figure dropped to 37% on workdays. The
proportionate amount o f leave that fathers took affected their sharing of child care.
Among the fathers who took one-fifth or more of the parental leave taken by both
parents, 65% of them shared general responsibility for child care equally with mothers
and 90% percent of them spent at least 40% of the total parental time with their children.
Mothers continued to be primarily responsible for the completion of housework,
including laundry, shopping, and cooking.
Additional data on non-traditional divisions of household work were found in
studies of shared parenting couples. Shared responsibility for child care was a criteria for
inclusion in these studies (Kimball, 1988; Russell, 1982). Kimball (1988) conducted a
study of 50-50 parenting. Her respondents shared child care equally. She found varying
reports of equal divisions of household work among these families. Using the criteria of
being within ten hours of each other on combined hours spent in child care and
housework per week, step and divorced families had the most equal division (86%)
followed by primary caregiving fathers and communal parents (80%). Approximately
50% of the two-parent families and only 33% of lesbian and gay families reported equal
divisions of household work (Kimball, 1988).
32
Mothers and fathers in shared caregiving families were found to spend equal
hours per week in the day-to-day care of the child and in play and significant interactions
with the child (Russell, 1982), Fathers averaged 9 hours per week in physical caretaking
and 18 hours per week in socialization tasks. Mothers spent an average of 11 hours per
week conducting physical child care tasks and 16 hours per week in socialization
activities. Thus, both parents put in a mean total of 27 hours per week on child care
tasks. Russell stated, however, that patterns o f shared caregiving in families were
extremely unstable. A follow-up study showed that less than 25% of the original group
persisted in this pattern over a period of 2 years. Negative peer pressure, career factors,
financial factors, and children's needs were the reasons offered by the families who no
longer shared caregiving (Russell, 1982). This review of the literature indicates that non-
traditional divisions o f household work exist within some families. Research on parent-
child play within families with traditional and non-traditional divisions of household
work will now be reviewed.
Parent-Child Play Within Traditional Families
Parent-Child Plav in Laboratory Settings
Yogman (1982) investigated parent-infant social interactions during the first six
months of life in unstructured face-to-face interactions. Two minutes of face-to-face
interactions were videotaped in a laboratory setting. Analysis of the videotapes indicated
that, during turn-taking social games, infant play with both mothers and fathers
demonstrated regular, cyclic play episodes. However, transitions between play episodes
differed. Game playing with mothers featured gradual, contained, and modulated shifts
from maximal to minimal attention, whereas play with fathers was marked by
accentuated and rapid shifts.
33
Play sessions with fathers were more likely to include games than those with
mothers. Tactile and motor games characterized fathers' play. Visual games, in which
the parents attempted to maintain their infants' attention by making distal motor
movements, were conducted more frequently by mothers than fathers. Yogman (1982)
suggested that these parental game differences were related to differences in play episode
transitions. The distal attention-maintaining games of mothers produced gradual and
modulated shifts between play episodes. An accentuated episode shift was fostered
through the proximal games played by fathers.
A study conducted by Power (1985) continued Yogman's line of research with
infants at 7, 10, and 13 months of age. Using videotapes taken during laboratory play
sessions, Power found that the content and style of play differed across infant age and
between mothers and fathers. Six categories of play were identified: (a) attention, (b)
simple motor exploration/play, (c) complex relational play, (d) pretend play, (e)
communicative/tum-taking play, and (f) visual or auditory play (Power, 1985). All types
of play were equally encouraged by the parents, except for pretend play which was
encouraged more frequently by mothers than fathers. Significant differences between
parents were noted in play style. Mothers were more likely to let their infants choose the
object of play, thus allowing the infant's curiosity to guide the direction o f play. Fathers,
however, tended to ignore their infants' object of attention by overtly interfering with and
directing the infant's play. During the first year of life, mother-infant and father-infant
play interactions demonstrated a similar developmental course. Both parents increased
their encouragement of pretend play, turn-taking play, and complex relational play with
objects and reduced their attempts to direct the infant's attention. At 13 months o f age,
infants were more responsive to mothers than fathers. Also of note was the finding that
mothers o f girls spent more time directing their behavior than did mothers of boys.
34
During dyadic piay in a laboratory setting, both mothers and fathers were found
to be sensitive to the developmental level o f play o f their toddlers and preschool-aged
children (Stevenson, Leavitt, Thompson, & Roach, 1988). Functional play, that is,
sensory play with objects, and physical play were more likely to be engaged in by
parents with their 1 year old children than with their preschool-aged children. Parents
were more likely to engage in pretend play with their older children than with their
toddlers. Across both groups of children, mothers were more likely to initiate instructive
or verbal play than were fathers. Fathers were more likely to engage in functional play
activities with their children than were mothers (Stevenson et al., 1988).
A laboratory study conducted with preschool-aged children (Roopnarine &
Mounts, 1985) obtained findings similar to those of Yogman (1982), Power (1985), and
Stevenson et al. (1988). The researcher coded videotapes of parent-child interactions for
frequency of parental initiations of selected types of play. The types of play coded were
(a) fantasy play, including whether the play had a domestic or adventure theme; (b)
rough play; and (c) joint positive, or social interactive play. Fantasy and joint positive
play were more likely to be initiated by the mother. Fathers tended to initiate rough play
with their children. The only significant finding with respect to differential treatment of
children based on gender was that mothers initiated joint positive play more frequently
with girls than with boys (Roopnarine & Mounts, 1985). Within fantasy play, mothers
chose domestic themes more often than adventure themes with both boys and girls. The
children were more cooperative and responsive to the mothers' joint positive and fantasy
play initiations than to those of fathers. These studies indicated that the parental play
differences observed in infancy continued into the preschool years.
In direct contrast to the findings of Power (1985) and Roopnarine and Mounts
(1985), Perlmutter and Pellegrini (1987) found no significant differences in children's
35
amount of fantasy play when interacting with mothers or with fathers. They suggested
that differences between mother-child play and father-child may be masked within the
experimental playroom setting and concluded that "when context is controlled there may
be fewer differences between parental behaviors than are seen in more naturalistic
uncontrolled situations" (Perlmutter & Pellegrini, 1987, p. 278).
Parent-Child Plav in the Home
Parent-child play within the home has been studied most frequently in families
with traditional divisions of household work. The following studies were conducted in
families in which the mother was the primary caretaker. Lamb (1976, 1977, 1987) was
one of the first researchers to take an in-depth look at father-infant relationships. He
observed parents and their infants at the ages of 7, 8, 12, and 13 months within their
homes in the evenings, over weekends, and other days when both parents were home.
During the visits, which generally lasted one to two hours, the parents were encouraged
to carry out their normal routine activities. Parent-child play was classified as (a)
conventional, (i.e., peek-a-boo, pat-a-cake); (b) physical, (i.e., rough-and-tumble); (c)
minor physical, (i.e., tickling); (d) toy-mediated; and (e) idiosyncratic, (i.e., all other play
that did not fit into other categories) (Lamb, 1977).
During visits when the infant was 7 and 8 months old, there was no difference
between parents in the amount of time spent in play or in the number of play episodes,
but there was a difference in the type of play initiated by the parents. Fathers initiated
more physical and idiosyncratic games than mothers. Mothers tended to initiate play
more frequently with daughters than with sons, particularly conventional games (Lamb,
1976). An increase in toy-mediated play with a concurrent decrease in physical play in
both mother-infant and father-infant interactions and a decrease in father-infant minor
36
physical and idiosyncratic play were noted during the family visits when the infant was
12 and 13 months old (Lamb, 1977).
When the data were collapsed across all four visits for analysis, fathers appeared
to be the infants' preferred play partner as judged by the positive response to father-infant
play. Mothers more frequently held their infants for caretaking tasks, whereas fathers
more frequently held them for play only. Lamb (1977) suggested that the different
reasons for holding their infants may account for their positive responses to fathers.
Similar conclusions were drawn by Kotelchuck (1976). Using an interview format, he
found that, within families with a traditional division of household work, mothers played
more with their children in terms of absolute time, but that fathers spent a greater amount
of time playing with their children relative to total time spent with them. He speculated
that the relatively greater amount of play time led to a greater attractiveness of fathers to
their children, even though fathers may be less available (Kotelchuck, 1976).
Clarke-Stewart (1978, 1980) conducted an in-home study of parent-child
interactions when the child was 15, 20, and 30 months old using a combination of
unstructured natural observations, semi-structured play probe situations, mothers'
records, attitude questionnaires, and standardized developmental tests. Six observations
of one hour each were made; three with both parents and children and three with only
mothers and children. The observer followed and recorded the children's behaviors as
the parents carried out their normal routines. During the natural observations, mothers
were more likely to interact with their children than were fathers, even when the fathers
were home and available. When fathers were present, however, mothers' amounts of
positive and responsive talk and play with their children decreased. Mothers were also
more likely to perform caretaking tasks than were fathers.
37
Social play was the only interaction in which there was equal involvement of the
parents. There were no differences in the frequency, amount of time spent, or in the
quality of physical and social stimulation between parents during social play interactions.
In fact, play was the only situation in which "the father's effort was not ’ overwhelmed' by
the amount of maternal behavior emitted" (Clarke-Stewart, 1980, p. 124). Father-child
play was generally briefer, more physical, and less toy-mediated than mother-child play.
Fathers tended to play with boys more than they did with girls. Similar findings were
obtained in the play probe situations. The mothers' play with their children was less
social, more intellectual, and toy-mediated, whereas the fathers' play was more social and
physical in nature (Clarke-Stewart, 1980).
This finding was confirmed by a naturalistic observation study of 18 month old
infants, in which fathers were observed to encourage physical play and mothers were
observed to encourage object play (Teti, Bond, & Gibbs, 1988). The children's
preference for and positive reaction to fathers' play was more marked in the probe
situation than in the natural observations (Clarke-Stewart, 1980). By the time the
children were 30 months old, father-child play was more frequent than mother-child play
and fathers were more likely to reward and direct their children's play than were mothers.
According to the mothers' reports, the role of the fathers as playmate in the natural
setting of the home also increased over the 15 months of the study.
Power and Parke (1982) extended a laboratory study of parent-infant interactions
into the home context to determine the generalizability o f their laboratory study findings.
Using an observation taxonomy and coding system, they recorded the frequency and
sequence of all parent-infant interactions during a 45 minute observation period in the
home when both parents were present. The infants ranged in age from 7.5 months to
10.5 months. The types of play interactions coded included (a) watching, (b) toy
38
touching, (c) minor physical, (d) grasping, (e) retrieving, (f) face-to-face, and (g) lifting.
They discovered that six out of the seven types of play interactions identified in the
laboratory also occurred at home (toy touching was rarely observed). In addition, four
other types of play interactions were identified as unique to the home: (a) vocal, (b)
imitating, (c) searching, and (d) large motor assisting.
Although fathers spent more time in physical play with their infants, regardless
of gender, the most significant mother-father differences in play interactions were related
to infant gender. Fathers spent more time encouraging their sons' visual, large motor,
and fine motor exploration of the environment than they did with their daughters.
Fathers also encouraged greater vocal behavior in their daughters than in their sons
(Power & Parke, 1982). In a study designed to extend the findings of this study, parents
of 11, 14, and 17 month old infants were observed to make fewer attempts to influence
their boys' behavioral and cognitive socialization (Power & Parke, 1986). In addition,
they were more likely to encourage prosocial behaviors (politeness, kindness, and
helpfulness) and discourage aggressive behaviors in their girls than they were with their
boys. The only difference between mothers and fathers, regardless of infant gender, was
that mothers were more likely than fathers to try to teach household rules to their infants,
including table manners, and to restrict their physical exploration and noise levels.
In general, the parents observed in this study attempted to influence their infants'
behaviors by manipulating objects; encouraging the development of large-motor skills
through getting them to take their first steps or propel a riding toy; engaging in
social/affective play such as making faces, lifting the infant into the air, or tickling them;
and teaching them household rules (Power & Parke, 1986). The parents' most common
interactions with their infants were providing access to objects and encouraging large-
motor skill and language development. Parental attempts to encourage household
39
responsibilities, such as feeding pets and picking up toys, and prosocial behaviors
increased with infant age and attempts to regulate attention and aggression decreased
with infant age.
Studies on parent-child play with preschool-aged children confirmed the findings
of the parent-infant play studies. Mothers and fathers were equally directive and verbal
with their 3 and 4 year old children, but parents of girls were observed to talk more to
their children than were parents of boys (MacDonald & Parke, 1984). Fathers
demonstrated a greater amount of physical play with their children than did mothers.
Mothers engaged in more object-mediated play than did fathers (MacDonald & Parke,
1984). Although both mothers and fathers were more likely to display physical play
with their sons than with their daughters, father-son dyads were most likely to engage in
physical play (Jacklin, DiPietro, & Maccoby, 1984). MacDonald and Parke (1986)
found that this difference in the occurrence of mother-child versus father-child physical
play increases with the child’ s age, that is, fathers continued to play physically with their
children as they got older. When compared to girls, boys were found to have prolonged
exposures to physical play with their parents throughout their childhood.
In summary, while many studies concluded that there were more similarities than
differences in maternal and paternal behaviors (Belsky, 1979; Clarke-Stewart, 1980;
Lamb, 1976, 1977; Teti et al., 1988), some significant differences in parent-child play
were found. Among the differences were an increased likelihood of fathers to engage in
social and physical play, of mothers to engage in intellectual and object play, and of both
parents to encourage and facilitate boys' independent exploration over that of girls and to
engage in more verbal behavior with girls than with boys. These findings have been
confirmed in both laboratory and home settings in families with a traditional division of
40
household work. Parent-child play within families with non-traditional divisions of
household work will now be considered.
Parent-Child Plav in Non-traditional Families
Single-career and dual-career families were studied to examine differences in
parental behavior based on primary or shared responsibility for the child and gender of
the parent (Pedersen, Cain, Zaslow, & Anderson, 1982). No measures o f the division of
household work between mothers and fathers were conducted in this study. The dual
career families were described as having alternative family roles based on the mothers'
participation in paid work and were classified as non-traditional. Observations of the
parents with their 5 month old infants were made within their homes using a time-
sampling cycle of 10 seconds of observation followed by 20 seconds of recording. Both
parents were present for two 1-hour visits. Mothers and infants were observed alone for
90 minutes. One significant difference related solely to the gender of the parent was
found. Mothers engaged in more distal receptor stimulation of their infants than did
fathers. They talked, smiled, and maintained eye contact more often than the fathers. No
parental gender differences were found in the amount o f high-pitched vocalizations,
social play, or physical play. The researchers reported that "behaviors that have been
called the hallmark o f paternal interactional styles, were engaged in equally by mothers
and fathers across the total sample" (Pedersen et al., 1982, p. 211).
Both parents in the traditional families provided more tactile stimulation to the
infant than did parents in non-traditional families. This was the only finding that was
consistent for both parents. Mothers as a group directed more verbal behavior towards
the infant than did fathers, but employed mothers talked significantly more than the
mothers from the traditional families. The pattern of mother-child and father-child social
play was reversed, depending on the family. Traditional fathers engaged in social play
41
more than their wives, whereas non-traditional mothers engaged in more social play than
did their husbands (Pedersen et al., 1982). In fact, the researchers stated that when
looking at all categories of infant care (a) mothers within non-traditional families had the
greatest amount of involvement, except for tactile stimulation; (b) fathers within non-
traditional families had the least amount of involvement; and (c) parents in traditional
families were most likely to be in the middle ground.
The reduction of the provision of tactile stimulation to infants in non-traditional
families when compared to traditional families may be related to the increased demands
on time when both parents work and the opportunity for a more leisurely tempo in
traditional families. The researchers also hypothesized that the intensified involvement
of the mothers in non-traditional families may have "inhibited or 'crowded out' the
father" in all areas of interaction and, specifically in his specialty, social play (Pedersen
et al., 1982, p. 218). Ambivalence on the part of non-traditional mothers towards
working and the fact that the study occurred within one or two months after the mothers'
return to work may have resulted in the mothers' attempt to overcompensate through
increased and intensified mother-infant interactions.
Some of these findings were replicated and others were not in a study conducted
within traditional and non-traditional Swedish families with 8 month old infants (Lamb,
Frodi, Hwang, Frodi, & Steinberg, 1982). Families in which the fathers had taken at
least one month of parental leave and had been the primary caregiver during that time
were considered to be non-traditional. Traditional families were those in which the
father had not taken parental leave and had never been the primary caregiver. Six
measures of parental behavior were coded in this study. They included (a) affectionate
behaviors (kissing, hugging, cuddling); (b) vocalizations; (c) smiling; (d) tending
behaviors (caregiving behaviors); (e) play (stimulus, parallel, coordinate, minor physical,
physical, conventional, idiosyncratic); and (f) holding behaviors (caretaking, play,
affection, discipline, soothing, respondent). The families were observed in their homes
in unstructured situations.
Significant gender differences occurred within all of the parental behaviors
except play. Mothers within both traditional and non-traditional families were more
likely to display affectionate behavior, vocalize, smile, tend, and hold their infants than
were fathers (Lamb et al., 1982). These findings corresponded with those from studies
within traditional American families (Belsky, 1979; Lamb, 1976, 1977). The finding
that there were no differences between the play styles of mothers and fathers stood in
stark contrast to these same studies of traditional families within the United States.
Mothers in this study were not found to hold their infants more for caretaking and less
for play than were fathers. There were also no differences between genders in terms of
parental engagement in physical or conventional play. This finding indicated that gender
differences in play styles may be related to divisions of household work within families
(Lamb et al., 1982).
Differences in play were observed in the traditional and non-traditional families.
Fathers from the non-traditional families were less active in their play with their infants
than were fathers from the traditional families, whereas mothers from traditional families
had higher levels of play activity than mothers from non-traditional families. This
finding contradicted the finding of Pedersen et al. (1982) in which non-traditional
mothers were more active in play with their infants than were traditional mothers. The
difference was hypothesized to be related to the non-traditional Swedish mothers'
comfort level in leaving their infants with the primary caregiving fathers while they were
engaged in paid work. Their need to compensate for their absence from their infants may
have been less than that o f the mothers in the Pedersen et al. study. The findings for the
43
remaining five of the six measures of parental behaviors coincided with the findings of
Pedersen et al. (1982), that is, the non-traditional mothers scored the highest and the non-
traditional fathers scored the lowest of all of the parents. The researchers speculated that
the non-traditional mothers attempted to compensate for their absence secondary to their
paid work responsibilities by being very interactive with their infants while at home and
that the non-traditional fathers were happy to take a break from their child care
responsibilities (Lamb et al., 1982). These findings in Sweden were closely replicated in
families on Israeli kibbutzim (Sagi, Lamb, Shoham, Dvir, & Lewkowicz, 1985).
Within families with a non-traditional division o f household work, primary
caretaker fathers were observed to have a physical and playful style with their infants
even while carrying out caretaking tasks such as bathing, diapering, and feeding
(Yogman, 1982). A study comparing primary caretaker mothers with both primary and
secondary caretaker fathers of 4 month old infants was conducted within a laboratory
setting (Field, 1978). Both groups of fathers played more games and engaged in less
holding of the child than the mothers, thus there were similarities between the fathers
that differentiated them from the mothers. Both primary and secondary fathers of boys
played more games and engaged in less high-pitched vocalization than did fathers of
girls. The primary caretakers, both mothers and fathers, were differentiated from the
secondary caretaker fathers by greater smiling, imitative grimacing, and high-pitched
vocalizations. Field (1978) concluded that "these similarities between mothers and
fathers when they are both primary caretakers suggest that father-mother differences are
not necessarily intrinsic to being a father or mother" (p. 184).
Support for Field's study was offered by Russell (1982) in his study of shared
caregiving parents. In a comparison between traditional families and shared caregiving
families, mother-father differences in play activities with their children were reduced in
44
the shared caregiving families. Mothers in the traditional families were significantly
more likely to engage their children in indoor, intellectual, and object-oriented play than
were fathers (p < .001). Fathers in traditional families were found to initiate outdoor,
physical, and amusement-oriented play significantly more often than mothers (p < .001).
Differences between mothers' and fathers' play with their children in the shared
caregiving families were not statistically significant (p > .05).
In contrast, Ehrensaft (1987), in her study of shared parenting families, found
that mothers and fathers were consistently different in the ways in which they played
with their children. Indeed, she stated that "men and women in shared parenting families
are no different from those in more traditional households in the male-female division of
play modes" (p. 105). Unfortunately, Ehrensaft did not provide clear information on her
study sample or methodology beyond stating that to qualify for her sample both partners
in the couple had to identify themselves as the primary caretaker in the family and the
division of household work could not stray from a 65/35% split. Although she revealed
that her sample was from large urban centers or liberal, academic communities, was
predominantly white, middle-class, and professional, and had willingly chosen to share
parenting, no further sample description was provided. The study methodology is not
presented at all but, from the text, one can surmise that a combination of interviews and
observations were conducted.
Ehrensaft (1987) drew upon the work of Chodorow (1978), a feminist scholar
who developed a theory of differences in relational capacities between men and women,
to account for observed gender differences in parent-child interactions in shared
parenting families. Mothers were found to engage in play activities that were more
intellectual, sedentary, and quiet, whereas fathers played with their children in an active
and physical manner. The mothers chose play activities that facilitated creativity, role-
45
playing, apprenticeship learning, and academic skills. Fathers were more likely than
mothers to play rough and tumble games and to take the children on outings. Basing her
thinking on Chodorow (1978), Ehrensaft explained gender differences along the
dimension of "connectedness" versus "separateness." According to this view, women
tended to be more connected or relational with others, whereas men tended to struggle to
maintain a sense of separateness from others. She related connectedness to a "being"
style of mothering and separateness to a "doing" style of mothering. As she stated, "the
outcome is very much that women 'are' mothers while men 'do' mothering" (p. 94),
The literature on parent-child play within families with non-traditional divisions
of household work, although inconclusive, seemed to indicate that parent-child play was
influenced to some extent by the division of household work. Russell (1982) concluded
that the data suggested
that fathers who have a major caregiving role adopt a style of interaction
that is more similar to that found for mothers in traditional families.
What is needed now are observational data to investigate further this
finding and to explore in more depth the hypothesis that style of parent-
child interaction has a strong situational component, (p. 167)
Summary
This chapter reviewed the literature on divisions of household work and parent-
child play within families. The literature on historical influences upon household work
and trends in its distribution between women and men indicated that, while men have
increased their participation in household work, women remain primarily responsible for
the work's completion. A review of research on divisions of housework and child care
and the orchestration of household work found that traditional divisions of household
work continue to exist within families even when women are employed outside of the
home. Non-traditional divisions of household work within families were noted to occur
46
less frequently and were found to be less stable than traditional divisions of household
work.
The literature on parent-child play within traditional and non-traditional families
was also synthesized and discussed. Many studies conducted within families with
traditional divisions of household work concluded that there were more similarities than
differences in maternal and paternal play behaviors (Belsky, 1979; Clarke-Stewart, 1980;
Lamb, 1976, 1977; Teti et al., 1988). Among the differences were an increased
likelihood of fathers to engage in social and physical play and of mothers to engage in
intellectual and object play. These findings were replicated in some studies of families
with non-traditional divisions of household work, but not in others (Ehrensaft, 1987;
Field, 1978; Lamb et al., 1982; Pedersen et al., 1982; Russell, 1982; Sagi et al., 1985).
Thus, the literature on parent-child play within non-traditional families suggested that
gender differences may be related to divisions o f household work within families. The
review of the literature presented in this chapter provided the background and foundation
for the rest of this study.
47
CHAPTER 3
Methodology
Introduction
The purpose of this study was to describe the play of mothers and fathers with
their preschool-aged children as it occurred within the context of the daily occupations of
families with traditional and non-traditional divisions of household work. There were
three broad areas of interest: first, the nature of parent-child play within families; second,
the relationship of differing divisions of household work upon the nature of parent-child
play within families; and third, the orchestration of work and play within the daily
occupations of families with traditional and non-traditional divisions of household work.
This chapter will describe the methods and procedures used in the study. It will be
organized in the following format: (a) description of the research design, (b) selection
and description of the families who participated in the study, (c) description of the data
collection procedures, (d) description of the data analysis procedures, and (e) discussion
of the researcher's effects upon the research process.
Description of the Research Design
A qualitative research approach was chosen for the study. This approach "has
the aim of understanding experience as nearly as possible as its participants feel it or live
it" (Sherman & Webb, 1988, p.7). The importance o f context in the understanding of
experience requires that the qualitative researcher immerse herself in the natural setting
(Ely, 1991). Participant observation and intensive interviewing are the methods most
closely associated with naturalistic investigations. Participant observation is a special
type of observational process through which the investigator develops and maintains
relatively long-term relationships and involvement with the participants in the social
world chosen for study. Intensive interviewing more closely resembles a guided
48
conversation than a formal, structured interview. Its purpose is to obtain valid, reliable,
and detailed information that may be qualitatively analyzed (Lofland & Lofland, 1984;
Marshall & Rossman, (1989).
This study used a multiple-method approach in which participant observation,
intensive interviewing, and questionnaire data were collected and analyzed to further the
understanding of work and play within families. "Multiple methods work to enhance
understanding both by adding layers of information and by using one type o f data to
validate or refine another" (Reinharz, 1992, p. 201). When different data sources are
brought to bear on a single point of interest, they form a clear lens through which to
understand the phenomenon under study. Triangulation of the data in this manner
increases a study's credibility and generalizability to other settings than the one in which
it was conducted and increases confidence in the validity o f its findings (Gilgun, 1992).
Triangulation may also occur through the inclusion of multiple cases or informants as
they provide data from several different sources (Marshall & Rossman, 1989;
Sandelowski, Holditch-Davis, & Harris, 1992).
This study was designed to incorporate triangulation across (a) data sources
(mothers, fathers, and children from the ten families who participated in the study); (b)
data collection methods (participant observation, intensive interviewing, and the
Household Work Questionnaire); (c) time (3 to 8 data collection contacts per family
across a period of time ranging from 2 to 25 months); and (d) units of analysis (parent-
child dyads and parent-parent-child triads).
Selection and Description of the Families
Selection Procedures
The ten families who participated in this study were selected on the basis of
several criteria. First, in the interest of maximizing the study's credibility (Lincoln &
49
Guba, 1985), the families who participated in the study were English-speaking Caucasian
American. This race and ethnic background is close to my own background as an
English-speaking Caucasian Canadian. Clearly, my effects upon the data collected
would have been greater if the research had been conducted in homes in which race,
ethnicity, or primary language varied significantly from my own. My experiences
growing up in a working-class family were also relevant to my ability to establish trust
and rapport with the families in the study and were reflected in the selection criteria.
Second, social class was a criterion for the selection of families for inclusion in
this study. I attempted to limit the study to families from the lower-middle and working
classes because the majority of studies of parent-child play within the literature were
conducted with middle and upper-class families. For the purposes of this study, I used
exclusion criteria to define lower-middle and working classes. Parents who were highly
educated or held jobs in executive, managerial, or specialty professions were excluded.
The Classified Index of Industries and Occupations (United States Bureau of the Census,
1992a) put paid work occupations into six categories: (a) Group 1— Managerial and
Professional Specialty Occupations; (b) Group 2— Technical, Sales, and Administrative
Support Occupations; (c) Group 3— Service Occupations; (d) Group 4— Farming,
Forestry, and Fishing Occupations; (e) Group 5— Precision Production, Craft, and Repair
Occupations; and (f) Group 6— Operators, Fabricators, and Laborers. Families in which
the parents worked in jobs from Groups 2— 6 were included in this study. Parental
education level was limited, whenever possible, to high school, some college, or an
associate's degree. Two mothers with bachelor's degrees were included in the study but,
in both cases, their current jobs did not require that level of education and their husbands
did not hold college degrees.
50
Third, only two-parent families were selected for inclusion in the study.
Although it is acknowledged that there is a need to challenge the ideology of the nuclear
family as the only legitimate family form, and to recognize that a variety of household
and sexual arrangements are also legitimate family forms (Thome, 1992), the families
within the study were confined to households that consisted of a mother, a father, and a
first-born child of preschool age. Some families had younger children but parent-child
play with the preschool-aged child was of specific interest to this study. In an attempt to
control for parental experience in childrearing, the preschool-aged child under study was
the oldest child in the family. Excluded from the study were single-parent families;
blended families with school-age or teenage stepchildren; families in which one or both
parents had already raised older children with previous partners, even though the children
were not currently living in their homes; and families in which the child was being raised
by grandparents.
Families who were willing and able to participate in the study were found
through the use of a variety of methods. Whenever possible, I used my personal contacts
because I believed that families who knew me would be more willing to let me spend
extended periods of time in their homes. This method was not particularly successful,
however, because, as a graduate student transplanted to the Los Angeles area, the
majority of my personal contacts did not have children or, if they did, they did not meet
the selection criteria in terms of job category or education level. One of the ten families
in the study was obtained through my contact with the parents as co-workers at a local
hospital. Another family was located through a work acquaintance of one of my friends.
The majority of the families who participated in the study were reached through
local preschools or daycare centers. I contacted the directors of child care facilities in
nine different cities within Los Angeles County and asked them to send a recruitment
51
letter about the study to the parents of the preschool-aged children in their programs.
The letter described the study, explained what was being requested of the families who
chose to participate, and asked the parents to sign and return the letter if they agreed to a
telephone contact to discuss their participation in more detail. (See Appendix A for a
copy of this letter.) A total of 1,089 letters were sent out to families from 26 preschools
or daycare facilities. Responses were obtained from 42 families, indicating their
willingness to talk with me about their participation. I believe this extremely low
response rate was related to a lack of personal contact inherent in a written letter and to
the highly invasive nature of the research procedures. My letter was, in effect, asking
families with young children in a large and sometimes hostile urban environment to
allow a complete stranger into their homes to observe them as they went about their
personal daily lives and routines.
Given such a low response rate, I was pleased to find that some families did
agree to participate and warmly welcomed me into their homes. After I contacted each
of these 42 families and screened them, using a Telephone Contact Sheet (see Appendix
A), to ascertain their eligibility for the study, 6 families met the selection criteria. The
remaining 37 families were ineligible for a variety of reasons, including Group 1 job
category; single-parent family; racial background other than Caucasian; language other
than English spoken in the home; other children who are school-age or above; and
parental education level higher than some college courses. The remaining two families
who participated in the study were found through the "snowball sampling" technique, in
which initial respondents are asked to recommmend other respondents. Some of the
parents whose families were ineligible identified other families whom they knew and
who might be willing to participate. In addition, I asked families who had completed or
were near to completion of the data collection procedures if they knew of any families
52
who might agree to participate. Nine families were identified in this manner. Two of
these families met the study's selection criteria.
A discussion of the selection procedures of the families for this study would not
be complete without a discussion of the active role that the families played in self
selection for the study. The extremely low response rate to my recruitment letter led me
to ask why the families who chose to participate agreed to do so. What was "special" or
"unique" about these families? I first became aware of this process of self-selection early
in the data collection phase during an initial home visit with the first family that I found
through a local preschool. This family was one of six families from this particular
preschool that had responded to my recruitment letter and the only one that met the study
selection criteria. Here is an excerpt from a memo documenting my initial contact with
this family:
January 25, 1993: Received a call from Peggy* stating that she had
some questions about my study. The recruitment letter had come home
with her son, Riley, from his preschool. The director had just sent them
home that day and Peggy called me at about 2:30 p.m. She said that her
husband wanted to do it but that she wasn't sure. I told her more about
the study. She said that she wasn't sure that she wanted to be watched. I
explained that I was not there to judge her but to learn from them and
that I really wasn't a very threatening person. She said that she would
probably go ahead and sign it because her husband wanted to.
(*A11 names throughout this report have been changed to protect the respondents'
anonymity.)
I was intrigued and surprised by the father's willingness and the mother's
reluctance to participate in the study. I assumed that the feelings of the parents towards
participation would be reversed. I expected to encounter more reluctance on the part of
fathers even as I recognized that this was a gender-based assumption on my part. During
my first visit with this family the reasons for this father's willingness were revealed. The
father came home from work approximately half an hour after I arrived. Almost
53
immediately he began to talk to me about the study and then quickly changed the subject
to ask me if I had heard about Riley's medical history. When I replied that I had not, he
told me that Riley had been bom without a bile duct and had undergone surgery at three
months to have a plastic tube inserted in its place. This medical condition had required
several hospitalizations and procedures throughout the first year or so o f his life and still
required antibiotic medications three times a day. My fieldnotes from this visit
document the significance o f Riley's medical history to this family’ s participation in the
study. After Brent, the father, finished talking about the medical details, he went on to
say that:
they had had a live-in nurse for awhile to help them out and stay with
Riley while they went to work. I listened and asked questions during his
discussion o f Riley's condition. I said that this must have been a really
rough time for them and Brent agreed. He said that they were really
worried but that Riley had come through fine and was doing really well.
... He went on to say that the medical professionals were concerned
about his development but that he was fine. His abilities and movement
skills were just fine.
MN*: NOW I UNDERSTOOD WHY BRENT HAD BEEN THE
PARENT MOST INTERESTED IN PARTICIPATING IN MY
STUDY. I HAD THOUGHT IT UNUSUAL THAT THE FATHER
WAS PUSHING PARTICIPATION OVER THE MOTHER BUT NOW
I SEE THAT BRENT WAS PROBABLY INTERESTED IN FINDING
OUT THAT RILEY WAS OKAY.
(*MN is an abbreviation for Methodological Note.)
Similarly, during my initial visit with the sixth family in the study, I discovered
that they too had ulterior motives for their participation. The first hint came early on in
the visit:
Carol said that Paul plays with the kids and that she doesn't get down on
the floor and play with them. She said that he's really good and plays a
lot with them but that she doesn't play that much with them. She said
that she tries but that she's "just not very good at it." Carol laughed as
she told me that when they found out that I was coming to watch them
play, she said, "Oh, great! That'll be good. I'll be sitting there watching
54
while they're playing going 'Aren't we having fun? Aren't we having
fun? We're really having a lot of fun doing this!"' I laughed and told her
that was okay, that I wanted to see what they normally did and to not
change for my benefit. She said that she wouldn't.
Later Paul discussed his play preferences as a child:
Paul started to talk about how he didn't like watching children's shows
when he was a child. He had never liked Sesame Street or any shows
like that, but he had liked horror movies and Twilight Zone and other
shows like that. Carol said that she had been similar and that she had
stopped being a kid at two and a half or three years old. She smiled
across at Greg as she said that because she and Paul had been such
grown-up children and hadn't really played, they wanted their children to
have the joy of being able to play and have fun.
Finally, much later in the visit, as I watched Carol interact with her 9 month old
daughter, I began to form an opinion as to what had led this family to participate.
Carol had also taken out some wooden blocks that fit neatly into a small
rectangular box. They were alphabet blocks with pictures on the other
sides. She had one that had a kitten on it and was showing it to Kellie,
saying "Look, kitty. Kitty, this is a kitty." She stopped in the middle of
doing this and said, "Every time I sit down to play with them, I want
everything to be a learning experience." She picked up a yellow triangle
shape and said that she wanted to say, "This is a yellow triangle." She
continued to push various shapes into the easel as she talked. She said
that sometimes she thinks that she takes all the fun out of it and that it
was hard to know if, as a parent, you're doing too much or pushing too
much. She went on to say that she wasn't very playful.
TN*: AS CAROL TALKED AGAIN ABOUT HER NOT BEING
VERY PLAYFUL, I REALIZED THAT HER CONCERNS, IN
COMBINATION WITH WHAT SHE'D SAID EARLIER ABOUT
PAUL AND HER BEING SUCH GROWN-UP CHILDREN, WERE
PROBABLY WHAT HAD LED THEM TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS
STUDY. I HAVE FOUND THAT EACH ONE OF THE FAMILIES
THAT I HAVE BEEN INVOLVED WITH SEEM TO HAVE THEIR
OWN REASONS, OR "HOOK", AS TO WHY THEY'D AGREED TO
PARTICIPATE. I USUALLY GET SOME IDEA OF WHAT THEIR
PARTICULAR HOOK IS DURING MY FIRST HOME VISIT.
(*TN is an abbreviation for Theoretical Note.)
I have come to attribute this "hook" phenomenon as an inevitable result o f
conducting fieldwork within family settings. I consider it part of the reciprocal nature of
55
the relationship that is formed between myself as researcher and the family members as
participants. It is one of the trade-offs for my being allowed access into their homes.
According to Lofland and Lofland (1984), "the issue of trade-offs is a legitimate
component of the naturalistic process. ... People who are tolerating a known observer or
an interviewer in their midst have every reason to ask: What do I get in return? What's
the trade-off?" (p.40). Most often the trade-off is for some type of assistance, including
sincere listening to the participants talk about something that interests them and offering
opinions or advice when asked (Lofland & Lofland, 1984). One family’ s trade-off turned
out to be my agreement to listen to an Amway sales and recruitment pitch. While doing
fieldwork within each family, I made a concerted effort to listen and look for their hook
during my visits and interviews so that I could be aware of what the trade-off was with
that particular family.
Frequently, parents seemed to be looking for validation of their childrearing
practices. I often found myself cast in the "expert role" and asked for my opinion. 1 was
asked, among other things, what I thought about a 4 year old girl's reading skills and
about the sleeping habits of a 3 year old child. Generally, I tried to deflect most o f these
requests for my opinion or responded in a relatively innocuous and neutral manner. Here
is one example of this phenomenon:
Sam said that Katlyn cries when she wakes up in the night and he
wonders why she does that. He asked me if I knew why she would do
that and how come she wouldn't talk to them and tell them what it is that
she wants instead of crying. He wanted to know if there was a reason
that she would do that. I said that I didn't really know why she might do
that. I joked that I didn't have any children and that I didn't know why
they would do that. I laughed and Sam laughed too as he said, "Well,
you're the expert." I said that Katlyn was just turning three and that she
was still pretty young. It still might be quite common for kids to cry at
that age. Sam seemed to get a little defensive as he said that he knew
that. ... He continued to talk about how I was the expert. Then he asked
Linda what it was his father said Ph.D. stood for. I knew what was
56
coming here. Linda said, "B.S. is B.S. M.S. is More S." Sam laughed
and said, "Yeah, and a Ph.D. is Piled Higher and Deeper." I laughed as I
said that I'd heard that too.
As is common in the course of qualitative family research, my opinion was
solicited "in the form of a question of normality: Are other families like us?" (Daly,
1992a, p.7). Many of the families asked some variation of the above question. Again, I
tried to give a neutral response, such as:
Susan asked me how my other families were. We talked for a few
minutes about my study. ... I told her that I could let her read my
findings when I was done. She said that she wanted to know if they
were normal or "how abnormal they were." I laughed, saying that there
was no "abnormal" and that I wouldn't know what abnormal was.
Or:
Katie joined us at the front door carrying Meg who was now clean and
changed into her nightgown. She asked me, "So David knows what's
happening next? Do we get to read your report? How do we compare
with your other families? On a scale of 1 to 10?" I laughed as I said that
I was not rating or making those kinds of judgments.
Each of the families who chose to participate in the study had their own reasons
to do so. Whenever possible, I tried to determine what those reasons might be. I believe
that questions about the families' normality were partially responsible for their self
selection for the study.
Description of the Families
A total of ten families participated in the study. All of the families lived within
the Los Angeles metropolitan area with the exception of one family who moved to an
outlying desert community in the course of the study. The families' homes were
scattered across a geographically diverse area in nine different cities and unincorporated
areas of Los Angeles, Orange, and San Bernardino counties. The mothers' ages ranged
from 24 to 39 years with a mean of 31 years. The fathers' age range was 25 to 42 years
of age with a mean of 32 years. A total of 12 children between the ages of 2 years, 0
57
months and 5 years, 3 months were observed. Two families had two children between
the ages of 2 years and 5 years old. In those cases, data were collected on both children.
A second or third child was bom into three families during the time that I was collecting
data in their homes. One child was bom in the middle of my observation period and so
the baby's presence was included in the data I collected. The other two babies were bom
between the time in which I was visiting their homes and when I returned to conduct the
parents' interviews. Their presence was not included for analysis in the data collected.
Five families had another child under the age of 2 years old.
Parental education levels ranged from high school, some college with no degree,
associate's degree, and bachelor's degree. The majority of parents, 12 out of 20, had
some college with no degree. Four parents had associate’ s degrees, two parents had
bachelor's degrees, and two parents had high school education. All o f the fathers were
employed full-time. Six mothers worked full-time outside of the home, two mothers
worked part-time, one mother returned to full-time work outside the home during the
time that I was observing in her home, and one mother provided in-home daycare. All of
the children except one were in preschool or daycare programs or at a baby-sitter's home
for some part, if not all, of the week while their parents were at work.
The majority of the parents, 15 out of 20, worked in jobs from Group 2—
Technical, Sales, and Administrative Support Occupations of the Classified Index of
Industry and Occupations (United States Bureau of the Census, 1992a). Their jobs
included office manager, executive secretary, administrative assistant, real estate
salesperson, real estate appraiser, bank teller, accounting clerk, customer sales
representative, lab technician/supervisor, computer technician, computer programmer,
courier, sales manager, and employee suggestion program manager. The remaining five
parents were from Group 3— Service Occupations and Group 5~Precision Production,
58
Craft, and Repair Occupations. Group 3 jobs included in-home child care provider,
deputy sheriff, aerobics instructor/waitress while the Group 5 jobs were baker and
painting contractor. The annual household incomes for families ranged from $40,000 to
$100-000. Table 1 presents data on the characteristics of each family.
Data Collection Procedures
The procedures for participation were explained to the parents o f the families
who gave their consent to be included in the study. I told them that I would visit their
homes at least three to four times for an hour and a half to two hours at a time. I
explained that I wanted to see both parents together with their child or children and each
of them alone with the child or children at least once. I also told them that after these
visits were completed, I had some questions to ask each of them. During the initial visit
with each family, the parents were asked to sign a consent form. (See Appendix A for a
copy of the consent form used.) They were informed that information collected was
confidential, that they had the right to refuse to be observed or to answer questions, and
that they had the right to withdraw from the study at any time.
Eleven families agreed to participate in the study but one family dropped out
after two visits, when the parents separated and no longer shared a home together. A
chronological log detailing every contact with the families, including telephone
conversations, was kept for each family in the form of a Record of Contacts memo and
methodological notes. Observational data and interview data were obtained on nine of
the ten families. No observations were conducted in the tenth family, due to time
constraints in the data collection phase, but interview data were collected from both
parents in this family. After each parent had been interviewed, he or she was asked to
fill out a 71 item Household Work Questionnaire (see Appendix B) designed to
determine the division of household work within families.
59
Table 1. Family Characteristics
Family Mother’ s
Age
Father’ s
Age
Children
Gender/Age2
Mother’ s
Education
Father's
Education
Mother’ s
Job
Category
Father’ s
Job
Category
Annual
Household
Income
(In Dollars)
1 31 31 M/4b
F/2
Associate
Degree
Some
College
2 2 90,000-100,000
2 39 38 F/3-4
F/0-9 Mo
Some
College
Some
College
2 2 60,000-70,000
3 39 42 M/4 Associate
Degree
Associate
Degree
2 5 90,000-100,000
4 30 37 M/3 Bachelor
Degree
Some
College
2 2 60,000-70,000
5 33 34 M/5
F/2
Bachelor
Degree
High
School
2 5 80,000-90,000
6 34 33 M/3
F/9 Mo-1
Some
College
Associate
Degree
2 2 40,000-50,000
7 25 25 F/2-4
M/1
Some
College
Some
College
3 3 40,000-45,000
8 27 28 F/3
F/l
Some
College
High
School
2 2 45,000-50,000
9 24 27 F/2 Some
College
Some
College
3 2 40,000-50,000
10 29 29 F/3
M/6 Mo
Some
College
Some
College
2 2 80,000-90,000
aAge is in years. Age span is indicated when child had a birthday during study duration.
bBold type indicates children who were observed for study.
During the time that I was observing within their homes, the parents were told
that once we had completed all stages of their involvement in the study, I would be
available to provide baby-sitting services as my way of thanking them for their
participation. Most families, after initially stating that I didn't need to do that, greeted
this news joyfully and readily accepted. Of the ten families in the study, six accepted my
offer of baby-sitting. Two of the families declined, telling me that they had so many
family members in the immediate vicinity that they had never had to pay for baby-sitting
services in the evenings or on the weekends. They both lived over 30 miles from my
home and they stated that they did not want me to come all the way out to their homes
again. The remaining two families relocated out of the area immediately after
completion of their participation in the study and I lost contact with them. The specific
procedures used for each method of data collection, that is, participant observation,
intensive interviewing, and the Household Work Questionnaire, will now be discussed
separately.
Participant Observation
Observations took place in the families' homes on both weekdays and weekends
and at various times throughout the day. Review of the literature and a preliminary pilot
study indicated that optimal observation times included (a) early weekday mornings
before family members left for work or preschool, (b) late afternoons and evenings
during the week when and after family members returned to the home from work and
preschool, (c) weekdays during times when one or both parents were home with the
child, and (d) weekend days. Each family's schedule of observations was adjusted to
accommodate their natural rhythms and routines related to the temporal demands of the
parents' work both inside and outside the home.
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The observation schedules within families in which the parents’ paid work hours
varied in nature, due to shift work, part-time work, or in-home work, differed as to day
of the week and times of the day from the schedules of families in which the parents'
paid work occurred in a conventional Monday through Friday days with weekends off
schedule. Eveiy effort was made to observe each of the nine families around an evening
meal and bedtime routine as well as during relatively less structured time on the
weekends or other days off from paid work. Weekday early morning visits, which
occurred between 5:00 and 9:00 a.m. before family members left for paid work outside
the home, were conducted within four different families. (See Table 2 for the
distribution of the home visits across the days of the week and times of the day.)
A total of 46 observations were conducted within 9 families. Each family was
observed four to six times. The length of the individual home visits varied from 1 hour,
10 minutes to 3 hours, 45 minutes. The mean length of the 46 home visits was 2 hours,
23 minutes. The total observation time in each family's home ranged from 8 hours, 35
minutes to 16 hours, 30 minutes, totaling 109 hours, 20 minutes for all nine families.
My contact with these families for the purposes of participant observation occurred over
a range of 1 to 23 months. Table 3 presents data on the participant observation phase for
each family.
As Table 3 indicates, one family's 23 month duration o f contact was unusual.
This family was initially observed when the child was 2 years old. After just one home
visit, the parents suddenly became unemployed and moved in with the father's parents in
a community approximately 100 miles away. I contacted this family 19 months later and
they agreed to continue their participation in the study. They were in the process of
having a house built in a desert community and requested that I wait another 3 months
before visiting them. By that time, 22 months had passed since my initial home visit and
62
Table 2. Distribution of Home Visits Across Dav and Time
(n=46)
Day and
Time
Weekday
Early
Morning
5-9 a.m.a
Weekday
Late
Morning
9 a.m.-
Noon
Weekday
Early
Afternoon
Noon— 4 p.m.
Weekday
Late
Afternoon
4-6 p.m.
Weekday
Evening
6-9 p.m.
Weekend
Morning
8 a.m.—
Noon
Weekend
Afternoon
Noon— 4 p.m.
Weekend
Evening
4-8 p.m.
Number
of Visits
5 4 2 8 13 8 4 2
aTimes are Researcher’ s arrival time at family's home.
Table 3. Participant Observation Data
Family Number of Home
Visits
Total Hours of Observation Duration of Participant
Observation Phase
1 4 8 Hours, 35 Minutes 5 Months
2 5 11 Hours, 15 Minutes 12 Months
3 4 9 Hours, 5 Minutes 3 Months
4 5 11 Hours, 45 Minutes 7 Months
5 6 12 Hours, 35 Minutes 3 Months
6 6 15 Hours, 15 Minutes 3 Months
7 6 16 Hours, 30 Minutes 23 Months
8 5 12 Hours, 25 Minutes 1 Month
9 5 11 Hours, 55 Minutes 2 Months
their child was now 4 years old. I spent an additional month visiting in their home,
resulting in a total of 23 months from the initial home visit to the completion of the
participant observations.
During each home visit, parents were encouraged to go about their daily business
as much as possible given that there was an observer in their midst. As the observer, I
attempted to minimize my effects upon the data that I was collecting, but I was
inevitably a participant in much of what I was observing. I did not take any notes,
pictures, or videotapes during the home visits. While observing events in the home, I
made multiple mental notes of what was occurring and linked these notes with the spatial
positions of myself and the family members. Immediately after each home visit, I
dictated a chronological record of everything that I remembered about what I had seen
and heard onto audiotape cassettes. I used my memory o f the spatial positions of myself
and the family members throughout the home visit to jog my memory of the events. My
dictated notes on each visit were generally between one and a half and two and a half
hours in length.
Over the three days following each home visit, I listened to the audiotape o f my
dictated notes and wrote extensive fieldnotes for each visit. Fieldnotes for each home
visit ranged from 19 to 52 pages in length, with an average length across all 46 home
visits o f 32 pages per visit. The audiotape served as a catalyst for more detailed
memories o f my observations. 1 made a concerted effort to include methodological notes
on the ways in which my physical presence and participation may have affected the data
that I was collecting. In addition, I recorded personal thoughts and feelings which
occurred during my observation of specific events. In this manner, I maintained a record
of how my presence as a researcher directly affected the data I collected as well as how
my personal thoughts and feelings may have acted as a filter through which certain
64
events within the home visit became more salient to me than other events. Further
information on the effects of the researcher on the research process is provided later on in
this chapter.
Intensive Interviewing
A total of 20 interviews were completed within all ten families. Once the home
visits had been completed within each of the nine families who were observed,
interviews were scheduled for the parents. AH interviews were conducted within 1 to 4
months after the completion of the participant observations. Since no observations were
scheduled for the tenth family, the parents were interviewed during my first two visits to
their home. Because each parent was interviewed separately, arrangements had to be
made with the other parent to watch or entertain the child or children during the time in
which the interview was conducted. The majority of the interviews took place in the
family's home. One family chose to have the interviews occur outside o f their home.
The father's interview was held at his office in the evening hours while the mother’ s
interview took place over the course of two sessions. One session occurred in the
researcher’s car after it became apparent that the restaurant originally chosen for the
interview was too noisy. The second session was held in a neighborhood park.
Only one parent was interviewed per visit to the family's home except for the
cases of two families in which both parents were interviewed in the course of one visit to
their home. In both cases, the fathers were seen first before the mothers came home from
work and while the child was still in daycare. The mothers were interviewed
immediately upon their arrival home while the fathers watched their children. The
parents who were interviewed first within each family were asked not to discuss the
questions or their answers with the other parent before his or her interview. I explained
this request in terms of equating the amount of preparation time each parent had to think
65
about and respond to the interview questions, rather than in terms of any intent upon my
part to test their knowledge of each other or to compare their responses.
A total of 43 hours, 30 minutes of interview data were collected. The length of
the interviews within the families in which observations were also conducted ranged
between 1 hour, 15 minutes and 2 hours, 45 minutes. The average length o f the
interviews with these 18 parents was 1 hour, 58 minutes. The interviews with the
parents o f the family in which no observations occurred were longer. The father's
interview was 2 hours, 45 minutes and the mother’ s interview was 3 hours, 30 minutes.
The length of these two interviews was related to the fact that time was spent
establishing rapport and asking for specific examples of phenomena cited within the
interviews. Rapport had already been established by the time the parents of the observed
families were interviewed. In addition, within the interviews with parents who had been
observed, both the parents and the researcher referred to specific events that had occurred
during the home visits as examples of phenomena discussed in the interviews.
An interview guide was used during the interviews. It provided a list of
questions for the researcher to ask the parent but, at the same time, allowed the parent to
respond to questions in her or his own way and also allowed the researcher to explore the
parent's answers as they were provided (Lofland & Lofland, 1984). Three different
interview guides were developed throughout the duration of the study. They are included
in Appendix C along with documentation indicating in which interviews they were used.
The interview guides were revised to explore areas of interest that were discovered in the
ongoing process of simultaneous data collection and analysis. As new categories of
analysis came to light, questions designed to tease out aspects of these categories were
added to the interview guide. The interviews were audiotaped with the parent's
permission and transcribed by a professional transcriber at a later date. Immediately
66
following each interview, I dictated lengthy notes on my observations and reactions
during the interview. I also recorded data on what had happened within the homes
before and after the interviews in terms of parental interactions with each other and their
child or children. These data were used to supplement other observational data already
collected during previous home visits. These additional notes were also professionally
transcribed.
Household Work Questionnaire
The Household Work Questionnaire {see Appendix B) was used to determine
each couple's division of household work. Previous studies have considered the division
o f household work to be shared when neither women nor men performed more than 60%
and less than 40% of specific household work activities (Schwartz, 1994; Smith 8 c Reid,
1986). Women, on average, have traditionally completed 70% of the household work
tasks, whereas men have completed 30% of them (Kimball, 1988; Sanchez, 1994).
Consequently, in this study, household work was considered to be shared when both
parents' responsibility for the work fell within a 60/40% split. O f particular interest to
the decision of whether or not families were traditional or non-traditional was men's
contribution to household work that has been stereotyped as women's work (Coltrane,
1990). Since women have traditionally been responsible for the majority o f the work
within families (Beckwith, 1992; Blair & Lichter, 1991; Ferree, 1991b, Gunter &
Gunter, 1990; Shelton, 1992), non-traditional divisions o f household work were defined
on the basis of men's participation in the work traditionally allocated to women
(Coltrane, 1990).
I chose to consider as non-traditional only those families in which men crossed
gender lines to participate in household work tasks that are typically completed by
women. As has been previously documented in the literature, I found that the women
67
within this study also crossed gender lines to participate in household work stereotyped
as men's work (Goldscheider & Waite, 1991;Ferree, 1991b; Robinson, 1990). This
study's interest, however, was in men's participation in household work stereotyped as
women's work and not in women's participation in household work stereotyped as men’ s
work. Accordingly, non-traditional families were defined for the purpose of this study as
those in which men completed at least 40% and women completed no more than 60% of
the household work tasks traditionally allocated to women. These tasks included meal
preparation and clean up, housecleaning, laundry and clothing care, child care, shopping
and errands, and managerial tasks. Since men were found to be more likely to share
child care than they were housework (Coltrane, 1990; Gilbert, 1985; Goodnow & Bowes,
1994; Hochschild, 1989; Kimball, 1988), families in which only child care was shared
were considered to be non-traditional.
At the end of each parent's interview, he or she was given the Household Work
Questionnaire, consisting of 71 items of typical household work tasks. (See Appendix B
for a copy of this questionnaire.) The parents were asked to complete it on their own
without discussing it or their answers with each other. Within five families, the first
parent's completed questionnaire was returned to the researcher before the second parent's
questionnaire was given to him or her. The parents in one family filled out their
questionnaires simultaneously and in the presence of the researcher. Within the
remaining four families and for a variety of reasons, both questionnaires were present in
the families' homes at the same time. I was unable to ensure that no discussion occurred
between these parents but examination of their completed questionnaires revealed
discrepancies in their answers, indicating that discussion between them was highly
unlikely.
68
Parents were asked to estimate the proportion of time that he or she spent
performing each of the 71 itemized household work tasks. The 71 items were collapsed
into nine broad categories of household work. (See Household Work Questionnaire
Coding Categories in Appendix B.) I averaged the parent's responses across the
questionnaire items in each category to obtain an average percentage o f that parent's
performance of tasks within a particular category.. In this way, I was able to obtain
figures for both parents within a family and compare them for any discrepancies. Table
4 provides figures for one couple's completed questionnaires.
Table 4. Mean Percentage of Participation in Household Work:
Family #9— Dawn and Mike
Types of Activities Dawn Mike Total
(%) (%) (%)
Cooking and Meal Clean Up 87 35 122°
(l-4)a
66 34 100c
Cleaning 71 15 86
(5-15, 17, 18,23,24) 88 12 100
Laundry and Clothing Care 52 58 110
(19-22. 25) 50 50 100
Outdoor Maintenance 50 40 90
(16, 32-35) 50 50 100
Indoor Maintenance 68 52 120
(26, 29-31,39, 40, 70) 57 43 100
Child Care 55 40 95
(41-58) 62 38 100
Shopping and Errands 90 12 102
(59-63)
Managerial Tasks 81 25 106
(27, 28. 36. 65-69, 71)
Car Maintenance 50 58 108
(37, 38, 64) 50 50 100
aNumbers refer to questionnaire item numbers.
^Figures based on individuals' own estimates and do not total 100.
cBold type indicates figures obtained through couple's consensus.
Inspection of this table reveals that the couple's scores do not total 100%.
Although some couples' scores did total 100%, more often their total scores fell within a
range of 90-110%. Thus, agreement within the categories and between parents generally
69
fell within + or - 10% of 100%. In most cases, I accepted scores that were within the 90-
110% range. When a couple's total scores fell short o f 90% or exceeded 110%, I
contacted them, usually in a three-way conference telephone call, and asked them to
come to a consensual agreement on their individual percentage participation in each of
the itemized household tasks within the categories for which there was a discrepancy.
Referring again to Table 4, one can see that Dawn's and Mike's initial total score
for the category of Cooking and Meal Preparation was 122%. After reaching a
consensus through discussion of their participation in each of the tasks described in items
1-4 on the Household Work Questionnaire, their total score was 100%. In this way, I
believe that I was able to obtain a more accurate picture of how the cooking and meal
preparation tasks were completed within this particular family. Similarly, the total
scores for the Cleaning and Indoor Maintenance categories were recalculated based on
the couple's consensual agreement on the individual items within each categoiy. Table 4
also indicates that, in this case, 1 asked the couple to come to a consensual agreement on
the tasks within the Laundry and Clothing Care, Outdoor Maintenance, Child Care, and
Car Maintenance categories even though their total scores fell within the 90-110% range.
Keeping in mind that the criterion for whether or not household work tasks were shared
was based on the woman completing no more than 60% and the man completing no less
than 40% of the total tasks traditionally seen as women's work, I decided to ask all
couples for a consensual agreement for the categories in which there appeared to be the
possibility of task sharing.
This decision had a significant effect upon Dawn's and Mike's Child Care
category. Initially, it appeared as if Dawn completed 55% o f the child care tasks and as
if Mike completed 40% of them. The total score for this category of 95% falls within my
accepted range of + or - 10% of 100%, indicating that the parents shared the child care
70
tasks within a 60/40% split. After obtaining consensual agreement scores from the
couple, one can see that Dawn actually completed 62% of the child care tasks and Mike
completed 38% of them, close to but not within the shared range of 60/40%. Dawn was
responsible for more than 60% and Mike was responsible for less than 40% of the child
care tasks. Consequently, according to this study's definition of non-traditional sharing
of household work, child care was not shared equally by this couple. Dawn's and Mike's
figures were exceptional in the number of discrepancies between their estimates, but their
case demonstrates how I applied my criteria to determine if I needed the couple to come
to a consensus through their joint discussion of their participation in the household work
tasks in question.
Upon completion of the Household Work Questionnaire and my arrival at final
total scores for all of the household work categories, each couple's scores were inspected
to determine the type of division of household work within their family. Families with
traditional divisions of household work were those in which the women were responsible
for over 60% of the household work, regardless of whether or not they participated in
paid work outside of the home. These women generally completed the majority of the
household work typically seen as women's work, such as cooking, cleaning, laundry, and
child care. In addition, they were often responsible for completion of tasks from the
traditionally male domains of outdoor, indoor, and car maintenance. Families with non-
traditional divisions of household work were those in which both parents were employed
outside of the home and shared child care tasks only or shared both child care and
housework tasks within a 60/40% split (women completed no more than 60% and men
no less than 40% of the stereotypically female household work). The results of the
Household Work Questionnaire for each family will be presented in Chapter 4.
71
Data Analysis
"Data analysis is the process of bringing order, structure, and meaning to a mass
o f collected data. ... Qualitative data analysis is a search for general statements about
relationships among categories of data; it builds grounded theory" (Marshall & Rossman,
1989, p. 112). Procedures used to analyze qualitative data include (a) organizing the
data; (b) generating categories, patterns, and themes; (c) testing developing hypotheses
against the data collected; (d) looking for alternative explanations of the data; and (e)
writing up the study (Marshall & Rossman, 1989).
Fieldnotes and interview transcripts were organized through the use of a word
processing program and were entered into a computer qualitative analysis database. The
computer software used for data analysis was Textbase Alpha (Sommerlund, 1989). I
began to analyze the data during the collection stage of the study. I read the fieldnotes
and interview transcripts and looked for emerging coding categories, general patterns,
and themes. These categories and patterns were used to code the data and to develop
hypotheses. I was able to further my understanding and development of the nascent
categories and concepts by testing them in the field during participant observation in
family home visits and interviews with the parents. Data collection and analysis went
hand-in-hand at this point of the study.
Coding categories were developed through the procedures of open coding, axial
coding, and selective coding (Strauss, 1987). I conducted open coding o f the first eight
sets o f fieldnotes, scrutinizing them line by line and in minute detail. The coding was
unrestricted and its purpose was "to produce concepts that seem to fit the data" (Strauss,
1987, p. 28). Axial coding followed as I began to ground the emerging categories in
both the data being collected and data embedded in my knowledge of the literature in the
areas of occupations, parent-child interactions and play, household work, and gender
72
studies. During axial coding, "intense analysis [is] done around one category at a time"
(Strauss, 1987, p. 32). As is standard procedure in qualitative research, I reviewed
pertinent bodies o f literature as they became salient during this stage of the data analysis.
Next, selective coding, consisting of systematic coding of the core categories and their
sub-categories (Strauss, 1987), was conducted.
At this point, theoretical sampling, directed by the emergent core categories,
moved to the forefront of the data collection procedures. I began to search for alternative
explanations o f the data to ensure that the explanation offered by the core categories and
concepts was the most plausible of all explanations (Marshall & Rossman, 1989). Data
analysis continued during the write up and dissemination o f the findings of the study.
Writing about qualitative data is an integral part of the analytic process. Marshall and
Rossman state "it is central to that process, for in the choice o f particular words to
summarize and reflect the complexity of the data, the researcher is engaging in the
interpretive act, lending shape and form— meaning— to massive amounts o f raw data" (p.
119).
Data collection and analysis occurred over a period of three years. During the
last two years of this period, I was a member of a Ph.D. Research Study Group
consisting of five to seven occupational science doctoral students at various stages o f
their dissertation research. This group's purpose was to engage the students in a self-
conscious reflection on their individual research projects as well as on the research
process itself. Meetings were held weekly and members presented aspects o f their
research studies on a rotational basis. Throughout my involvement in this group, I
presented my emerging categories and concepts and obtained feedback from the group
members on them as well as on other data collection and analysis procedures. The
feedback was invaluable in assisting me to test my developing hypotheses and to suggest
73
alternative explanations for the data. This process led to further development and
refinement of the research findings. I credit the members of this group as sources of
inspiration and support throughout the completion of the study, but take full
responsibility for my findings.
Effects of the Researcher upon the Research Process
A researcher using a qualitative research methodology elects to use herself as the
primary data-gathering instrument. The advantages of the human instrument include the
ability to adjust to the variety of realities that will be met during the study, the ability to
evaluate the meaning of interactions between participants and objects in the environment,
and the ability to identify and account for the effects of values and biases and their
effects upon the findings (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Along with the advantages of the
researcher’ s use of self as the data-gathering instrument come questions about how to
present and maintain one's self within the research setting. Researchers conducting
qualitative work with families "must decide how to present their motives, how much to
participate, how structured their interviews will be, and how intensively they will
become involved in participant families' lives" (Daly, 1992a, p. 7). Given the close
involvement of a qualitative researcher with her participants and the data she is
collecting, particular attention must be given to how her personal characteristics and
experiences as well as her presence and participation enter into the data and research
process.
Researcher’ s Personal Characteristics and Experiences
My personal characteristics and experiences were undeniably a part of the
research process of this study. As an occupational therapist, I believe that the
orchestration of occupations into daily routines within one's personal environment has
profound effects upon one's health and sense of well-being. My focus on the occupation
74
of play in my clinical work with parents and children with emotional and behavioral
problems was partially responsible for the development of this particular study. In
addition, my outlook as a feminist led me to examine parent-child play within families
through the lens of gender. And finally, my personal history played a role in my
decision to investigate parent-child play within the context of the division of household
work between mothers and fathers. Data from my fieldnotes will demonstrate the ways
in which I was aware of and acknowledged how my personal characteristics and
experiences entered into the research process.
My professional experience working with children with emotional and
behavioral problems and their parents often came to the forefront of my mind while I
participated in the home visits with the families in my study. Sometimes I was
successful in only thinking about my professional knowledge and skills and not acting
upon them:
Peggy and Riley came out to the kitchen together. His eyes were red and
he still looked very sad. ... Riley was still upset and kept moving close
to Peggy as if he were wanting a hug. But Peggy didn't seem to notice.
Finally, he asked her if she was mad at him. She responded, "I don't get
mad at you. I get mad at the things you do." She turned to me and said
that she had read that somewhere, that you're supposed to say that. She
said that it had been posted with some other things at Riley's preschool.
MN: I WAS ITCHING TO JUMP IN THERE AND EXPLAIN THIS
CONCEPT A LITTLE MORE CLEARLY TO BOTH PEGGY AND
RILEY BUT RESTRAINED MYSELF FOR FEAR OF
INTERVENING TOO MUCH.
Other times, I was less successful:
Greg continued to keep up a steady stream o f conversation. I
commented on what a good talker Greg was and Paul said that he was
thinking about getting him started on the Hooked on Phonics program
because he thought that he was at a stage where he might be ready to
learn. Paul wondered out loud how old he was when he started to read.
He thought that he was learning to read in first grade. I said that I had
been reading before kindergarten but that I didn't think they really taught
75
reading until first grade. Paul said that he didn't want to push Greg or
make it hard for him. I agreed that it was a fine line but that I thought
that as long as the child wanted to do something, why not. I thought
problems arose only if the child obviously didn't want to do it and the
parents pushed.
MN: AFTER I FINISHED SAYING THIS, I WAS KICKING
MYSELF FOR INTERRUPTING AND GIVING MY VIEWS
INSTEAD OF JUST LISTENING TO PAUL'S THOUGHTS AND
VIEWS. I SEEM TO GET CAUGHT UP IN FEELING AS IF I HAVE
TO PROBLEM-SOLVE, GIVE ANSWERS, OR BE THE EXPERT.
As an occupational therapist skilled in arranging the physical environment to
facilitate optimal participation in occupations, I was frequently challenged during the
home visits to restrain myself from intervening. Here is one example:
Throughout Dawn’ s reading o f the book, Jennifer would periodically sit
up to get a closer look at it. Once Dawn realized that she was sitting up,
she would tell her to "lay down." From where I was sitting on the floor
across the room, it looked as if Jennifer would have difficulty seeing the
book when she was lying down with her head on the pillow. Dawn had
the book propped up on the mesh bedguard halfway down the length of
the bed. At one point, when Dawn told Jennifer to "lay down," she put
her head down on the piled-up blankets right next to where Dawn was
holding the book so that she was close to it and, I assume, could see it
better. Dawn insisted that she turn around and put her head down on the
pillow. She pointed at her pillow, telling her that her head needed to go
there. She stopped reading until Jennifer lay down with her head on the
pillow.
MN: AS I WATCHED THIS SCENARIO, THE OCCUPATIONAL
THERAPIST IN ME KEPT WANTING TO GET IN THERE TO
CHANGE THE PHYSICAL SETUP SO THAT JENNIFER COULD
COMPLY WITH DAWN’S REQUESTS TO LIE DOWN AND YET
STILL BE ABLE TO SEE THE BOOK. I FELT AS IF DAWN'S
EXPECTATION FOR JENNIFER TO LIE STILL WAS
UNREALISTIC, GIVEN HER INTEREST IN THE BOOK.
Even when I was unable to hold my tongue, I was usually able to prevent myself
from action, leading to instances where I saw parents naturally make their own
adjustments to mismatches between the child and the physical environment. In one case,
the same mother and daughter were making fudge together. The mother was stirring the
76
fudge mixture while it cooked in a pot on the stove. Her 2 year old daughter was
standing on a child-sized chair next to the stove:
Dawn asked Jennifer if she could see. She shook her head no and I said,
"Yeah, you need a bigger chair, don't you?" Dawn reached over and
picked her up, holding her on her hip. She pulled the chair closer and
put her foot on it to better support Jennifer's weight on her knee.
Jennifer immediately snuggled up against Dawn's body and seemed to be
very content with being held by her.
MN: EARLIER, I HAD THOUGHT TO MYSELF THAT SHE
REALLY NEEDED A HIGHER CHAIR AND HAD
CONTEMPLATED GOING TO GET ONE OF THE DINING CHAIRS.
I HAD RESTRAINED MYSELF FROM DOING SO, BUT LAUGHED
TO MYSELF RUEFULLY ABOUT THE OCCUPATIONAL
THERAPIST IN ME WHO WANTED TO CHANGE EVERYONE'S
PHYSICAL SPACE AND SETUP TO IMPROVE THE SUCCESS OF
THE ACTIVITY.
In this example, I learned that an occupational therapist's method of modifying
the environment for success might neglect vital aspects of a mother's method, such as
physical contact and closeness within the experience of being held.
There were occasions during the home visits and interviews when my feminist
viewpoint leaked out into conversations with the parents participating in the study.
Often, the opportunity arose in the context of the mothers' rationale for their paid work
outside o f the home. One mother explained that:
she knew that everyone said that the mother should stay home and raise
the kids but that she just couldn’ t do it, that she went crazy trying to keep
Laura amused when she was home with her. ... I asked her who 'they'
were. She said "everybody," including some woman on a KFI talk show
who said that mothers should be home with their kids until the kids start
school. Apparently, one woman had phoned in and said that they
couldn't afford for her to stay home. This woman had said that they
needed to cut their expenses so that she could stay home. I said that I
thought that was a very personal decision and that there were just as
many people who said the opposite if one looked for them. I said that
studies had shown that some women were happier juggling work,
family, and home. She said that she still felt really guilty about
working.
77
Another mother introduced the subject of feminism in her explanation of why
she had chosen not to work outside of the home:
Donna began to talk about staying at home with the kids. She said that
one thing that all the feminists said that she really disagreed with was
that daycare was just as good as the mother staying home with her
children. She really believed that daycare was not as good as, and
couldn't possibly be as good for children, as having a parent home with
them. She allowed that maybe it wasn't harmful to the child, but it just
wasn't as good as a parent being home with the child. Initially, I started
to argue that I didn't think that feminists were saying that, but that they
were saying that it wouldn't hurt the child. She said that is not how she
hears it or understands it.
MN: RIGHT HERE, I REALIZED VERY QUICKLY THAT I
NEEDED TO SHUT UP AND STOP GIVING MY VIEWPOINT SO
THAT I COULD HEAR HER VIEWPOINT. I REALIZED THAT I
WAS DEFENDING THE LITERATURE HERE AND NEEDED TO
LET DONNA SPEAK. I QUICKLY BACKPEDALED AND AGREED
THAT MAYBE THAT WAS TRUE. I WANTED TO GET HER TO
SAY MORE AND NOT TO STOP TALKING BECAUSE I DIDN'T
AGREE WITH HER.
In this last example, I realized that it was necessary for me to keep my feminist
viewpoint to myself and to listen to Donna in order to gain access to her views and
opinions. Marshall and Rossman (1989) stated that a researcher is frequently required to
manage impressions in order to facilitate the research process and elicit the participants'
trust, acceptance, openness, and cooperation.
On occasion, I found myself questioning whether I was biased in my reporting of
data collected on the fathers participating in the study. Methodological notes in my
fieldnotes indicate my attention to this potential problem. Early in the study during my
sixth home visit, I watched a father help his son inflate a basketball with a hand pump.
Here is an excerpt from these notes:
Brent put the pump in and held the ball as Riley pushed the pump. Riley
pumped a couple of times and then looked at his dad. Brent said, "Two
more." Riley pumped two more. Brent said, "One more." Riley
pumped one more. Brent said, "Two more." Riley pumped two more.
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MN: AS I WATCHED THIS, I REALIZED THAT BRENT WAS
LETTING RILEY COUNT, BUT I WAS REALLY THINKING THAT
BRENT WAS USING THE NUMBERS TO LET RILEY KNOW
CONCRETELY HOW MANY MORE PUMPS WERE NEEDED TO
INFLATE THE BALL. AS I DICTATED MY NOTES, I REALIZED
THAT ANOTHER INTERPRETATION COULD BE THAT HE WAS
TRYING TO ENCOURAGE RILEY'S LEARNING AND COUNTING
SKILLS THROUGH PLAY OR ACTIVITY. I WAS STRUCK BY
HOW EASILY I INTERPRETED THIS NOT AS BRENT
ENCOURAGING COGNITIVE PLAY, BUT AS HIM TRYING TO
MAKE A TASK EASIER. I FIND MYSELF WONDERING ABOUT
MY BIASES AND WHAT INTERPRETATION I MIGHT HAVE
MADE IF PEGGY HAD DONE THE EXACT SAME SEQUENCE OF
ACTIONS. IN FACT, AS I WAS TYPING THESE NOTES EARLIER,
I QUESTIONED MYSELF ABOUT WHETHER I AM MORE
JUDGMENTAL ABOUT BRENT'S PLAY THAN I AM ABOUT
PEGGY’ S PLAY. I NEED TO TRY TO BE MORE AWARE OF MY
GENDER BIAS REGARDING PARENTAL PLAY STYLES.
I continued to exercise this practice of questioning any assumptions I seemed to
be making about the fathers1 participation in play with their children and in household
work. During my 43rd home visit, the mother and I watched the father bathe his two
daughters. Throughout the bath, I noted that the mother, Linda, often told the father,
Sam, what he should do next. She asked him to wash the older girl’ s hair. Then she
suggested that he start to wash up the younger girl and even went so far as to tell him
where the bar o f soap was. While Sam was working, Linda told me that Katlyn, the 3
year old girl, hates to get water in her face and that she has been that way since she was a
baby. Linda said that she was the same way. Here’ s what happened when Sam began to
rinse the shampoo out of Katlyn’ s hair:
As Sam prepared to pour a glass of water on her hair, Linda said, "Have
her sit down.” She went on to explain that Katlyn doesn't keep her head
as far back when she is standing as she does when she is sitting. He
helped Katlyn to sit down and began to pour the water on her hair to
rinse it.
MN: THIS WAS ANOTHER HINT THAT SAM WAS UNFAMILIAR
WITH THE BATH ROUTINE. LINDA NEEDED TO TELL HIM THE
79
BEST STRATEGY FOR ENSURING THAT KATLYN'S HAIR GOT
RINSED WITH THE LEAST AMOUNT OF TROUBLE. AGAIN, TO
BE FAIR TO SAM, IT MAY HAVE BEEN A RECENT DISCOVERY
OF LINDA'S THAT IT IS EASIER TO RINSE KATLYN'S HAIR
WHEN SHE IS SITTING DOWN AND SHE MAY NOT HAVE YET
SHARED IT WITH HIM.
The methodological note following the write-up o f this portion o f the
observation indicates that I was searching for alternative explanations o f why Sam was
unfamiliar with Katlyn's hairwashing routine. I was trying to make sure that I did not
automatically assume that he was unfamiliar with the routine simply because, being a
man, he did not usually bathe his children. Such an assumption, without further facts to
back it up, although justified given the literature on men's participation in child care,
might have demonstrated bias on my part.
While I was designing this study I thought that the fact that I was female might
restrict my access to the thoughts, feelings, and actions o f the fathers participating in the
study. This was perhaps indicative o f another gender bias on my part. To my surprise, I
found that the majority o f the fathers were very open to my presence and frequently
shared personal details o f their family life. In the course o f one father’ s conversation
about his marriage and family life, I shared some aspects o f my personal history which
were significant in shaping this study. Brent was doing yard work while his two
children, a 4 year old boy and a 2 year old girl, were playing outside under his
supervision:
He talked about how marriage is difficult and that kids really change
things. He said that there were times that he would have left Peggy or
gone and had an affair because he was so angry, but didn't because o f the
kids. ... I listened and said that I thought that kids helped to make a
relationship more committed, that you would have to be more committed
because o f the kids. He asked me about Kevin and I and how long we
had been together. I told him that I had known him for six years, been
together for three years, and living together for three months so that we
were really just "newlyweds." He laughed. I talked about how hard the
adjustment to living together had been for both o f us. He agreed and
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said that it had been a big adjustment for Peggy and him as well and that
having the kids on top of it had made it an even bigger adjustment.
He asked if "marriage was in the future." I said probably not because we
weren't planning on having children. He expressed surprise, "You’re
not?" I said that we weren't firmly decided b u t... that the more I
watched my friends with their kids, the less sure I was that I wanted to
have children. He agreed that having children sure changed your life.
He said that they used to go away weekends, water-skiing at the river or
- snowskiing. Now they didn't go or if they did, there was so much work
to get ready to go. It was such an "ordeal" to go. And then once they
got there, it was not the same because they had the kids to watch and
take care of.
Sixteen months later during a home visit with a different family, I discussed the
topic of having children with the mother:
Katlyn climbed into the tub as Linda reached over and turned on the
water faucet. She poured a little baby shampoo into the water to make
some bubbles. I had been talking about how cute Mary Jane was and
now I said that I had been thinking about having kids myself for awhile
now. I said that watching parents like her and Sam who made having
children look so easy, I had thought that maybe Kevin and 1 should have
kids too. I laughed as I said that was why I had done this study, of
course, was to see how other parents managed so that I could learn. I
laughed again, saying that probably when I do go ahead and have a
child, it won’ t be as easy as they make it look. She laughed as she sat
down on the toilet with Mary Jane in her lap and started to undress her.
Lofland and Lofland (1984), in their discussion of how qualitative research
encouraged one "to start where you are" (p.2), stated that it was "rumored among
sociologists that, as sociologists, we 'make problematic1 in our research matters that are
problematic in our lives" (p. 8). Although they suggested "that the connection between
self and study may be a subtle and sophisticated one, not at all apparent to an outside
observer" (p. 8), they asserted that there was truth to this rumor. Lofland and Lofland
observed that these connections are not often publicly acknowledged because "the norms
o f scholarship do not require that researchers bare their souls, only their procedures" (p.
8), however, I believe that my questions about the role of marriage and children in my
81
life figured in the conceptualization and design of this study. The second passage from
my fieldnotes above indicates the effects of the research process upon myself as the
researcher. As a human instrument, the qualitative researcher is not immune to the
effects of the data collected and the meanings that she may attach to them.
Effects o f the Researcher’ s Participation Observation
The Researcher as Participant.
Most texts on qualitative research include suggestions on how to get along once
the researcher is inside the research setting. Three "ways of being" contributed to how I
"got along" inside the families' homes— an absence of threat, self-disclosure, and
acceptable incompetence (Daly, 1992b; Lofland & Lofland, 1984). Throughout all the
home visits, I tried very hard to present myself in a non-threatening light. I acted
pleasant, interested, courteous, friendly, and sensitive to the feelings of the family
members. The first visits to a family's home were often initially uncomfortable and
awkward. In an attempt to counteract this tendency, I spent time during these visits
answering the parents' questions and talking about the study. I made sure to repeat the
statement made in the study recruitment letter and the consent form that they, as parents,
were experts in the area in which I was interested. Often, my self-disclosure included the
fact that I did not have children which reinforced the parents’ role as experts and my own
stance of acceptable incompetence. In addition, I satisfied family members' curiosity
about other aspects of my personal life. On at least four different occasions, I was asked
by different children if I had a boyfriend or "kids". When I responded that I did not have
children but that I had cats, I was often pressed for more details which I willingly
provided.
Most frequently, the initial awkwardness and discomfort was on the part of the
adults in the setting, not the children, as this excerpt from my fieldnotes demonstrates.
82
The conversation occurred within the first fifteen minutes of the initial visit with the
family. The family was in the midst of their dinner when I arrived. I had already been
taken aback by the loud, jovial, and almost overly friendly style of David, the father, and
the quiet, self-conscious manner of Katie, the mother, who was six months pregnant at
the time. Kristin was 3 years old. I joined them at the dinner table:
I asked if they were excited about the baby and then wondered about the
silliness of that question. They said that they were. Kristin wanted a
baby sister and David wanted a boy. Katie said that one day David and
Kristin had been playfully arguing about it until finally Kristin had said,
"You can have a baby boy after my baby sister." She and David laughed
and said that this was it. No more children after this one. David said he
wanted one of each, a boy and a girl. I said that that would be nice.
MN: I FELT SOMEWHAT AWKWARD DURING THIS
EXCHANGE BECAUSE THEY WERE TRYING TO FINISH THEIR
DINNER AND HERE I WAS A TOTAL STRANGER WATCHING
THEM EAT. KATIE WAS SITTING RATHER PRIMLY AT THE
HEAD OF THE TABLE. I INTERPRETED HER BODY LANGUAGE
AS INDICATIVE OF SOME SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.
SIMILARLY, I INTERPRETED DAVID'S EFFUSIVE BEHAVIOR AS
A COVER-UP FOR NERVOUSNESS.
A few minutes later in the home visit, as Katie and I continued to talk:
Kristin would interrupt and tell us not to talk. At one point she said,
"Loree is here to watch me." Katie explained that they had told her that
I was coming a couple of nights ago, but that they had not said anything
to her today. As they came home tonight, Kristin had said, "Loree is
coming to watch me tonight." Kristin also turned up her tape recording
of her Read-a-Long book very loudly, saying that she needed to hear it
over us talking.
MN: THIS LOOKED TO ME LIKE AN ATTEMPT ON HER PART
TO GET US TO STOP TALKING. SHE WAS WANTING SOME
ATTENTION. I REALIZED THIS, BUT ALSO FELT THAT KATIE,
DAVID, AND I NEEDED SOME TIME TO BREAK THE ICE AND
GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER. AS WE CONTINUED TO TALK
AND KRISTIN CONTINUED TO INTERRUPT US, IT WAS CLEAR
THAT SHE WAS FEELING LEFT OUT AND SLIGHTED BY OUR
TALKING AND NOT INCLUDING HER.
83
Over the course of repeated visits within each family and as I became more
comfortable with my role in their homes, the family members and I established a rapport
that seemed to facilitate the research process. I joined the families as they got up in the
morning, got ready to go to work and daycare, came home in the evening, prepared and
ate their meals, took their baths, and went to bed at night. I was invited to come into the
bathroom and watch parents and their children during bathtime. In one family, I stood
outside the closed bathroom door as the father showered with his son. I watched
countless bedtime routines, complete with stories and affectionate good night rituals. I
shared a bed and Winnie the Pooh videos with a child and his mother during one bedtime
routine. In one family, I was present when the girl went to bed at night and was there
again when she woke up the next morning.
During the time I spent in these families’ homes, I saw many instances of play
between parents and their children and between the parents themselves. I went along on
neighborhood walks and trips to the park. I watched children play in small backyard
pools and a father and son swim together in their apartment complex pool. I had the
opportunity to see parents interact not only with their children but also with the
neighbors' children as their homes became neighborhood centers for play. I met
grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and neighbors. I was invited to a family
birthday party. Throughout all of these experiences, I tried to remain in the background,
an unobtrusive observer who participated minimally and only when asked and, all the
while, remaining pleasant, courteous, and benign in manner.
I was unprepared, however, for how much my presence would draw the
children's attention and their invitations for me to participate in their play. My fieldnotes
are peppered with methodological notes describing the ways in which I tried to avoid this
participation for fear of contaminating the data that I was collecting. At odds with my
84
attempts to avoid my involvement in their play were my professional inclinations to play
with children and the playful nature inherent in most children that beckons one to join
them. This tension and my accompanying feelings were most evident during a home
visit with Bill and his son. Michael:
Bill returned to the computer and worked with his back to Michael and
me. Michael had finished his snack. He got up from the couch and took
his empty package to the garbage can out in the kitchen. He came back
out to the couch and picked up a structure constructed out of "Bright
Builders", Discovery Toy construction blocks that interlock with each
other. They are circular in shape with five or six rounded ends
protruding from the central circle. They look like a flower or star in
shape. They attach to each other in several different directions. The
structure which he picked up consisted of four or five blue pieces joined
in a circle with four other pieces attached to the outside of the circle. He
held it by one of the outer pieces and looked through the center circle
with one eye. He looked at me, saying, "Say cheese." and laughed at
himself. Without thinking, I automatically smiled and laughed back.
I began to watch the news on TV. Michael started to take the structure
apart. He pulled the outer pieces off one by one. Next, he took a red
piece and put it on his thumb. "A ring! A ring on my finger!" he
squealed while looking at me. I tried not to look over at him, but he
continued to squeal. Finally, I looked over and smiled in affirmation.
He took a second piece and put it on his other thumb. "Look! Two
rings!" he squealed again. I tried not to look and became very interested
in the news on TV. He kept up his squealing in excitement. Finally, I
looked over at him in acknowledgment. Bill remained deeply engrossed
in what he was doing and did not turn around once during this sequence.
MN: I WAS ANNOYED AT BILL DURING THIS SEQUENCE OF
EVENTS. I WANTED TO SEE HIM INTERACT WITH MICHAEL
AND WAS IRRATIONALLY FRUSTRATED BY WHAT I WAS
SEEING AS HIS LACK OF INTEREST IN MICHAEL. I WAS
TRYING VERY HARD NOT TO RESPOND TO MICHAEL
BECAUSE I BELIEVED THAT IF I RESPONDED I WOULD BE
AFFECTING THE DATA BY RELIEVING BILL OF THE
NECESSITY TO RESPOND. I WAS TRYING NOT TO RESPOND
BECAUSE I WANTED TO SEE WHAT MICHAEL WOULD DO IF I
WEREN'T THERE. WOULD HE GO OVER AND DEMAND BILL'S
ATTENTION IN A MORE AGGRESSIVE MANNER? IT WAS
VERY DIFFICULT NOT TO RESPOND TO MICHAEL BECAUSE
HE WAS SO OBVIOUSLY TRYING TO GET MY ATTENTION. I
85
WAS VERY AWARE THAT EVERY TIME I RESPONDED IT
WOULD PREVENT THE NORMAL EVENTS FROM UNFOLDING.
MY ANGER AT BILL AROSE FROM MY FRUSTRATION AT
BEING UNABLE TO IGNORE MICHAEL. HE IS AN EXTREMELY
CUTE CHILD AND WAS DOING EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO
GET AND HOLD MY ATTENTION. I REALIZED AS I SAT THERE
FEELING ALL THESE FEELINGS THAT I REALLY NEEDED TO
PERSEVERE AND IGNORE MICHAEL AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE
IN ORDER TO MINIMIZE THE EFFECT OF MY PRESENCE ON
THE DATA. THIS MEANT NOT BEING NICE AND CHILD-
FRIENDLY, SO THAT MICHAEL WOULD HAVE NO RECOURSE
BUT TO APPROACH BILL FOR ATTENTION.
Besides my own tendency to want to play with the children whom I was
observing, I had to deal with the parents' understandings of what I wanted to observe in
their homes. Over the course o f one home visit I became increasingly concerned about
what the mother thought I wanted to observe. Kristin, a 3 year old girl, had spent a lot of
the visit trying to interact with me and engage me in her play. I resisted and tried to
redirect her to her mother, Katie, without much lasting effect. Finally, I decided to say
something:
At this point, Kristin flitted over to me and gave me a hug and then
flitted off again. As I watched her, I said to Katie that it might take
longer for Kristin to get used to my being here. I explained that the
other kids I was watching, although they were all boys, seemed to get
used to my presence fairly quickly and almost ignore me. I said that I
had a girl in my pilot study and she had also paid me a lot o f attention.
Katie said, "Oh! What did you want? You don't want Kristin to .. ?
What was it you wanted?" I explained that as much as possible I wanted
to be invisible. As much as I would love to interact with Kristin, I didn't
want to see how I interacted with her, but how they interacted. She said,
"Oh, okay."
During the remainder of the home visits with this family, I was gratified to hear
both the mother and father tell Kristin, when she asked me to play with her, that I was
there to watch her play with them. Eventually, I developed a standard response to a
child's requests for me to play which I made sure to say in front of the parents as well:
86
Jennifer stood in front of me and tried to get my attention. Dawn told
her to leave me alone and not to bug me, but Jennifer continued to stand
in front of me and tried to get me to interact with her. As Dawn
continued to tell her to leave me alone, I told her that I wasn't here to
play with her tonight. I said that I wanted to watch her and Daddy and
Mommy. Mike came into the living room and sat down on the couch as
I said that I would come back one time to. play with her. I interrupted
myself to ask Dawn and Mike if I had told them about baby-sitting for
them. Dawn nodded. I continued on to tell Jennifer that I would come
one time and play with her the whole time I was here.
The attention that I got from the children was not always positive. One little
girl, angry at not being allowed to do something that she wanted to do or after being
scolded by her parents, regularly told me not to look at her. In addition, I was not always
successful in my attempts to limit my participation. In one particular visit, I had arrived
at 6:40 a.m. before Brenda, a 4 year old girl, had woken up. Her parents and I had been
talking about the father's job as a deputy sheriff when Brenda woke up and joined us.
My presence and participation was of significant note to her:
Brenda, who was still cuddled up next to Donna on the daybed,
inteijected, "Mommy, she's making me nervous.” Donna asked who was
making her nervous. I stopped talking and asked if she meant me. Tim
said that it was a new word for her and that she was just using it without
really understanding what it meant.
MN: I FELT REALLY BAD ABOUT THIS BECAUSE I REALIZED
THAT MY PRESENCE WAS CREATING A REAL DISRUPTION IF,
INDEED, I WAS MAKING HER NERVOUS. I SUDDENLY
REALIZED THAT I WAS PROBABLY PARTICIPATING TOO
MUCH DURING THIS VISIT AND WAS MOST LIKELY HAVING A
SIGNIFICANT EFFECT UPON THE DATA BECAUSE I WAS
CHANGING THE DYNAMICS OF THE FAMILY'S MORNING
ROUTINE FOR BRENDA BY BEING THERE AND TALKING WITH
HER PARENTS.
Donna asked Brenda if she knew what "nervous" meant and did she
know what she was saying. Brenda didn't really respond. Donna said,
"It means that you're kind of scared of her. Are you scared of her?"
Brenda answered, "Yeah, I'm scared of her." I said that maybe I was
talking too loudly.
87
At this point in the visit, I decreased the amount of my participation and Brenda
seemed to get used to my presence in her home. This particular incident was, in my
opinion, the most serious of all instances of my over-participation in the families' lives.
Most other incidents were similar in nature to the following interaction between myself
and a 2 year old girl while her father was on the telephone:
Jennifer stood in front of me with the balloon raised above her head and
threw it towards me. I picked it up and threw it back to her. We
continued to throw it back and forth a couple of times before I told her
that we needed to stop. She almost caught my last throw to her and then
dropped it at the last moment onto the bed tray, nearly spilling her
orange juice. I told her that we needed to stop playing. She tried to get
me to play with her some more, but then wandered away when I refused.
She headed over towards her parents’ bedroom, leaving her balloon toy
behind on the floor. While Jennifer was standing there, looking into the
bedroom, Mike picked up the balloon toy and threw it at her so that it
bounced off of her head and on into the kitchen. When she turned
around to look at him, he asked her if she wanted to talk to Mommy.
MN: I STOPPED PLAYING WITH HER BECAUSE I REALIZED
THAT MY PARTICIPATION WITH HER WAS CHANGING WHAT
WOULD HAVE NORMALLY HAPPENED WHEN MIKE WAS ON
THE PHONE AND HE WAS HOME ALONE WITH JENNIFER. I
WAS INTERACTING WITH HER WHEN HER FATHER WAS
OCCUPIED ELSEWHERE. I WANTED TO STOP DOING THIS.
In addition to the effects of my participation upon the research process, my
presence as an observer had the potential to enter into the data that I was collecting.
The Researcher as Observer.
Prior to my initial visit and during the visits themselves, I explained to the
parents that I wanted them to go about their daily business and routines as naturally and
as normally as possible. While admitting that this might be difficult, given my presence,
I said that at least they were bound to be more natural than if I had asked them to come
to a laboratory at the university and play with their child while I watched behind a one
88
way mirror. Several parents offered their impressions and feelings about my presence in
their homes. One father talked to me about it after my second visit to his home:
Colin said that, at first, he was skeptical about how they could possibly
act or be natural with me in their house. He had talked to Maggie about
this, saying that there was no way he could be natural. I said that I
understood that and knew that would be hard and that I didn't really
expect to see them exactly as they were. We talked about how they
would try to be on their best behavior. I explained that this was better
than what has been done in the past in university laboratories and that at
least what I was doing was closer to what really happens in the home.
He said, "Yeah, because Craig has his own toys, his own backyard, and
his friends." But he said that even Craig showed off with someone new.
I explained that was why I wanted to come a few times so that he could
get used to me. Eventually Craig might act more naturally, even though
he and Maggie might not. Colin said that actually it was not as hard as
he had thought it would be. He said that he had expected me to come
out with a clipboard, taking notes and following them around. He
pantomimed someone taking notes. Or that I would have a tape recorder
or camera.
Colin was the first of a few parents who commented on the fact that I didn't take
notes during my visits in their homes. Other parents also spoke about being on their best
behavior:
We continued to discuss future visits that might occur during the
evening and weekend hours. I said, "Well, to be honest— " David said
jokingly, "Oh! So you mean you haven't been honest!" I said, "Well, no.
I just didn't tell you everything. I told you that I would like at least three
visits. But, to be honest, I'd like to come back as many times as you will
let me." 1 explained that the more visits I had, the more believable my
study would be. Katie agreed, saying that if I just came a couple of
times, they might be on their "best behavior." I said, "Yeah. Not that
I'm looking for you not to be on your best behavior, but just that I am
trying to see natural play and natural behavior. That's more likely to
happen as you get more comfortable with me being here."
Being on their "best behavior" would seem to be a natural behavior for parents
who are being observed within the privacy of their homes. I was able to obtain concrete
evidence of only two episodes during my home visits when parents' behaviors were
radically different from what they would have ordinarily been doing. Both of them
89
involved mothers playing videotapes for their children. This is what happened in one
case:
Greg ran out into the living room as he said, "Mommy, I want to watch a
video." Carol replied, "Oh, honey, we have to play Candyland. Don't
you want to play Candyland?" Greg said, "No, I want to watch a video."
I looked at Carol as I said that if a video was what they would normally
do, then that was okay with me. She said, "Oh no, we couldn't do that."
I repeated that if that was what they normally did, then that would be all
right. She said something like, "Really? No, we don't want to throw
your study out by not playing." I said again that I was interested in
seeing what they normally did and that if she would normally let him
watch a video at this time, then that was what I wanted her to do. Carol
said, "Really? You're sure?" I said yes and continued on to say that I
had seen other families watch videos too and that actually it had been
about this time as well [referring to the fact that it was after dinner on a
work night], Carol laughed as she said, "Yeah, I wonder why." She
slumped in her chair as if exhausted and said something like, "Just let us
rest, relax, take a nap!"
At the end of Carol's interview, when I asked if she had anything else that she
wanted to say, she talked about her experience of participation in the study which shed
some light upon the best behavior phenomenon. She began by stating that her
participation had made her more aware of her play interactions with her son than she had
been previously. She was happy about this new-found awareness because play with her
child was an area in which she had already felt that she needed help and personal growth.
She explained, "But it’ s really been a good experience to kind of think about it. There
have been times when I'm like, 'Am I playing with Greg?"'
When I asked her if my interest in her play with Greg led her to think about it
more often, both while I was physically present and later after I was gone, she responded:
Yes. Or like when we went to the park. I was thinking, "Now, okay.
Loree knows what she's doing. Now I wonder what’s she thinking?
Should I be up on that slide? Maybe I should be up on the slide." You
know, but it really made me, it just made me more aware ... just because
it was, I think, a really good experience ... to make you aware of a very
important thing.
90
During the interview, Carol had talked about how she liked to get on the play
equipment with Greg when she took him to the park. Now I reminded her of her earlier
statement and asked if my presence in the park that day had led her to get on the slide
with Greg and was that something that she would not have normally done. Carol said
that she would not have normally played on that particular piece of play equipment in
that particular park. She explained that she and Greg often went to another park with
different play equipment and that it was there that she played on the equipment with her
son. I responded:
So, it sounds like what you're saying is, and let me check this out, that
[getting on the slide] is something that is in your repertoire of things to
do but you might not have done it that day in that park except for me
being there.
Carol replied:
Yeah. But then, there were other times I felt, "Well, I should just do this
and this, too." But I was aware that I didn't want to taint the study by
doing things that I wouldn't normally do and so there were times when I
kind of held back because that's what I really would have done.
Carol laughed as she realized what she had just said and then joked, "So actually
you've kept me from playing with my son." I believe that Carol was not alone among the
parents in the study in her self-conscious awareness of my presence during many of the
home visits. Interspersed in her discussion of the effects of her awareness of my
presence upon her play behaviors with Greg, Carol talked about her feelings about my
presence in their home:
I just think it's neat because you've been so gentle. I mean it's been like,
you've been so quiet and not wanting to interfere or not interfere, but you
know what I'm saying? And I really felt comfortable with you. Like we
really were doing our routine. Even though, you know, you're aware
that maybe someone's taking mental notes or whatever. But I never felt
like I was under a lamp or anything, which is really a testimony to you.
Later, she said:
91
So, you know, you're perfect for this because you've been so friendly and
warm and good with the kids. And yet, you have that ability to just, all
of a sudden, it’ s like you're not even there. You just pull back so far
where you're not even aware that you're with your family and this new
person. You know what I mean? It's incredible. I mean literally, it was
like the in and out of focus type thing.
When one conducts qualitative family research, one's presence is bound to affect
the research process and enter into the data in some way. Families are among the most
closed and private social groups and present a challenge to researchers who try "to enter
the relatively closed and highly protected boundaries of families' experiences" (Daly,
1992a, p. 4). Although the methods of observation and unstructured interviews may help
to build trust and rapport and allow family members "to discuss their experiences in their
own language, in their own natural setting, and according to their own comfort in
disclosing" (Daly, 1992a, p. 5), there will always be aspects of families' lives that remain
inaccessible to the researcher. By acknowledging the effects o f my presence and the
obstacles that I encountered in accessing the families' private lives, I believe that I have
been able to demonstrate the strengths and limitations of the study's research design.
Summary
Chapter 3 presented the methodology used in a qualitative study o f parent-child
play within families with traditional and non-traditional divisions o f household work.
The qualitative research methods used were participant observation and intensive
interviewing. The selection procedures and the families who participated in the study
were described. The methods used for data collection and analysis procedures were
provided. This chapter concluded with a discussion of the effects o f the researcher upon
the research process. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 will present the findings of the study.
92
CHAPTER 4
Work Within Families
Introduction
"You gotta eat. You gotta work. You gotta cook dinner. You gotta play with
your kid. Well, you don't have to cook dinner but you gotta work." These are the words
of one of the mothers in this study as she tried to describe the conflicts between her paid
work, her household work, and her time with her child. She laughingly referred to a
current radio commercial for a local downhill ski area in which an announcer solemnly
intoned, "You gotta work. You gotta eat. You gotta sleep. You gotta ski." After a
pause, the announcer mused that maybe you don’ t have to eat after all and proclaimed in
the same solemn tone as before, "You gotta work. You gotta sleep. You gotta ski." The
commercial continued until the announcer eventually decided that all you really have to
do is ski. The mother demonstrated the correspondence between this particular
commercial and her daily life and in so doing accurately portrayed the quicksilver
reshuffling of her priorities to respond to the ever-changing needs of her family.
Each of the ten families within the study faced the same dilemma, that is, how to
accomplish the work required to meet their families' need for both economic support and
the physical and psychological nurturance of their children. Their resolutions of this
dilemma were as individual and unique as the families themselves. This chapter begins
by briefly presenting an overview of the division of work within the ten families in the
study. The remainder of the chapter describes how the families divided the work
required to sustain themselves. Participant observation and interview data are combined
with current literature in this area to demonstrate the various methods that the families
used to achieve the same goal, that is, the division of work within their families.
93
Division o f Work Within Families
The families in the study lie along a continuum of traditional to non-traditional
divisions of work. (See Table 5.) Families with traditional divisions of household work
were those in which the women were responsible for over 60% of the household work,
regardless of whether or not they participated in paid work outside of the home. These
women generally did most of the household work typically seen as women's work, such
as cooking, cleaning, laundry, and child care. In addition, they were often responsible
for tasks from the traditionally male domains of outdoor, indoor, and car maintenance.
Families with non-traditional divisions of household work were those in which both
parents were employed outside of the home and shared child care tasks only or shared
both child care and housework tasks within a 60-40% split. Couples were defined as
sharing household work when women completed no more than 60% and men no less
than 40% of the tasks stereotyped as being women's work.
The division of household work was determined by using the Household Work
Questionnaire as described in Chapter 3. (See Appendix B for a copy of this
questionnaire and its coding categories.) Women are traditionally responsible for the
majority of the tasks within six of the nine categories in the questionnaire, that is,
Cooking and Meal Clean Up, Cleaning, Laundry and Clothing Care, Child Care,
Shopping and Errands, and Managerial Tasks. Men are traditionally responsible for the
tasks that comprise the categories of Outdoor Maintenance, Indoor Maintenance, and Car
Maintenance. As stated in Chapter 3 ,1 classified families as traditional or non-
traditional by examining those instances in which men crossed gender lines to share the
household work traditionally completed by women. I considered ratings of task
participation falling between 40% and 60% to reflect shared household work and,
therefore, indicative of the degree to which a family might be considered non-traditional.
94
J 2 O Z h a J < Q - H " O Z < J - >
Table 5. Division o f Household Work Within Families
Family Participation in
Paid Work Outside The
Home
Household Work Categories in Which
Father Crossed Gender Lines to Share
Work 60/40%
7 Father~F/Ta
Mother— None
None
1 Father-F/T
Mother— F/T
None
8 Father— F/T
Mother--F/T
Shopping and Errands
4 Father— F/T
Mother— F/T
Cooking and Meal Clean Up
9 Father-F/T
Mother— P/T^
Almost Shares Child Care (38%)
Laundry and Clothing Care
10 Father— F/T
Mother— F/T
Almost Shares Child Care (37%)
Shopping and Errands
Managerial Tasks
5 Father— F/T
Mother— F/T
Child Care
3 Father— F/T
Mother— F/T
Child Care
Cooking and Meal Clean Up
Managerial Tasks
2 Father— F/T
Mother— F/T
Child Care
Shopping and Errands
Managerial Tasks
6 Father— F/T
Mother— P/T
Child Care
Cooking and Meal Clean Up
Laundry and Clothing Care
Shopping and Errands
Managerial Tasks
aFuIl-time paid work participation
^Part-time paid work participation
Table 5 indicates that six of the ten families were traditional in their divisions of
work. Family #7 was the most traditional of all of the families in that only the father
worked outside the home. The mother completed the majority of the household work
tasks, cared for their two children, and also provided in-home before- and after-school
day care for another child. Families #1,8, and 4 were also traditional in their divisions
of work even though both mothers and fathers participated in full-time paid work outside
of the home. Families #9 and 10 approached what has been defined in this study as non-
traditional divisions of household work, but remained traditional in their overall
divisions o f work. In these families, both fathers almost shared child care tasks within a
60-40% range. Families #5, 3, and 2 were non-traditional in their divisions o f work in
that they shared child care within a 60-40% range. And finally, Family #6 was the most
non-traditional of all of the families. The father shared child care and four additional
categories of household work traditionally completed by women within a 60-40% range.
The following section presents data from eight of the ten families in the study, including
their responses on the Household Work Questionnaires. The remaining families'
Household Work Questionnaire data are provided in Table 4 and Appendix D. The ways
in which these families accomplished the work required to sustain themselves and how
this division o f work evolved and continues to evolve will be discussed.
Gender Ideologies and Gender Practices
In her book, The Second Shift. Hochschild (1989) presented the concept of
gender ideology which she defined as a belief system about manhood, womanhood, and
marital roles. Accordingly, a woman's gender ideology determines where she wants to
base her identity, within the home, at her paid work, or both. It also determines the
amount of power she expects to hold in the marriage, that is, less, more, or the same
amount as her husband. Three types of gender ideologies were identified by Hochschild:
(a) traditional, (b) transitional, and (c) egalitarian. A pure traditional woman, even
96
though she may work, wants to identify with her home activities, wants her husband to
base his identity at work, and accepts less power than he in their marriage. A pure
traditional man wants these same things as well. The key defining factor for an
egalitarian ideology is that both the wife and husband are identified with or jointly
oriented to the same spheres, either home, work, or both, and each partner wants equal
power in the marriage. Thus, an egalitarian woman wants both her and her husband to be
jointly home-oriented, career-oriented, or to maintain a balance between home and work.
The transitional ideology encompasses all types of ideologies that may result
from the blending of traditional and egalitarian ideologies (Hochschild, 1989). When
contrasted to a traditional woman, a transitional woman wants to identify with both of
her work and home roles but, unlike an egalitarian woman, she believes that her
husband's identity should be based on his work more than her identity is based on her
work. She wants to care for the home and help her husband make money, but wants her
husband to focus on supporting the family. The typical transitional man is supportive of
his wife's participation in paid work, but expects her to be principally responsible for the
work at home as well. Most of the 50 couples studied by Hochschild (1989) were
transitional or, as she stated, "at least, transitional ideas came out when I asked people
directly what they believed" (p. 16).
In addition, Hochschild found that what people said they believed about their
marital roles often conflicted with what they seemed to feel about their roles. She
discussed these contradictions in terms of a surface ideology with its feeling rules, that
is, how one should feel given what one says one believes, and a deep ideology based
upon what one truly feels about marital roles and influenced by past and current social
and cultural ideas, childhood experiences, and responses to one’s current situations. The
interplay between one's surface ideology and its feeling rules (how one should feel) and
97
the feelings underneath and attached to the deep ideology serve to reinforce or undermine
the original surface ideology.
Hochschild (1989) introduced the concept of a gender strategy, defined as a plan
of action and the emotional preparation necessary to pursue that plan, to describe the
process through which one enacts one's gender ideology in real-life situations. Gender
strategies combine gender ideology, attendant feelings, and actual action. It is "this
complex of thought, feeling, and action" (p. 192) that together constitutes one's gender
strategy. Examples of gender strategies used by both husbands and wives include cutting
back at work; cutting back on housework, marriage, self, or child; renegotiating division
of household work; seeking outside help; or acting as "supermom" or "superdad."
Hochschild believed that the division of household work within a given family is
determined by the interplay between the wife's and husband's individual gender
strategies.
Analysis of the data collected in this study supports Hochschild's concepts of
gender ideology and gender strategies. In addition, the data provide evidence of how the
interplay between a woman's and man's gender strategies within a family resulted in
gender practices. Gender practices consist of the concrete, physical acts of work required
to maintain a household and family. In this study, data on each of the family's gender
practices were collected through participant observation, intensive interviewing, and use
of the Household Work Questionnaire. Examination of a family's gender practices
determined whether the family had a traditional or non-traditional division of work as
defined within the study. This study's findings on work within families extend
Hochschild's analysis to demonstrate how the thoughts, feelings, and actions inherent in
gender strategies play out within a family in the form of specific gender practices. The
work necessary to maintain the family is accomplished through the enactment of its
gender practices. Descriptions of eight of the ten families, beginning with the most
98
traditional family and moving towards the most non-traditional family, will now be
presented, with special attention to the parents' gender ideologies, strategies, and
practices.
Donna and Tim: Separate and Unequal
Donna does not participate in paid work outside of the home. In addition to
taking care of their two children, Brenda, a 4 year old girl, and James, a 1 year old boy,
she provides before- and after-school care for a 5 year old girl. Tim works full-time as a
deputy sheriff in a county penal facility. He frequently works long hours as the result of
both voluntary and mandatory overtime. They are presented as Family #7 in Table 1.
Donna was pregnant throughout the time I spent in their home. Her interview was
completed before the birth of their third child. Tim's interview took place one month
after the baby's birth. This family had the most traditional division of work of all the
families in the study. Table 5 indicates that Tim did not cross gender lines to share in
any of the household work traditionally completed by women. In fact, Donna was not
only responsible for the majority of work typically completed by women, but also for
some of the work traditionally completed by men. Table 6 presents this couple's data on
the Household Work Questionnaire and indicates that Donna shared in the completion of
the tasks in both the Outdoor and Indoor Maintenance categories.
During my first visit to their home, Donna spontaneously began to talk about the
reasons that she and Tim believed that it was important for her to be home with their
children instead of participating in paid work outside of their home. She said that:
she was very invested in her decision to stay home and that she strongly
believed that it was better for their children that she was home with
them. She said that she would be happier working, not that she was
unhappy being at home, as she glanced quickly at Tim, but that working
was easier than being home all day with the kids. When she was home
with the children, she was working all the time. There were no lunch
breaks, coffee breaks, or the opportunity to finish work and go home.
She said that she was always at work. ... She believed that one o f the
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reasons that Brenda was doing so well right now was because she was
home with her and could be consistent with her. She didn't think that
daycare workers could be as consistent with the kids that they took care
of as parents could be with their own children.
Table 6. Mean Percentage of Participation in HousehokLWork;
Family #7-Donna and Tim
Types of Activities Donna
(%)
Tim
(%)
Total
(%)
Cooking and Meal Clean Up
(M )a
82.5 12.5 95°
Cleaning
(5-15, 17, 18, 23, 24)
96 12 108
Laundry and Clothing Care
(19-22. 25)
84 15 99
Outdoor Maintenance
(16, 32-35)
52 40 92
Indoor Maintenance
(26, 29-31,39,40. 70)
52 50 102
Child Care
(41-58)
82 21 103
Shopping and Errands
(59-63)
95 6 101
Managerial Tasks
(27, 28, 36, 65-69,71)
88 12 100
Car Maintenance
(37, 38, 64)
33 67 100
aNumbers refer to questionnaire item numbers.
^Figures based on individuals' own estimates and do not total 100.
Also during my first visit to their home and again during her interview, Donna
referred to an article that she had read in Parents magazine (Shapiro, 1994) that described
the differences between Daddy love and Mommy love. When I asked her to tell me more
about this article, she replied:
the differences between Mommies and Daddies is Daddies have a
tendency, at least what this article said, not to be as motherly, not to be
as cuddly, and fanciful in their kinds of play and that they have a
tendency to be more defined and rigid in their structure and this is the
way it is and this is the way you do it and now\ Kids follow Daddy's
directions more than Mommy's directions because they know Daddy
means business. ... That's where the old saying, "Just wait till your
father gets home." [comes from]. Dad's more like the big gun. But that
the two work together to make one whole picture. And that they're both
very important components to whole parenting. ... It seems true in my
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family and the close relationships I've had with my father and mother
and it seems true to me. That's what I see in our own family, so I have a
tendency to think that that's pretty accurate. Daddy love and Mommy
love.
At another point in the interview, I asked Donna why she had chosen to stay
home with the children. She answered:
Because we think it's important. We really need the consistency for our
kids. That's why we made the choice. I could be working and we could
be making twice the money we're making now, but we think it's very
important for our kids to have the consistency and me home. And it's
just very important to us to provide them with the best home that we
can. And in our opinion, that's the Mommy love and the Daddy love and
it doesn't mean Mommy staying home or Daddy staying home, you
know, that either one would do a better job, it's just that I wanted to do
it.
At this point, Donna seemed to be taking care to state that it was not a question
of whether, in general, mothers are better suited than fathers to stay home and raise the
children; it just happened to be that way in their particular case. I asked Donna if it was
her choice to be the one who stayed home with the children. She responded:
Yeah, pretty much. It was both of our choices. It was also practical.
I'm bearing children and can't really work right now and he has the
training right now to make a little more money than I do. So that also
comes into it. In our relationship, and also I think in most male-female
relationships, the men have a tendency to be more career-oriented. Not
that women aren't. But that in a family-type situation, the men have a
tendency to work more, the women stay home. I'm not saying it has to
be that way, but that's just the way it is in our relationship.
In the answer above, Donna indicated that she believed that there was a
"tendency" for women to be better at raising and nurturing children and for men to more
oriented to their careers. Her statements highlight differences between men's and
women's paid work participation. First, only a third of women as compared to over a
half of men participate in full-time paid work. Second, the earnings of women who hold
full-time jobs are only 72% of men's earnings (United States Department of Labor,
1991). This gender inequity in the larger world is mirrored within families and leads to
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women's decreased bargaining power in their negotiations with their husbands for an
equitable division of paid work and household work (Ferree, 1991b; Shelton, 1992). It
was only when I asked Donna specifically why Tim had not been the one to stay home
with the children that she clearly stated her belief that it was natural for her to do so:
He would go crazy at home with the kids. Again, I think that gets to the
Daddy love-Mommy love issue a little bit too. I don't know if it's
conditioning or nature that we have a tendency to be able to deal with
the kids better. I think that's part of being a mother, having them in your
bodies and nurturing them and doing the baby thing. I think it's more
natural for us, for me, to be home.
Except for a fleeting reference to how she might be happier working outside of
the home, Donna consistently stated that she chose to stay home to raise their children.
She also said that this choice was a natural one as was Tim's choice to work outside the
home and advance his career. These beliefs are indicative of a traditional gender
ideology. Throughout the time I spent in their home, I saw no evidence of any conflict
within Donna about her choice to work within the home. It truly appeared as if both her
surface and deep gender ideologies were traditional and her gender strategy was to stay
home to raise and nurture her children.
An off-the-cuff joking statement made during a home visit reinforces this
conclusion and also provides a glimpse of Tim's gender ideology. He was engaged in a
lengthy telephone conversation with a male friend when Donna commented to me that he
talked on the phone "like a woman." Almost immediately after she made this comment,
Tim joined us on the front porch of the house and said that his friend Tony talked on the
phone just "like a woman." The similarity between these comments indicated that both
Donna and Tim held implicit beliefs that it was natural for women to talk at length and,
by implication, that it was not natural for men to do so, even though in this case, both of
the people who were engaged in a lengthy telephone conversation were men. These
comments are representative of other statements this couple made throughout the time I
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spent in their home, suggesting that they held very specific beliefs about how men and
women were supposed to think and act.
In his interview, Tim initially sounded as if his gender ideology were
transitional. When I asked him how Donna felt about his being the one to work outside
the home, he replied:
She wants to stay home. I'd love her to go outside and work. And it
wouldn't bother me at all. But I think right now it's best for the kids that
she stays home at least till they're all in school. I think you'll find if one
of the parents stays home with the kids, they’re a little better behaved.
They're, I think, a little more balanced.
When I asked Tim why it was that Donna was the one to stay home, he revealed
his deep gender ideology. He said with a laugh:
Well, I mean she had the kids so I think it's better for the bonding and
stuff. And I can’ t nurse them. It's better for them. She has more
patience than I do for that. I'd go nuts. When they're this age and I had
to be with them all day long, I couldn't do that.
Later on, Tim said that he wanted Donna to go back to work or to go to school
once their children were in school. He made it clear, however, that this was for financial
reasons and to provide a safeguard in case anything happened to him in the line of duty
as a deputy sheriff. He wanted Donna to learn a skill so that she would not end up being
"one o f those housewives that are just totally dependent." I probed Tim further by
asking him what he thought was the "natural order of things." He responded:
I think there has to be somebody who's head of the household. But I
don't think, I mean Donna and I, we discuss stuff, and I'll get in trouble
just as much as she does. But there's somebody who needs to go out and
earn the money and somebody who needs to stay home with the kids.
That's just the way it is. I think it makes it for a happier family. Donna
has more, as much, or more responsibility in the house. She's runs the
house. And I'll get in trouble if I spend too much money, or this and
that, and she will too. But I think when it comes down to we have to
make a decision, we'll talk about it and I'll probably end up making the
decision.
As if realizing what he had just said, Tim went on to say:
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Yeah, there's a head of the household, but there's give and take and it has
to be. ... You won't have a happy marriage if whatever I say, Donna has
to do. I mean we go back and forth. We're both accountable to each
other. ... It's not like what I say goes all the time.
In the final analysis, Tim made his traditional gender ideology clear:
I don't agree with the feminist view of where a woman needs to go out
and work and she needs to be this and.that. I think there's something
lacking in that. I don't think they're as happy. But there's nothing wrong
for a female, if Donna could go out and get a job right now and
everything worked out, I would be happy. That would be great. If she
enjoyed it, and it seemed it'd be best for the family and wasn't hurting
stuff too much, that wouldn't bother me a bit. But right now, it seems
the best that she's home with the kids and I'm at work. And hopefully
down the road she can go out and work so we can make a little more
money.
Both Tim and Donna held traditional gender ideologies. Their surface and deep
gender ideologies were the same and they had no internal conflict over the roles each
played within their family. Although Tim said that he wanted Donna to eventually work
outside the home, he consistently stated that her first responsibility was the home. There
were no overt conflicts between them as they were in agreement that their current gender
strategy was for Tim to be the bread-winner and for Donna to be the homemaker. They
exemplified traditional couples who believe that women should be primarily responsible
for the care of children and be the primary caregivers within families. In fact, as is
typical of traditional couples, Tim and Donna held strong convictions about the natural
abilities, desires, and training of women to nurture, parent, and stay home to raise their
children (Schwartz, 1994).
Indicative of the strength of their traditional gender ideology was their gender
strategy of making their home in a desert community where the cost of living was
substantially less than the surrounding urban areas, thereby relieving Donna of the
financial necessity to participate in paid work. Thus, their gender strategies were
interwoven and interdependent. Donna's and Tim's gender practices reflected their
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gender ideologies and strategies. When I asked Tim how he and Donna divided the
housework and child care, he laughed as he responded, repeating three times that she did
most o f it and that he tried to help out. He admitted, when asked about whether they
were satisfied with these arrangements, that Donna would like him to do more work
around the house and then stated, "I just get lazy, I guess."
Donna's responses to the same questions were more detailed than Tim's:
I do most of it because I'm here. That's kind of why I'm here, but he
knows, and we both agree to a certain extent, he still has kind of that
male chauvinistic attitude about it. But, for the most part, we agree that
I'm here to take care of the kids and if the housework doesn't all get
done, then he gets to help.
Donna said that she was "pretty much" satisfied with these arrangements but:
I think he still gets a little lazy about it. I'll sit here and I'll say, "Honey,
would you do this?" or "Could you do that?" instead of him just
automatically doing it. Or like tonight, he's fishing. He takes these times
to go do these things that I don't do. So I'm usually stuck at home, when
he's doing these extracurricular things. And it's like a big deal if I go off
for the day.
This couple's responses are representative of many women's and men's feelings
about the division of household work. In a study of hidden power within marriages,
women reported that they wanted their husbands to willingly take part in more of the
household work, whereas men’ s statements about the need for change in their division of
household work tended to reflect their wives' wishes, not their own (Komter, 1989).
They frequently stated that they knew that their wives wanted them to do more of the
work and that they knew that they "should" do more work than they did, but this
knowledge rarely translated into changes in their behaviors. Donna's statement about her
being "stuck at home" highlights an inequity between her and Tim's access to the outside
world. The issue of Tim's ability to pick up and do things at will arose while we were
watching a videotape during one of my home visits:
105
The opening theme for the film studio came onto the TV and Tim
suddenly became animated as he said that he knew a movie I should go
see. It was "Clear and Present Danger". I laughed as I said that I had
seen it and loved it. Donna looked up at Tim sharply and said, "You lied
to me! You lied to me!" She was very angry but was laughing too,
almost as if she couldn't believe what she had heard. Tim said, "Oh-oh!"
She said, "You went and saw that movie without me." He shrugged
guiltily as he said that he'd gone when he went down to Long Beach
with "the guys" to get the hunting tags. Donna continued to express her
disbelief and anger, saying that she had wanted to see that movie too.
He said that he would go again. She said that wasn't the point. She had
asked him to come home early and was waiting for him that day.
Omitting the truth was the same as lying. She went on to say that she
had even asked him what he'd done because he was late. He protested
that he'd said that he'd just hung out with "the guys". He smiled
sheepishly as he said that he'd forgotten about not telling her. .., Donna
summed up her position by saying that she was really mad at him. She
looked at me and I got the impression that she decided to leave it there
for now.
MN: MY FEELING WAS THAT THIS WAS NOT OVER AND
THAT DONNA WAS GOING TO WAIT UNTIL I WAS GONE TO
FINISH THIS DISCUSSION WITH TIM. I THINK THAT SOME OF
HER ANGER MAY HAVE BEEN MIXED WITH
EMBARRASSMENT AT MY PRESENCE DURING THIS
REVELATION OF TIM'S DECEIT AND THIS RIFT IN THEIR
RELATIONSHIP.
Inequities give rise to unequal power distributions and this particular inequity
goes to the core of the power differences between Donna and Tim. A few minutes later
while we were watching the movie, Donna struck back at Tim by telling him that he
could put James, their 1 year old boy, to bed:
Donna looked at James and then said to Tim that she was thinking that
he could put him to bed. ... Once Tim had finished putting James into
his pajamas, he took him back to his bedroom and put him to bed.
While he was out of the room, Donna said to me that he was still in
trouble with her and that she was making him pay for it as if to explain
why she was insisting that he put James to bed without her help. Tim
came out of the bedroom, shutting the door behind him and returned to
the living room. He heard the end of what Donna had said and asked her
what she was saying. She told him that she was still mad at him for
lying to her. She continued on to say that she'd had the kids for three
days straight and she'd wanted him to come home to give her a break.
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Donna's decreased power in their relationship is illustrated by her choice of
"punishment" for Tom. She insisted that he put Jacob to bed by himself, something that
she would normally do or, at least, do with him. Still later on in the evening as I
prepared to leave, Donna resurrected this issue again:
I said that I would need to do a visit alone with Tim because Donna
would probably be alone tomorrow. Donna agreed that we could work
something out for an evening later on in the month. She readily agreed
that she would go out. She said that maybe she would go to the beach.
Tim said, "To the beach? You're going to leave me with them all day?"
Donna teased, "Yeah, I think I'll go away for the weekend." She said
that she didn't understand it, that she had the kids all the time, and that
he didn't want to be left alone with them. She told Tim that she was still
mad at him for going to the movie when she had asked him to come
straight home. Now she was going to do something that she wanted to
do with that time. ... Tim protested that I was requiring him to stay
home alone with the kids and that wasn't fair.
Again, Donna seemed to be using child care as a form of punishment for Tim.
O f note is the fact that Donna did not get her time away from the house in the evening
during my visit with Tim alone with the kids. He resisted my requests for an evening
visit and suggested that I come during an early afternoon time, after lunch and before
dinner. Donna went shopping for a couple of hours by herself instead of going to dinner
and a movie with a friend and returning after the children were in bed as she had
discussed during my visit prior to Tim's sole charge visit. Thus, the power that Donna
wielded in terms of being the primary caregiver was muted and her access to the outside
world was restricted by Tim's refusal to spend time alone with the children. Power
inequities, such as this one between Donna and Tim, are the hallmark of families with
traditional divisions of work (Hochschild, 1989; Komter, 1989; Schwartz, 1994).
Peggy and Brent: When Ideologies Conflict
Peggy and Brent both work outside of the home full-time. They own their own
small service business. Brent conducts the technical aspects of the work while Peggy
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manages their office. They have two children, Riley, a 4 year old boy, and Laura, a 2
year old girl, who go to preschool and daycare respectively. They are Family #1 in Table
1. This couple divided their participation in household work along traditional gender
lines. Table 5 indicates that Brent did not participate in any household work tasks
typically completed by women. Their Household Work Questionnaire data presented in
Table 7 demonstrates that Peggy shared in the completion of tasks within the Indoor
Maintenance category.
Table 7. Mean Percentageof Participation in Household Work:
Family #1-Peggy and Brent
Types of Activities Peggy
(%)
Brent
(%)
Total
(%)
Cooking and Meal Clean Up
(l-4)a
65 30 95°
Cleaning
(5-15, 17,18, 23.24)
70 21 91
Laundry and Clothing Care
(19-22, 25)
86 14 100
Outdoor Maintenance
(16, 32-35)
8 92 100
Indoor Maintenance
(26, 29-31, 39, 40, 70)
49 67 116c
Child Care
(41-58)
74 30 104
Shopping and Errands
(59-63)
88 14 102
Managerial Tasks
(27, 28, 36, 65-69, 71)
80 20 100
Car Maintenance
(37, 38, 64)
23 77 100
aNumbers refer to questionnaire item numbers.
^Figures based on individuals' own estimates and do not total 100.
cTotal is outside acceptable range of variance but couple moved out o f state before
discrepancy in figures could be discussed.
Peggy's and Brent's individual estimates for this category totaled 116%, a figure
outside the range of 90-110% that was determined to be acceptable for this study.
Unfortunately, this family moved out of state before I was able to contact them to obtain
their consensual agreement on their individual percentage participation in the items in
108
this category. Even with this discrepancy, it is clear that Peggy was responsible for the
majority of the household work within this family. An excerpt from my fieldnotes sheds
some light on Peggy's gender ideology:
Peggy talked to me during this time about how she was glad to be
working again. She had continued to work after Riley's birth but she had
stayed home after Laura's birth for about a year and a half. She said that
"even though it sounds horrible, I couldn't stand to stay home anymore."
She said that she loved her children very much, but she couldn't stay
home with them. She said that her pediatrician had said that Laura had
the type of personality that required her to be with other children and
that even if she stayed home, Laura would have gone to day care. When
Brent went into his own business, they realized that paying for office
help would be more expensive than paying for child care so they decided
that she would work with him.
During another visit, Peggy said:
that she thought that it was good for the kids to learn to play on their
own, that they didn't always have to have someone around, and that they
could learn to amuse themselves. She continued on to say that she knew
that everyone said that the mother should stay home and raise the kids,
but that she just couldn't do it. She went crazy trying to keep Laura
amused when she was home with her. ... She said that she still felt
really guilty about working.
From these excerpts it appears that, on the surface, Peggy held a traditional
ideology. She believed that she should be home raising her children and that she should
be happy to do so. When her feelings conflicted with her traditional ideology and she
discovered that she was not happy being at home with her children, that she was going
"crazy" and finally, couldn't "stand to stay at home anymore," she used several
rationalizations to explain why she chose to return to work. Her reasons included her
pediatrician's recommendation that Laura be around other children, the costs of paying
for office help in Brent's business, and that children didn't always need to have someone
around. These rationalizations were only partially successful because she admitted to
feeling "guilty about working."
109
During her interview, hints of Peggy's deep gender ideology emerged. In
response to my question of whether there were times when the kids were more ready to
play than she was, Peggy responded, first with laughter, and then said:
Lots of times! Most of the time! It's hard. That's one of the reasons I
realized I want to quit working when [Riley] gets into first grade. I
won't do it now, but when he's in first grade. Because it is hard. I'm so
tired. And Brent wants me to quit, to spend more time with them. ... In
preschool, they don't do very much. So first grade, I want to get more
involved. I want to be able to do school activities. I'll probably work
part-time b u t... I couldn't stay home before because I think I'd be bored,
I'd be yelling at them more. So I'm glad I'm working because I
appreciate them more. ... That was my opportunity to go to work, and
I've done it, and now I realize it’ s hard. I don't want to do that. I was
also having this thing where people look down at you if you're staying at
home being a mother. And I also thought I was going to miss out. I
wanted to keep up with things. I wanted to be out in the world. I was
thinking I would miss out on things by staying home. So I figure I can
work part-time when they're in school, and still keep up with what's
going on in the world, instead of staying home and not know what's
going on.
Peggy's deep gender ideology appeared to be transitional. She wanted to identify
both with her work at home and in the work force but since she wanted to work part-
time, she clearly expected Brent to focus on earning their living. Peggy’ s different
surface and deep gender ideologies created her conflicting feelings. She was continually
rationalizing and attempting to explain her feelings of guilt about not staying home to
raise her children.
At first glance, examples of Brent's beliefs about gender were not so clearly
evident as Peggy’ s were. She stated several times during the observations and interview
that Brent wanted her to stay home with the children. Other statements made by Peggy
and Brent in combination with my observations of his gender practices indicate that there
were no conflicts between his surface and deep gender ideologies. He was traditional in
that he saw the housework and child care as Peggy's responsibilities. When I asked him
how their division of household work played out, he responded:
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She does probably about 75% of the work in the house. I do all of the
work outside of the house. Once in awhile she'll go out and pull some
weeds or something like that. Clean up the dog's messes ... if the kids
are going out there to play. ... But, for the most part, I do all the outside
work and I make the kids' breakfasts. There's a lot of times, I'll get home
and I'll clean. I'll do the dishes and take the dishes out of the dishwasher
and put new ones in. I make the beds, in our bedroom, I make that bed
up. Two or three nights a week, I'll go through, as soon as I get home,
pick up everything in the living room and put it away and stuff like that.
But for the regular household cleaning and things like that, or the
cleaning of the bathrooms and the windows and things like that, she does
that stuff. ... So she does do most o f it.
Peggy's and Brent's gender practices highlight the inside-outside (private-public)
nature of gender-segregated household work (Beckwith, 1992; Shelton, 1992). Peggy
was primarily responsible for housework typically viewed as women's work, which
generally occurs inside the private space of the home. Brent had primary responsibility
for the outside work, which takes place in the public space outside of the home. Given
that the work inside the home needs to be completed on a more frequent basis than the
work outside the home, such a division of household work results in significant
inequities between women’s and men’ s time spent in completion of their separate tasks
(Beckwith, 1992; Hochschild, 1989). Peggy's primary responsibility for the inside of the
house mirrors and reinforces the division of men and women into public and private
domains which persists throughout the world (Beckwith, 1992).
Peggy and I had the following conversation during one of my home visits:
I asked if they usually grocery shopped together. She said that they did,
but only because she wouldn't go with the kids by herself and Brent
would rather go than be alone with the kids. I asked, "You mean he goes
because he doesn't want to be alone with the kids?" She said, "Yeah, he
doesn't really like to do it. And also it makes it more o f a fun thing,
even though it's just grocery shopping."
Here was another traditional father who was reluctant to stay home alone with
the children. During my visit with Brent alone, Peggy went grocery shopping by herself.
This is what happened when she came home:
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Peggy came home at this point all angry and frustrated with the bad
groceiy packer she'd had who had crushed the potato chips and spilled
the water. Brent said to her, "That must have been what took you so
long." ... Peggy asked what was going on. Brent explained that he was
in the process o f putting Laura to bed, who was now back in his arms
because she had come out when Peggy had come home. ... She looked
at Laura and said, "Tell Daddy that he has to take your hair out before he
puts you to bed." Laura looked at Brent, who reached up and pulled out
the elastic band in her hair. He said that he didn't know that.
Analyses of this couple's gender ideologies indicate that in addition to the
conflict between Peggy's surface and deep gender ideologies, there was a conflict
between the gender ideologies that she and Brent held. Peggy’ s true gender ideology was
transitional. She wanted to be both at home and at work. Brent's gender ideology was
traditional. Even though Peggy worked, he expected her to base her identity at home.
The lack o f congruence between this couple's gender ideologies resulted in gender
practices, that is, the concrete, physical acts required to maintain a household, that placed
the ultimate burden and responsibility upon Peggy. During my time in their home, this
couple began marital counseling in an attempt to deal with the escalating tensions and
conflicts between them. Peggy summed up these problems in this way:
I told him I have too much to do. All he has to worry about is money
coming in. That's why 1 feel like I don't spend so much time [with the
kids], because I feel so overwhelmed with everything I have to do. I just
feel too overwhelmed, and I need more help. He thinks he's helping me
enough which, in his eyes he may be. But I don't think he's helping me
enough. If you sit down to what he does, compared to the little things I
do, I got too much. He says, "God, I have so much to do." and he
doesn't realize the little things that I save him from doing, like going to
the bank. Men are usually in charge of banks. They want to be in
charge of bills and everything. I do the bills all myself. I go to the
bank. I wash clothes. I iron. I do those things and it saves him. Before
we were ever married, I said, "If I work, you're going to have to help me
more." and he hasn't. He's helped me more than he used to, but it's still
not what I expected.
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Susan and Bill: Shared Ideologies
Susan and Bill both work full-time for the same computer technology company.
He works in the technical division and she works in customer service. They have a 3
year old boy and Susan was pregnant throughout the time I spent in their home, giving
birth to another boy just as we were nearing the completion of data collection. Their son,
Michael, goes to preschool. They are Family #4 in Table 1. Table 5 indicates that they
had a traditional division o f household work, although they shared the cooking and meal
clean up. Their Household Work Questionnaire data are provided in Table 8.
Table 8. Mean Percentage of Participation in Household Work;
Family #4~Susan and Bill
Types of Activities Susan
(%)
Bill
(%)
Total
(%)
Cooking and Meal Clean Up
(l-4)a
60 46 106“
Cleaning
(5-15, 17,18, 23,24)
88 23 11 lc
Laundry and Clothing Care
(19-22, 25)
78 25 103
Outdoor Maintenance
(16. 32-35)
nad na na
Indoor Maintenance
(26, 29-31.39.40, 70)
37 77 114c
Child Care
(41-58)
73 31 104
Shopping and Errands
(59-63)
80 17 97
Managerial Tasks
(27. 28, 36, 65-69,71)
77 21 98
Car Maintenance
(37. 38. 64)
20 77 97
aNumbers refer to questionnaire item numbers.
^Figures based on individuals' own estimates and do not total 100.
cTotal is outside acceptable range o f variance but couple moved out o f the area
before discrepancies in figures could be discussed.
^Family lived in apartment complex. No outdoor maintenance required.
Susan's and Bill's summed individual estimates o f their percentage participation
in completion of the tasks in the categories of Cleaning and Indoor Maintenance
exceeded 110%, the maximum range o f variance accepted by this study. I was unable to
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obtain consensual agreement figures because this family moved out of the area before 1
was able to contact them to discuss these discrepancies. Examination of the remaining
figures, however, indicate that Susan was responsible for the majority of the household
work.
At first, both Susan and Bill talked as if they were egalitarian in terms of their
gender ideologies. When I asked Susan how she and Bill divided the housework and
child care, she replied:
There's no set schedule. Whatever needs to be done, needs to be done.
If neither Bill or I are doing anything at that particular time and Michael
needs something, I'll usually go do it with him. But sometimes, Michael
will ask Bill to come help him. The housework, we usually work
together. Whatever needs to be done, gets done. Bill usually does most
of the cooking and I do the dishes. ... I'm usually the one who does the
laundry more than him. Anything else, we set aside one day when we're
going to straighten up and we'll just do it together. Or one day, if I have
a lot of time, I'll do everything, and if he has time, he'll do it.
During his interview, Bill offered a similar sentiment. He said, "There’ s a rule in
marriage, is each person ... does a 100% of the work at any given moment in time. This
business of 50/50,1 think is absolute baloney. Because that doesn't work." I asked Bill
for clarification of this thought and he continued:
It's never 50/50. It’ s each person does what needs to be done at the point
it needs to be done. If I can do all of the cooking because I'm good at it,
or most of the cooking, that doesn't mean that if I don't come home, she
doesn't cook. ... Let's say she more often would do the laundry and I've
got the time to do it, I'm not going to sit there and say, "Well, I don't
have to do that. That's her job." So again if each person does as much
as they can when they can, chances are most things will get done and
you'll have less issue, I feel.
Both Susan and Bill seemed to be saying that they were equally invested in the
completion of household work. They saw it as work that needed to be done and that
could be done by whomever was available to do it. Their division of household work
was based upon equity rather than equality. Under a system of equity, fairness is judged
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on the basis of one's relative contributions or merits (Thompson, 1991). One contributes
in proportion to what one receives (Schwartz, 1994). A system of equality dictates a
50/50 split of responsibility for household work and each person has equal status within
the system (Schwartz, 1994; Thompson, 1991). The problem of measurement is inherent
in a system of equity. Equality is easy to measure; each person shares equally. Under a
system of equity, "one person's definition of fair is often another person's definition of
exploitation" (Schwartz, 1994, p. 155). Schwartz found that egalitarian couples mixed
equity with equality to ensure that justice was being served within their divisions of
household work. The danger of reliance upon equity alone is that what seems to be
"fair" can result in a situation of inequality. This was true in Susan's and Bill's case.
As Susan and I continued to talk, I asked her how her involvement in housework
and child care affected the time that she spent with Michael. Susan responded, "It cuts
into the time that I have available to spend with him." When I asked how Bill's
involvement in those same activities affected his time with Michael, the following
discussion occurred:
S: He does a lot of stuff at home for work. He spends a lot of time
at the computer sometimes for work. Also for his business. So
that cuts into it. Whereas when he's doing that and I might be
doing household work, so Michael is kind of like left. We try to
schedule that so it's not much when he's up. We try to do it
when he's asleep. When it’ s possible.
L: What interferes most for Bill would be the computer business
and that part of it?
S: I think so.
L; More so than household work?
S: I think so, yeah.
L: Whereas with you, it's more household work?
S: Right.
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I continued to probe:
L: So then it sounds like what you're saying is that Bill's
involvement in household work and child care, if we just
specifically looked at those, those are less likely to affect his
time with Michael than they are to affect your time?
S: I think so. Because I think, in general, I don't want to say I do
more. [Long pause] Well, maybe I do. But not begrudgingly.
Because he's trying to get a business going and a lot of times
he's working on the computer for a client or something, then I
need to do stuff around the house more than he does. But also
the other way around too. When I'm doing my studies, then he
picks up the slack. But, in general, my time with Michael is
more affected by taking care of him and the household stuff than
for Bill, I think. ... Yeah, so I think, in general, women do
more. And that's a role that I've taken on that I enjoy. I enjoy
spending time with Michael.
Bill's response to the question of how they divided the household work
tentatively suggested the same conclusion:
It really does fall into what needs to be done. That's the overriding
concern. She will tend to do certain things more than I do but not 100%.
But definitely over 50 or 60 or 70 or even 80.
When Susan compared herself to Bill, she acknowledged that she carried a
greater responsibility for household work than he did. This acknowledgment did not
result in a sense of injustice on her part because she saw the time that he was released
from household work as time spent in paid work participation. Thus, he was still
contributing to the overall good of their family. Women rarely use 50/50 split
comparisons with their husbands as evidence of unfairness in the division of household
work (Thompson, 1991). They tend to recognize injustice when men get personal care
and service which they do not. Susan stated that Bill allowed her release time from
household work for her studies, therefore, she did not perceive injustice in their division
of household work even though she completed the majority of it. A conversation during
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a home visit between Susan and Bill indicated their motivation for Susan's paid
employment:
Susan said that she had worked at her job for a long time now and that
she would love to be home with her child, but that they could not afford
for her to stay home. She said that "everyone" said that it was better for
the mother to be home with her children. Bill turned from his computer
at this point and said "Your mother." meaning that it was her mother
who thought that she should be at home. But she said that it wasn't just
her mother, that her friends and other people she knew thought that she
couldn't possibly be a good mother because she wasn't home with her
child. She said that staying home just couldn't happen for them in L.A.
... Susan continued to say that some of her friends had chosen to stay
home and that they said she just needed to make more sacrifices. ... I
talked a little bit about how another mother I saw had said something
very similar, but that this was so surprising to me because in my circle it
was just assumed that the women would continue to work. I said that no
one I knew would say that someone was not a good mother for working
because it was a given that the woman would continue with her career.
At this point, she explained that her job was not a career and told me that
she was planning on going back to school to get her teaching credential.
From these interview and fieldnote excerpts, a picture emerges not of an
egalitarian gender ideology but of a transitional ideology seemingly shared by Susan and
Bill. Thus, what at the surface seemed to be an egalitarian gender ideology was in reality
a transitional gender ideology. Bill appeared to be accepting o f Susan's wish to be both a
"good mother” and to have a "career" as a teacher, yet still expected her to be primarily
responsible for the work at home. Susan expressed boredom with her job and a desire to
stay home with her children, but also stated that she intended to have a career as a
teacher. Both of them, however, put Bill's work at building a consulting business ahead
of his involvement in household work and, therefore, ahead o f her career plans. If the
level of analysis had ended with acceptance of what Susan and Bill said they believed
about how the work in their family was divided, their traditional gender practices would
not have been explained. It was only through my repeated questioning that their deeper
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feelings and beliefs were revealed. It was this deep gender ideology that guided their
traditional gender practices.
Of significant note is the lack of tension or conflict in the way in which their
individual gender ideologies played out into a particular set of gender practices. Unlike
Peggy, Susan appeared to be content with their current division of household work.
There was a congruence in Susan's and Bill's surface and deep ideologies as individuals
and a match between their gender ideologies as a couple. This match is exemplified by
the following passage from my fieldnotes in which they poked fun at gender stereotypes.
I believe that their ability to do so is indicative of the comfort level they had with their
own gender practices.
This second book was called Where's Mommy's Truck? Susan read,
"Where's Mommy's truck?" Michael leaned over to lift up the flap in the
shape of a train. Behind this flap was Mommy's truck. Susan read,
"There's Mommy's truck waiting to cross the railroad tracks." She
turned the page and read, "Where's Mommy's truck?" Michael reached
over to flip up a stack of wood. She read, "There's Mommy's truck at
the lumberyard." Michael asked, "Why?" Susan responded, "Because
Mommy’ s buying wood. Mommy owns a construction company." She
looked over at me, laughing. Bill, who was across the room working at
his computer, made a noise by blowing air through his lips as if to say,
"Yeah, right, she owns a construction company." Susan continued to
laugh as she said that this book has Mommy owning a construction
company and that another one of these books has Daddy reading to the
child while Mommy is in the background working on a computer. She
explained that the books were "my sister’ s idea." Susan continued to
read. She said, "Where's Mommy's truck?" Michael flipped over the
flap. Susan said, "There's Mommy's truck by the side of the road.
Mommy’ s fixing a flat tire on her truck." Michael asked, "Why?"
Before Susan could respond, Bill piped up from across the room,
"Because Mommy forgot to put air in it." Susan was laughing as she
said, "No, because Mommy ran over a bunch of nails that some man
threw on the road. How rude!" Bill was laughing now and so was I. He
responded, "Yeah, because she cut him off." By this time, all three of us
were laughing pretty hard. Susan continued, "And there's Mommy by
the side of the road fixing her own flat. See, Mommies have to know
how to fix their own flats because no men will stop to help Mommy
out." Bill came back with, "Because they all saw Mommy cut off that
other guy." We all continued to laugh except Michael who didn't see
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what was so funny. Susan continued to read the book. "Where's
Mommy's truck?" Michael lifted the flap. "There's Mommy's truck at
the preschool." In an aside she said, "Daddy should be doing this." "Hi,
Mommy!" she read. The book was finished.
Linda and Sam: The Invisible Second Shift
Sam works full-time as a computer programmer. Linda is studying to be a court
reporter and works full-time as an accounting clerk. They are Family #8 in Table 1.
When I first started visiting their home, Linda was home during the day with their
children, Katlyn, a 3 year old girl, and Mary Jane, a 1 year old girl. She attended night
school three nights a week for approximately three hours a night. This was a recent
change, occurring within the previous two months. Prior to that time she had been going
to court reporting school during the day while the children were at a baby-sitter's house.
Two weeks after my first visit to their home, Linda began a full-time job as an
accounting clerk. The children returned to spending weekdays at the baby-sitter's house.
Table 5 indicates that this family divided their work along traditional gender
lines. Table 9 presents this couple's Household Work Questionnaire data which shows
that, although Sam shared the tasks within the Shopping and Errands category, Linda
completed the majority of the household work. She also completed half of the tasks
within the Indoor Maintenance category which are typically completed by men.
Inspection of Table 9 reveals that this couple's initial total scores in several categories
fell outside o f the 90-110% range determined to be acceptable for this study. In addition,
the total score for the category of Child Care bordered on the lower limit of this range.
Given that Sam was home alone with the children for a minimum of nine hours a week
while Linda attended school, I asked them to come to a consensual agreement upon the
items from this category along with those from the categories of Cleaning, Outdoor
Maintenance, Indoor Maintenance, Managerial Tasks, and Car Maintenance. These
figures are presented in bold type in Table 9.
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Table 9. Mean Percentage of Participation in Household Work:
Family #8--Linda and Sam
Types of Activities Linda sam Total
(%) (%) (%)
Cooking and Meal Clean Up 83 10 93°
(l-4)a
Cleaning 73 12 85
(5-15, 17,18. 23.24) 78 22 100c
Laundry and Clothing Care 90 8 98
(19-22, 25)
Outdoor Maintenance 37 30 67
(16, 32-35) 37 63 100
Indoor Maintenance 53 35 88
(26, 29-31,39,40. 70) 50 50 100
Child Care 69 22 91
(41-58) 73 27 100
Shopping and Errands 58 40 98
(59-63)
Managerial Tasks 74 44 118
(27. 28. 36. 65-69. 71) 64 36 100
Car Maintenance 43 77 120
(37, 38, 64) 38 62 100
aNumbers refer to questionnaire item numbers.
^Figures based on individuals' own estimates and do not total 100.
cBold type indicates figures obtained through couple's consensus.
This family's gender practices came to my attention during my second visit to
their home. I was preparing to leave and we began to make plans for my next visit:
I started to say that I would call them, when Linda asked if I wanted to
set up another time. I said okay and we decided on next Thursday
between 7:30— 8:00 p.m. Linda said that I could see Sam first and then
be there when she gets home from school and puts the kids to bed. I
noticed that she said when she puts the kids to bed, not we. As I said
good-bye, Linda told Katlyn and Mary Jane to wave good-bye to me.
She was sitting in the armchair with Mary Jane on her lap on one side
and Katlyn on the arm of the chair on her other side. It was a very
telling sight. Linda was sitting in the armchair with a child on each arm
and Sam was across the room, lying on the couch.
During my next visit, Sam was home alone with the girls while Linda was at
night school. He told me that Linda had found a job and was going to start working full
time outside of the home. I asked if she was going to continue to go to night school as
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well and, when Sam said that she was, I commented that she would have a lot of things
to do. In response, Sam said that:
he tried to help her out. He repeated that he tried to "help out" at least
three more times during the remainder of this part of the conversation.
Sam said that Linda did a really good job with organizing things and
getting things done at work but wasn't that good at getting things done at
home. ... He went on to say that he has been trying to get her to be
more organized and tell him what she wants him to do. He said that he
wanted her "to be more in charge at home." He wanted to be told what
to do. Sam gave the example of how tonight Linda had dinner all ready
for him when he came home. When she left to go to school, she told
him that she had left the plastic containers out on the cupboard for him
to put the food in when he was done so that he could put it away. He
said that he "liked that." He liked it when "she tells me those things"
because then he knows what he has to do. Sam went on to say that he
went ahead and cleaned the whole kitchen, did the dishes and
everything. He said that when Linda got home, "she will be happy to
see that." He concluded with another statement that he "tries to help
out."
As I wrote in a theoretical note when completing my fieldnotes for this visit, this
observation provided significant insight into Sam's gender ideology and his gender
practices. He repeatedly said that he tried to "help out." As he continued to talk, it
became clear that he wanted Linda to manage and organize the home and that he wanted
her to delegate to him the things that she wanted him to do. He expected her to be "in
charge" at home and seemed to be saying that she wasn't living up to this expectation.
Even though she would be working outside the home as many hours a week as he was
and, in addition, going to school three nights a week, he still seemed to expect her to
manage the bulk of the household work. O f note was his expectation that Linda had
primary responsibility for organizing and delegating the household work to him, rather
than his assumption that they each had equal responsibility for ensuring that the
household work was getting done.
Later during this same visit after Katlyn had fallen asleep on the couch and when
Linda came home from school, I noticed that it seemed as if as soon as Linda came in,
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Sam turned his attention to the TV and focused on the "Seinfeld" show. He seemed to
no longer feel the need to watch out for Mary Jane. Once Linda came home, Sam
appeared to go "off-duty." His responsibility for the children seemed to end when Linda
walked in the door. The remainder o f the time that I spent in this family's home was
peppered with additional examples of their gender practices.
1 returned to their home on the Friday evening at the end of Linda's first week at
her new job. She yawned as she told me that she had been getting up all week at 5:30
a.m. to be ready to leave to take the girls to the baby-sitter's house and be at work at 8:00
a.m. That morning she had slept in until 6:00 a.m. and she was happy to say that she had
been able to prepare the beef roast, potatoes, and vegetables and place them in the slow
cooker pot and still be ready to leave with the girls on time. When Sam came home from
work, he went upstairs to change his clothes while Linda prepared the dinner plates with
Mary Jane on one hip and Katlyn at her side. Sam came downstairs and watched
television in the living room until Linda called him for dinner.
After dinner, Sam helped Linda clear the table and then sat down to watch her
and talk as she cleared the plates and refrigerated the left-over food. Both girls were in
the kitchen with Linda. At one point, she moved across the room and was working at a
countertop with her back to the girls so that she could not see what they were doing.
Katlyn was standing on a small stool at another countertop. The following excerpt from
my fieldnotes presents what I observed happening next and my theoretical note about
this observation:
Mary Jane joined Katlyn on the stool. She reached up for the bowl of
gravy sitting on the edge of the countertop. She stood there for a minute
or so, playing with the spoon in the bowl. Sam, still sitting at the dining
table, told Linda that Mary Jane was ready to dump the gravy on herself.
Linda stopped what she was doing and turned around to take the bowl
away from Mary Jane and place it further back on the countertop while
telling her that she couldn't have it.
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TN: THIS IS A GOOD EXAMPLE OF SAM'S AND LINDA'S
GENDER PRACTICES. SAM NOTICED WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN
AND, INSTEAD OF DEALING WITH IT HIMSELF, HE TOLD
LINDA ABOUT IT. SHE STOPPED WHAT SHE WAS DOING TO
DEAL WITH IT. THIS OBSERVATION, IN COMBINATION WITH
THE OBSERVATION OF SAM’ S WAITING IN THE LIVING ROOM
WATCHING TELEVISION UNTIL LINDA CALLED HIM IN FOR
DINNER, ARE CONCRETE EXAMPLES OF HOW THE
HOUSEHOLD WORK WAS DIVIDED IN THIS HOME.
Later on during this same visit, I made this observation while we were watching
television:
Sam and Mary Jane were lying together on the couch. He turned to
Linda and said that Mary Jane's bottom was damp and warm. Linda said
something like, "Is she wet again all ready?" and then said that she
would wait to change her diaper before she put her to bed.
After these and several other observations made during my participant
observation in this family's home, I was intrigued by what the interview data would
indicate about their gender ideologies. During Sam's interview when I asked him why
Linda had stopped working and stayed home with the children instead of him, his answer
initially sounded as if it were based on a traditional gender ideology:
I don't know. It's just because the mother always stays home when she's
pregnant. ... I guess that's just the normal thing. The daddy goes to
work and the mommy stays home type of thing. It was really great for
Linda to be home that long with the kids. We talked about it for a while,
but if she could stay home, that would be great. That's why she's trying
to be a court reporter. So she can be home more with the kids. I think
that's the normal in society.
Having said that, however, Sam went on to say:
If I could stay home with my kids, that would be fine and Linda go to
work, I have no problem with that. None. I think it's just that I had a
really good job. Linda had an okay job. And she was on maternity leave
and I wasn't. ... Say Linda was a court reporter before I got married to
her and I had a job and we both really agreed that the kids should be
home with one parent, I'd have no problem staying home. I mean I
would have to have things to do, but it’ s a sacrifice. The woman does it.
I mean the guy can do it too. I know it's easy to say it but I really
believe it.
123
As Sam continued to talk, it became clear that he was supportive of Linda's
decision to work outside of the home. I asked him how she felt about his working
outside the home while she stayed home with the kids. He replied:
She really liked it. She thought it was great to stay home. ... Well, it
was a two-sided thing. She really enjoyed being home with the kids and
going to school and being able to spend more time with them, but at the
same time she wanted to contribute and I think 1 would be the same way.
I would really enjoy being home with my kids and I'd want to contribute
to the household as far as finances.
When I asked him if he were happy with Linda's choice to participate in paid
work, he responded:
Yeah, because she's a different person out there working. Not that she
couldn’ t stay home, but it's like it gives her something to do mentally.
Gives her something, some day-to-day challenges or whatever. And she
gets to meet new people. It's good for her. Not everybody can just stay
home with kids all the time and not do anything.
Sam's deep gender ideology seemed to be transitional. He was supportive of his
wife's desire and choice to work outside the home, but still expected her to have primary
responsibility for the work at home. Throughout his interview, Sam repeated that he
enjoyed his family and loved to spend time with them. At one point, he stated,
"Everything I do is to be with my kids and my family. That's the first thing I think of
when I get off work. 'Yeah! I can go home to be with my kids.'"
He also spoke about his plans to eventually move into work as personal
computer consultant and gave three reasons why this was his plan:
Three basic reasons. One would be I could spend and schedule my time
around my kids. ... Like, for instance, my daughter’ s got a baseball
game and it's going to happen at 3:00 in the afternoon. Well, I know
that I can't make any more appointments after 2:30 because I've got to be
there. And at work, I can't do that. I can't say, "Excuse me, can I take
off work?" And this way, I can make more money, which would be
^num ber two. And number three was I don't have to put up with all the
political baloney at work.
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Sam's desire to plan, schedule, and spend his time with his children, his support
for Linda's participation in paid work, and his resistance to sharing the household work
indicated a transitional gender ideology. Linda's surface and deep gender ideologies both
appeared to be transitional. When I asked her why she had stopped going to school
during the day two months before she took on a full-time job, she replied:
Because that was just one way for us to tiy to cut back on our expenses
and we didn't have to pay child care. And that way, I still could stay
home. I mean I still could not work right now. But Christmas is coming
and Katlyn wants everything that she has seen on every single
commercial. And there are some other things that we need to do and to
get. So we weighed the decisions and decided that it would be best for
me to go back to work for the time being.
I asked her if her reasons for working were purely financial. After a pause to
think, she answered with a laugh, "Yes. Yes." Next, I asked her, "Why is it that you
want to be a court reporter?" She responded:
Well, because that will allow me to schedule my work more around my
family. I can work freelance and work when I want to work instead of
having a 9 to 5 job where I have to be there Monday through Friday. I'll
be able to make good money and schedule the work when I want it.
Although Linda stated that once she started working and earning a good income
as a court reporter, Sam would have the freedom to "maybe go back to school or to do
some other things that he would like to do and not have to worry about the financial
burdens," it was clear that she intended to fit her job in around her family
responsibilities. Linda was not alone in this approach to managing her participation in
paid work and household work in this manner. Women frequently adapt their
participation in paid work to the demands of their household work participation. Men's
participation in paid work is generally seen as distinct and protected from the demands of
household work (Bergen, 1991; Shelton, 1992). Three o f the six women from the
traditional families in this study were actively working towards obtaining paid work that
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allowed them to more easily schedule it around the household work within their families.
Two women were taking college courses aimed at achieving teaching credentials and
Linda herself was attending court reporting school. Two other women spoke of moving
into part-time work once their children reached school age so that they could work hours
that allowed them to be home when their children came home from school. And, of
course, the sixth woman had made the ultimate adjustment of her participation in paid
work to her household work by her decision to stay at home full-time with her children.
Only one of the four women from the non-traditional families in this study spoke
o f adjusting her job to accommodate her household work. She was working part-time
during the time that she was in the study and told me that she was actively resisting her
employer's requests to work full-time. She was, however, pursuing an acting career and
using some of her time off from paid work to put her energy into acting. One non-
traditional couple was working together towards starting a family business that would
allow both of them to schedule their paid work around their household work. The
remaining two women from non-traditional families made no mention of changing their
full-time jobs or the amount of their participation in paid work to accommodate their
household work.
With the exception of the two families that approached non-traditional divisions
of work by virtue o f the fathers' almost sharing of child care, Linda’s and Sam’s gender
practices did not differ significantly from those of the other families with traditional
divisions o f work, yet I found myself sensitized to the number of times I observed Linda
to be completing more of the household work tasks than Sam. I noticed how well she
appeared to be able to manage her participation in paid work and household work. Here
is an example from my fieldnotes:
Linda said that their water was so hard that all their dishes were spotted.
I went out to join her in the dining room. She was standing by the
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dining table which was set with four placemats for dinner. She had a
paper towel and was vigorously rubbing one of the three tall glasses that
she was setting out on the table.
MN: AS I WATCHED HER RUB AT THE GLASSES, I THOUGHT
THAT SHE SEEMED TO BE VERY CONCERNED ABOUT
HAVING THINGS JUST RIGHT. THE HOUSE WAS VERY NEAT
AND TIDY, DINNER WAS COOKING IN THE CROCK POT, AND
THE KITCHEN SEEMED TO BE SPOTLESS, AND HERE SHE
WAS, THE EPITOME OF A TELEVISION COMMERCIAL,
WORRYING OVER SPOTTED GLASSES. I WONDERED HOW
SHE MANAGED TO DO ALL THIS.
I also noticed that Linda didn't seem to recognize the inequities in how the
household work was divided. Even though she stated that she did most of it, she said
that it was "a lot of teamwork" and that their arrangements for completing it worked
"pretty well." Linda didn't complain about Sam's lack of help, she didn't say that she
needed him to help more, and their home did not show signs of her struggle to maintain
it. She was the only one of six women from the traditional families who was able to
achieve this. Other women's homes were neat and clean, but they complained about their
husbands' resistance to helping or they stated that they directly asked their husbands for
help. The homes of the women who did not speak to me about their complaints or their
requests for their husbands' help were not kept as neatly nor as cleanly as Linda's home.
When I asked Sam how he and Linda divided the household work, he responded:
Most o f the time Linda changes the diapers on both of them more than I
did. She just does that. No excuses on my end. If I'm by myself, then
I'll do it. But most of the time, Linda just does it. Vacuuming and
inside the house, it depends. I'll do it sometimes. Most of the time, she
does it. Dishes. We'll share that but most of the time, she does that. I
would say that she probably does more of the chores than I do. When
we used to have a place where we had a lawn and stuff, I did more of the
outside stuff. But a lot of the times, yeah, she does more of the
household chores than I do. There’ s no doubt about that.
I asked Sam if he were satisfied with their arrangements for completing the
household work:
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No. I probably think I could do more. I think I could do more. I mean
I’ m not a lazy bum but I'm pretty close. She does a lot around the house
and I pitch in and do stuff. I think the things that I do are the big things.
I'll steam clean the carpets and do the furniture and she'll take care of the
day-to-day stuff like the dusting, the vacuuming, and what-not.
Pointing out to Sam what he had just said, I told him that I was curious why he
wasn't doing more. He replied:
I think part of it, it's that she does it and another part is that, [long
pause], I'm tired. I know she works but, for the longest time she wasn't
working and I would just come home and it would be done. I think the
biggest thing is just that she does it. I know I should help out, but I
don't sometimes. I mean it's not like I just won't do i t ... but we need to
share the chores more. We need to do the dishes together. Do this and
that together. It's not so much that I think that, "Oh, she's the woman.
She should do it." It's nothing like that. It's just that she just does it.
I asked Sam if Linda asked him to help out. He said no and then explained:
See, and that’ s another part of me too because like I said before, she's
more o f an introvert. She doesn't communicate as well I do. And I've
told her, I've said, "I won't help until you ask me." And I want her to do
that. ... It’ s like tonight, after we had dinner, she had enough time, she
took care o f putting the food away but, a lot of times, she won't have
time and the food will be sitting up on the counter. I'll say, "You
shouldn't do that, Linda." ... I'll put it away. One time I didn't put it
away or anything ... and she comes home at 10:00 and it's still sitting
out. She said, "Why did you let the food sit out? How come you didn't
put it away?" I go, "You got to ask me, to communicate." I know it's
kind of like catch-22 thing. I shouldn't have to be asked to do it. But I
want her to say, "Hey, I don't have time. Can you do this?" and it's just
the start of communicating with me more. But yeah, if she asked me
more. I want her to come out of her shell and start doing some o f the
scheduling.
Later on in the interview, Sam did say that, in the past, he has asked Linda if
anything was the matter and she has replied, "Oh, I'm just tired. I'm doing a lot. Could
you help me out some more?" He stated that he has helped out more at that point once
he has been asked. I asked Sam if his involvement in household work affected his time
with his daughter. He said that it did not but when I asked him if Linda's involvement in
household work affected her time with Katlyn, he was unsure and hesitant in his reply:
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Um, [long pause]. I don't know. It's hard for me to answer that one.
[sighs, another long pause.] It's possible because she might be doing too
much but I would have to say no because I don’ t see it interrupting her. I
really don't see it.
Sam seemed to think about his answer and he talked about how Katlyn was
frequently with Linda while she completed household work. He appeared to be thinking
out loud and I unwittingly became involved in his thought process:
S: I mean it's like Linda was changing a diaper. It's not, "Katlyn,
no, you can't touch that." It's like she's in there doing it.
L: But, nevertheless, she's doing it.
S: Right. Right.
L: And from what you said if the two of you are here and Mary
Jane's diaper needs to be changed—
S: Then Linda would probably do it. Yeah.
L: Then Linda would do it which leaves Katlyn free to come play
with you if she wanted to.
S: Right.
L: So that kind of does answer that question.
At the conclusion of our interview, Sam shared the following insights:
Now that you've brought some of the stuff to my attention by asking
questions, I’ m going to do things different. ... It kind of like opens up
my eyes. Well, maybe I should do more of this or maybe I should do
more of that or maybe I should look at this. ... Just the questions you've
asked. Just the questions. And the combination of your questions and
my answers. ... Especially the thing about Linda and the chores, I was
like, "Wow!" [chuckles.]
I laughingly asked, "Now you're going to start helping out more?" And Sam
replied:
Well, not necessarily that. I was just thinking. I want Linda to be more,
not aggressive, but I want her to communicate with me more and tell me
more things. So I'm not going to do it until she communicates to me and
maybe it would better if I just said, "Okay. I accept that she needs to
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improve and she's going to improve but I need to help with the chores
and everything." And I hadn't thought about it that way. That the more
chores that she has to do takes away time that she could play with the
kids.
One explanation for how Linda managed to do both paid work and household
work so well may be that she had only recently returned to paid work. She had not
participated in paid work for over a year prior to the time I visited their home. She had a
second child and returned to day school full-time when that child was 1 month old.
Linda had been home full-time with the children for two months before I started visiting
their home. Even though Sam's resistance to helping Linda with the household work
without being specifically asked to do so was extreme and most likely related to other
issues besides just the division of household work, he was not alone among the men in
this study who passively resisted participation in household work. Waiting to be asked
and hoping not to be is a strategy frequently used by men to avoid participation in
household work (Hochschild, 1989; Komter, 1989). Nor was Linda alone among the
women in the study in the assumption of almost sole responsibility for the work with
little complaints and few requests for help. Many women do not like to ask their
husbands for help (Berk, 1985; Hochschild, 1989). Monique and Stuart were similar to
Linda and Sam in these aspects of the division of work within their family.
Monique and Stuart: Reluctant Participants
Monique and Stuart both have full-time jobs. Monique is a secretary. Her hours
are 6:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Stuart is a sales manager and works out of their house. By
his estimate, he participates in paid work approximately two hours a day. They have a 3
year old girl, Bridget, and a 6 month old boy, Richard. The children typically are at a
baby-sitter's house from 9:00 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. They are Family #10 in Table 1. I
conducted intensive interviews with this family, but did not collect any participant
observation data. Although this couple's division of household work was traditional, it
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approached non-traditional in that Stuart almost shared child care within the 60-40%
range. (See Table 5.) He and Monique estimated that he completed child care tasks 37%
of the time.
Table 10 presents their Household Work Questionnaire data. The data indicate
that Stuart shared the tasks in the categories of Shopping and Errands and Managerial
Tasks within a 60-40% range. Monique shared completion of the tasks in the category of
Outdoor Maintenance. Thus, Stuart crossed gender lines to participate in work typically
completed by women in two categories. Monique also crossed gender lines to participate
in tasks within the category of Outdoor Maintenance.
Table 10. Mean Percentage of Participation in Household Work:
Family.ftl.O --^ Monique and Stuart
Types of Activities Monique Stuart Total
(%) (%) (%)
Cooking and Meal Clean Up 90 20 110°
(M )a
80 20 100c
Cleaning 88 17 105
(5-15, 17.18, 23,24)
Laundry and Clothing Care 86 14 100
(19-22, 25)
Outdoor Maintenance 40 38 78
(16, 32-35) 46 54 100
Indoor Maintenance 38 64 102
(26. 29-31. 39, 40. 70)
Child Care 66 39 105
(41-58) 63 37 100
Shopping and Errands 43 52 95
(59-63) 51 49 100
Managerial Tasks 63 62 125
(27, 28, 36. 65-69,71) 41 59 100
Car Maintenance 3 100 103
(37, 38, 64)
aNumbers refer to questionnaire item numbers.
^Figures based on individuals' own estimates and do not total 100.
cBold type indicates figures obtained through couple's consensus.
Table 10 indicates that Stuart was primarily responsible for the tasks in two
categories of household work. Monique had primary responsibility for the work in four
categories. They shared the work in the remaining three categories. Monique retained
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responsibility for the majority of the work in four of the six categories o f work
traditionally completed by women. According to their Household Work Questionnaire
data, their gender practices were traditional.
In her interview, I asked Monique why she worked outside the home. She said:
Because Stuart doesn't make enough money. It's our house payments
and we have two cars, two insurance payments, and we don't have as
many bills as we used to, but a majority of it is just the financial
situation. Believe me, if I didn't have to work, I would not be there.
When I asked her about her wish to stay home with the children and whether she
would want the outside contact o f job, she replied, "No. No, because if anything, you
can get involved in children's groups and meet other mothers if that’ s what you needed.
But no, I would be perfectly happy home with my kids." Monique stated again that her
reasons for participating in paid work were financial and that eventually both she and
Stuart wanted her to be home with the children. In response to my question about how
they had decided that Stuart would be the primary job holder, she said:
I think it was just assumed. When we got married, I had the full-time
job, he had the full-time job. But we eventually knew we were going to
have kids and, in the perfect way, I would be home raising them and he
would have to have the financially stable job to support. So it was just
always an assumption, on my part. That's the way I grew up. That's the
way it is. So that was just an assumption.
Monique's answers to my question suggest that her surface and deep gender
ideologies were both traditional. She stated that she did not want to work outside the
home any longer than she needed to. She had no internal conflict about where she
wanted to base her identity and it was at home. During her interview, Monique made
many statements that revealed that she was a reluctant participant in paid work. Often,
her voice veiled with sadness when she talked about not being able to be home during
the day with her children. She had no doubts about the role she expected Stuart to play.
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His role was to have a financially stable job and make enough money to support their
family comfortably.
During his interview, Stuart told me that he would have no problem with
Monique choosing to work outside of the home. I asked him about his beliefs about who
should be doing what within families. His response compared the different views that he
and Monique had on this issue:
I guess because of the way I grew up, I didn't have a dad that was a
breadwinner. My mom did it all. She brought home the bacon and she
made the bacon, so I guess I never had that. And then the way she
[Monique] grew up was her mom stayed home and the dad brought
home the bacon. So I think, in her eyes, that's the way it is, and in my
eyes, I could care less. And I still could care less. I don't think I have to
be the breadwinner. It just so happens to be that it sort of is that way,
but I have no problem with her being that person. In a truly ideal world,
I would love for her to stay home now and me work. And I think that’ s
the way it should be. Just because, in our situation, she's the perfect
primary caregiver, so let her take care of it. And that's what she wants to
do and if I could have my same kind of job where I could help out
wherever I needed to and wanting to be there, it would be perfect.
Initially, Stuart said that he would be supportive of Monique's decision to
participate in paid work as a major supporter of the family, but as he continued to talk,
he stated that, given her desire to be home with the children, he would prefer her to be
able to do so. At this point in the interview, he had not yet expressed his traditional
gender ideology. Later on, Stuart said that, once the children reached school age, it was
important to him that Monique was home when they came home from school. He
wanted to make sure that his children were not latchkey kids as he had been when he was
growing up. If it became necessary for him to work more hours or take on a second job
in order to subsidize Monique's ability to be at home then that would be what he would
do. Stuart concluded with a laugh:
OK, the true perfect world is ... I could stay home and do whatever I
wanted to. So that’ s kind of the job I've got. I’ m a millionaire in my
own way because I get all my bills paid and I can still spend time with
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my kids, and not have a lot of commitments to my work. So, yeah, it's
not the true where Mr. Brady's at work from 8 to 5 [referring to the
television show "The Brady Bunch"] and comes home and says, "What's
for dinner?" It's I'd be here knowing what she's making for dinner. So,
yeah, that's the true perfect world. Is that I would be involved in the
day-to-day stuff too. But really not. It’ s still Monique that would be
taking care of everything. I would just be the fun stuff.
Stuart's deep gender ideology has come to the surface. He had traditional beliefs
that led him to think that Monique should have primary responsibility for the children.
He wanted her to be there when the children came home from school without seeming to
recognize that his job allowed him to be home all day and available to his children in the
after-school hours. He stated that he couldn't be a primary caregiver and would not want
to be because he would "lose it." Stuart's and Monique's traditional gender ideologies
guided their gender practices. When I asked Stuart how he and Monique divided the
housework and child care, he replied:
Well, there's really no divide. She does everything. And then she'll
delegate something to me. I mean, unless she says, "Do that." or "Help
me out with Bridget. Go in there and watch her." I don't really do, as
far as responsibilities like that, I don't do anything. Unless I'm told. ...
And there's no reason for it but that's just the way it is. We don't really
have any rules that say, "You do the dishes." But she always does them.
And I'll do them once in a while, a long while.
In response to my question of whether he was satisfied with these arrangements,
he said:
Well, I mean I know it's wrong. I don't believe, and her mom does
believe it, that she should have dinner on the table when I get home to
eat, whether I'm at home all day or if I get home at 5:00. I don't believe
that at all. She works normally just as hard as I do, not that I work hard,
but I don't think she has to have dinner on the table. I'd just as soon take
her out every night or whatever. If she asked me to help make dinner, I'd
help but I don't expect dinner at 7:00 or 6:00.
Although Stuart worked out of their home for only a couple of hours every day,
he stated that he rarely prepared the evening meal. He did not see himself as responsible
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for meal preparation. When I asked him again about his satisfaction with the division of
work within their family, he answered:
Oh, I'm satisfied because I think most guys or husbands would rather
have it, "I want this, this and, this." And it could kind of make sense if
you worked 8 to 5 and you had a tough day and you'd want dinner on the
table. And she would do that if I asked her to.
I asked whether he was saying that their division of household work in which
Monique did most of it was not a problem because he was not as demanding as other
men would be. Stuart replied that was true but he knew that was not the right answer in
the moral sense. He explained:
I still should be helping out. Just because I don't demand it, I still
should be helping out and the house should always be clean and if she
can't do it because she's busy with Richard, then I should be doing it.
Not that I do that but that’ s what it should be.
During this part of Stuart's interview, Monique was in the kitchen preparing
Richard's bottle. While I was putting a new tape in the tape recorder, she entered the
living room to tell me that the night before had been a breakthrough in how Richard's
care was provided. According to her, that night had been the first time that Stuart had
gotten up to give the baby his bottle while Monique went back to sleep. Keeping in
mind that Monique got up each day at 4:30 a.m, to get ready for her job at 6:00 a.m. and
Stuart typically didn't get up until 7:30 or 8:00 a.m., the fact that he had not gotten up
with the 6 month old baby prior to this point in time provided a significant piece of
information about this couple's gender practices. Stuart said:
I know I have to do that, too, because it meant the world to her. And not
because 1 did it, but because it gave her the chance to sleep and it
probably gave her a better day at work and that's what I got to. I mean
I've never done that before.
When I asked if he meant that he had never done it with Bridget either, he
responded:
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No, never. I was never up in the middle of the night. I mean I was
always up but not where she [Monique] went back to sleep. She was
still up with me. I need to do that all the time. Because my schedule
allows it and, even if my schedule didn't allow it, I should be doing that.
And it's not where I believe the woman should raise the kid. I just am
not good at it, but I just got to do it anyway.
During her interview which took place five days after Stuart's interview,
Monique referred again to Stuart's getting up in the night to care for Richard:
Last night he woke up around 3:15 and about 4 , 1 laid him back down,
and he started fussing. I walked in to Stuart and I said, "Would you
mind taking him just so I can get another half hour sleep before I have to
get up?" Right when my alarm went off at 4:35, Stuart had just laid him
back down. That means I got to lay back down for another half hour. I
think that one night when you were here last week was the first time he
ever got with him so now I've been kind of like, "If Richard wakes up,
would you get him?"
As I listened to Monique and Stuart talk about his lack of help with the care of
the baby and with the housework, I was reminded o f Linda’ s and Sam's gender practices.
In Monique's case, however, she had been working full-time outside the home since
Richard was 3 months old. I wondered how she could have managed to do all the work
involved in caring for the children and maintaining the home without more help from
Stuart. I also questioned why it had taken three months to get to the point where she
finally asked Stuart to get up during the night with the baby. Clearly, his failure to do so
earlier was indicative of his reluctance to participate in the care of his son. Monique's
answer to my question of how she felt about Stuart's not sharing the caregiving even
though she participated in paid work provided some insight into this puzzle:
It's OK. I need help. And he is starting to help me more than he was.
Especially when I first went back to work. I was just a mess. I was just
losing my mind. And he wasn't helping me at all. And I just flat out
told him, "Look, I need help. Emotionally I need some support and just
around the house. I need a break from the baby every once in a while."
... "You're off being able to go play with Bridget and have a good time
and I can't. I need that special time with her too, as much as you do.
And you need to do some bonding with the baby." But little fragile
things, it makes him very, very nervous. And I understand that but he's
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got to look at it from my point of view too where I need some support.
... So I said, "I need your help." And he is getting a lot better. And as I
said, Richard's getting older and I know it's just going to improve. But
even him getting up in the night last week for the first time was a
tremendous help. And a lot of it may be my fault. I didn't know if I
could trust him or if he could calm Richard. ... And I think my biggest
fear is I just felt like I was always the one that had to do it. I was the
only one that could do it. I was just so tired last week and when I asked
him and when I saw that he could do it, it was like, "Wait a minute."
And he can go back to bed at 4:30 and maybe get an extra two hours,
three hours sleep. Where me, I have to get up. So I always felt guilty
like, "Well, I know Stuart needs his sleep and I know this and this and
this." Now I'm thinking, "Yeah, but I need my sleep just as much as he
does." And he can go back, like he went back to bed at 4:30 this
morning, he slept for another two and a half, three hours. Where I was
out of the house in an hour and a half. So a lot of it where I never
thought I could count on him or that he could do it, and when he just did
it that one time last week, I never really pushed it, but now where I felt
bad asking him to do it, it's like "Well, I need it just as much as he
does." I still feel kind of bad, like when I asked him to get up this
morning, but then I thought it's okay. He can do his part too. So I feel a
little bit more confident.
This lengthy quote from Monique's interview illustrates four points about the
division of household work within families. First, similarly to Linda, Monique only
broke down and asked for Stuart's help when she was emotionally and physically
exhausted and could no longer do it on her own. Men and women frequently perceive
men's participation in household work as a response to women’ s personal needs
(Thompson, 1991). Instead of seeing their household work participation as part of the
process of completing necessary work in an equitable way, the men viewed it as their
response to their wives' need for respite. Thus, the men got credit from their wives for
doing some of the household work as a personal favor to them. The second point
concerns Monique's hint that Stuart was afraid o f handling what he perceived to be a
tiny, fragile baby. Later on in her interview, she elaborated on this fear. Stuart also
referred to his lack of skill and comfort with babies during his interview. His
incompetence was used as a justification for his lack of help with the child care tasks.
This justification was gender-specific in the sense that it was acceptable for him to use
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that particular excuse, but it would not have been acceptable for Monique to excuse
herself from child care for that same reason (Thompson, 1991). As a woman, she is
expected, by virtue of the social construction of gender expectations, to have an
acceptable level of competence in caring for a baby (Komter, 1989; Major, 1993; Thome,
1992).
The third point is related to Stuart's justifications for his lack of participation in
child care. Monique lacked confidence in and harbored fears about Stuart's ability to
provide adequate care to the baby. Other mothers and fathers within the study who held
both traditional and transitional gender ideologies echoed these beliefs and feelings.
They referred to the mother’ s greater ability to provide for the baby’ s or young child's
care and her lack o f faith in the father's ability to do so and to the father’ s decreased skills
and comfort in this area. By accepting their husbands'justifications, the women
perpetuated a traditional division of household work within their families (LaRossa,
1988; Thompson, 1991). This mixture of thought and feelings about men's competence
in caregiving and women's confidence and trust in men's ability to be a dependable
parent is a common experience. Men frequently point out obstacles within their own
homes to their participation in child care, citing their wives' insistence that care be
provided according to the women's way of doing things. In response, women state that
men's reluctance to get involved and prove themselves as parents leads to their lack of
trust and confidence in the men's parenting abilities (Gibbs, 1993). Clearly, the data
show that Stuart was a reluctant participant in child care.
The fourth point portrayed in Monique's quote was her admission of feeling
guilty about asking Stuart for help. Even after convincing herself that she was justified
in asking him to help out, she still felt "bad" and needed to remind herself that it was
okay for her to ask. This point highlights how several o f the women in the study held
deeply ingrained beliefs that household work, and particularly child care, was their
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primary responsibility. Many studies have demonstrated the strength o f these socially-
constructed beliefs in perpetuating gender inequality in divisions of household work
(Ferree, 1991b; Major, 1993; Thompson, 1991). Albeit slowly, some of the men who
participated in the study indicated that change may eventually occur within their families'
divisions of household work. Similarly to Sam, Stuart said, at the end of his interview,
that answering the interview questions made him think about things, such as "what
things I'm doing right and what things I'm doing wrong." He stated that the process of
putting his actions into words made him more aware and gave him the opportunity to
think about what he was doing. At the end of her interview, Monique confirmed Stuart's
newfound awareness when she commented on their participation in the study:
1 think we enjoyed it. I even think that it did Stuart some good. Just
different little things. Like he made a comment to me, "You really do
carry a lot on your shoulders, Monique." And I [thought], "Maybe his
talk with Loree did some good the other night." So that was kind of
neat. For him to make a comment like that I thought, "Good. Maybe it
did open your eyes a little bit." So after he made that comment, then I
said to him, "Get up. Richard’ s crying." [laughs.] ... I definitely think
it put some thoughts into his head.
Monique's assessment that Stuart had begun to recognize the inequity in their
division of household work bolstered her sense of entitlement to his participation in the
work and led to her increased expectations of his help. Although my intention was not to
act as an agent of change within the families in my study, my interview questions
inadvertently seemed to act in that manner upon at least two men, Sam and Stuart, and
may have led to more equitable divisions of household work within their families than
had previously been present.
Kim and George: His Work. Her Work. Their Work
Kim and George both work full-time. She is an insurance sales manager within
a rental car company. He is a painting contractor. They have two children, a 5 year old
boy, Christian, and a 2 year old girl, Julia. The children go to preschool and a
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baby-sitter’ s house, respectively. They are Family #5 in Table 1. This couple had a non-
traditional division of work. See Table 5. They shared child care within a 60-40%
range. Table 11 provides the data on their mean percentage participation in household
work. With the exception of the Cleaning category where the majority of the tasks were
completed by paid help, Kim and George divided the rest of the household work along
traditional gender lines.
Table 11. Mean Percentage of Participation in Household Work:
Family #5~Kim and George
Types of Activities Kim George Total
(%) (%) (%)
Cooking and Meal Clean Up 85 36 121&
(l-4)a
81 19 100°
Cleaning nafl na na
(5-15, 17,18, 23,24)
Laundry and Clothing Care 80 13 93
(19-22,25)
Outdoor Maintenance 0 93 93
(16. 32-35)
Indoor Maintenance 20 77 97
(26, 29-31, 39, 40, 70)
Child Care 59 51 110
(41-58) 56 44 100
Shopping and Errands 100 5 105
(59-63)
Managerial Tasks 92 8 100
(27, 28, 36. 65-69, 71)
Car Maintenance 0 93 93
(37, 38, 64)
aNumbers refer to questionnaire item numbers.
^Figures based on individuals' own estimates and do not total 100.
cBold type indicates figures obtained through couple’ s consensus.
^Majority of Cleaning tasks were completed by paid help.
Kim had primary responsibility for completion of the tasks within the Cooking
and Meal Clean Up, Laundry and Clothing Care, Shopping and Errands, and Managerial
Tasks categories, all of which contain tasks typically completed by women. George's
areas of responsibility fell within those traditionally seen as men's work, that is, Outdoor,
Indoor, and Car Maintenance. Their division of household work was determined to be
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non-traditional because George crossed gender lines to share the tasks within the Child
Care category.
Hints were revealed about this couple's gender practices during my first visit to
their home. Early in the visit, Kim reminded George that the rented videotapes needed to
be returned. At that point, she commented to me that she was the organizer in the house.
Later when the children had been ushered into the bathroom to brush their teeth before
going to bed, Kim sat down on the living room floor and began to pick up their
abandoned toys. As she did so, she said:
"Well, not only am I the organizer in this house, I'm the one who cleans
up too." ... George had returned to his position behind the couch and
said something like, "Oh, yeah? In whose mind? I don't do anything?
You just don't see it. You just see what you do."
Before I left that night, we talked about my next visit:
I said that I might like to come out the weekend after this coming
weekend. George said that he was gone all day Saturdays. I asked if he
worked. Kim answered that he plays basketball, golfs, or works. He
said yeah, that it was one of those three. I explained that I wanted to see
them one more time together and then each of them alone. He said that
it would be no problem to see him alone because Kim is usually gone at
least one night during the week. She had told me this herself earlier in
the visit. She said that she either had meetings for work or just went out
with some people from work. Now she seemed a little defensive as she
said that she wouldn't be gone this next week.
A couple of months later, I arrived at their home for what was to have been my
second visit with both Kim and George at home with the children. Kim was extremely
apologetic as she explained that she had forgotten to call me. She had made plans to go
out that evening with ffiends from work because a previous co-worker who had moved
out of state was in town. It had turned out that this particular evening was the only time
that everyone from her office could get together. I said, "So you guys are going out?
Where are you going?" by way of making conversation. George said that he wasn't
going. Kim said that he wasn't going, but that she was. She looked at him as she said
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hesitantly that she wasn't going to be there, but that I could stay if I wanted. Her voice
trailed off and George jumped in, "Yeah, sure. If you want to stay, I'm going to be here."
He explained that he was going to watch Christian and Julia play in the pool in the
backyard and then "whip them up a gourmet dinner" from the freezer. I thanked him and
said that I would stay for a little while.
As Kim prepared to leave, she and George started to say good-bye. I decided to
give them some privacy:
I walked away from them down the hall towards the back of the house as
I said, "Here, let me leave you guys alone to say good-bye." George said
in a smart-aleck way, "Good-bye. We're done." I laughed as I went into
Julia's room and looked through the window to watch her playing in the
pool. ... I could hear George and Kim talking, but could not make out
what they were saying. Kim's tone of voice was apologetic and I
wondered if she was apologizing to him for leaving him here with me
visiting. George's voice rose as he said sincerely, as if trying to
convince her, something about it not being her, it wasn't about her, and
he seemed to fumble for words before saying, "It's just like, I just want
to be Ward Cleaver." He said something else, but I didn't hear it clearly.
George's reference to wanting to be like Ward Cleaver, the traditional father on
the television show, "Leave it to Beaver," suggests that his desire for traditional gender
scripts for himself and Kim vastly differed from his actual experience of being left alone
with the children while his wife went out to a nightclub for the evening with her friends.
Additional evidence of their non-traditional gender scripts appeared in another home
visit:
Kim segued into asking him how much his Palm Springs weekend was
going to cost. I heard him say, "Three or four." Kim said, "That much?
I thought it was going to be about two." He responded, "Oh, two, two-
twenty will get me two nights and two rounds of golf in Palm Springs."
She asked him what the other $180 was for. He came outside at this
point and stood on the patio as he explained that they were going up
Friday and that they were playing 36 holes of golf on Friday. She
laughed as she said, "I hope you have some money for this." He laughed
too as she went on to say, "Well, let me ask you this, how much money
do I have to give you?" Both of them were laughing now as he said,
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"Well, you know the money you gave me the last four times I went to
get my hair cut? She didn't take it so I have that." Kim asked, "How
much is that?" He said that it was $100 and so she asked if he needed
$300 from her. He said that he did.
This observation from my fieldnotes makes it clear that Kathy was the main
breadwinner and George needed to ask her for money to finance his weekend trip. This
particular couple took part in several separate leisure activities. During the time that I
spent in their home, each of them went away for the weekend with their own friends on
at least one occasion. George spoke about his views on their involvement in separate
activities during another home visit, explaining that:
he had three loves, basketball, camping, and golf. He had grown up
going camping with "the guys." He had never gone camping with
women. When Kim expressed an interest to go camping, he said that it
was like she was asking to go into the locker room with him. But now
that they had done it, he had said that he liked it both ways. But there
was no way that she was going to get in on his golfing. Kim said at this
point that golfing was something that she wanted to do because she
thought it would be nice for them to be able to golf together in their old
age. They could take golf vacations together. He said that he would
have his "old buddies to golf with" and that she could stay home and
play bridge. She said that she didn't play bridge. He told her that she
would when she turned 50. All old women played bridge. And so it
went with this playful sparring back and forth between them for awhile.
George's comments indicate that he had a traditional gender ideology with set
gender scripts for women and men. During his interview, he readily admitted to holding
these types of beliefs. He was talking about how, as his son got older, their interactions
would become "sports-based," but when it came to Julia, he said:
Now with herl I don't know what I'm going to do. I think she's
probably going to end up being big enough and good enough to be an
athletic woman. Now comes the male chauvinistic pig in me. I was
never much attracted to athletic women. I thought women should be
little bunny, frail little things. That was always my interpretation o f what
I liked as a woman, or a girl, as growing up. That's what I liked. I didn't
like the athletic girls, the ones that were out there with their ponytails
and they’ re sweating and they're running, playing softball.
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George's traditional gender ideology was confirmed when I asked him about his
feelings about Kim's participation in paid work:
My utopia would be for Kim to not have to work. ... That would be my
utopia. I would love to live in 1953. She stays at home and I'm the
father that goes and works ... that would be what I would like. ... But
she couldn't do that. I can't afford it. I mean I couldn't pay for us to do
that.
When I asked George if it was Kim's choice to work outside the home, the
following discussion ensued:
G: It's a choice, oh, yeah. She's a very motivated person and she
needs to have challenges and staying around the house wouldn't
challenge her at all.
L: And you've already talked about how you think and feel about
that. Your choice and your perfect world would be to have her
stay home.
G: I don't know if we've like actually laid it all out from end to end,
but yeah, that would be my utopia. Because to me, it's like a
moot point. It’ s not going to happen, so what's the relevance of
worrying about it?
L: I see. So, if I were to say to you, what do you think or feel
about her working outside of the home, you would just say that
it's a given?
G: Yeah. She needs the challenge.
Other men besides George spoke of the need to adjust what they wanted or
thought was best in terms of their wives' participation in household work and paid work
to accommodate their wives' wishes, needs, and personality. As one man put it,
"Because otherwise I'd have to suppose Carol to be a different person than she is. ... So
it's working with what I have." Most often, the men spoke about their wives' wishes to
participate in paid work as a factor in their modification of traditional gender ideologies
which dictated that their wives should be home full-time with their children. O f the four
men in the study who specifically spoke of making this accommodation, two of them
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also modified their gender practices. Both of these men shared child care within a 60-
40% range. One of them actually shared half of the housework tasks as well. The
remaining two men maintained traditional divisions of household work, although one of
them approached sharing child care within a 60-40% range.
George accommodated Kim's desire to participate in paid work by sharing child
care. The remainder of the household work, however, was completed according to
traditional gender expectations. When I commented on the cleanliness and neatness of
their home, George said that Kim was always cleaning. The differences between his
standards for cleanliness and hers are illustrated by his statement that he preferred to
clean when it was dirty and he could see the results of his work, but that she cleaned
when it was hardly dirty. George's statement resonates with the findings that women's
levels of identification with housework and men's expectations that their work will not
meet their wives' standards are associated with less participation in housework on the
men's part (Coltrane, 1990; Ferree, 1991b; Major, 1993). These findings translate into a
situation where the more a woman cares about having a clean house, the less her husband
will complete tasks typically seen as women's work. This dynamic seemed to be
operating in Kim’s and George's case. George's justification that Kim's need for a clean
house was greater than his need and her acceptance of this justification transformed the
necessary housework into her personal need and robbed her of the right to his help
(Thompson, 1991). Kim's high standards for having a clean house placed the demands
of the work upon herself (Coltrane, 1990; Gunter & Gunter, 1990; Ferree, 1991b; Major,
1993).
While Kim expected to be able to freely participate in paid work and expected
George to do the same, she did not expect him to participate equally in household work.
This combination of beliefs and expectations indicate a transitional gender ideology.
When I asked her why she worked outside of the home, she replied:
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Because I like it. It's my job. It's my career. It satisfies me, it
challenges me, and it gives me lots of money. Money is definitely part
of it, but I think, even if I were to be completely independently wealthy,
I would do something. I probably wouldn't do what I'm doing. It would
be something more along the lines of a catering company, or something
along those lines, but I need something. I'd go crazy. I’ d drive my kids
crazy too, I think.
Her response when I asked how she felt about George working outside the home
indicated that she expected a certain amount of equality with him. She said, "If I'm
working as hard as I am, he's going to work too. Yeah, I mean to me, it's a 50/50 deal, a
two-way street." This picture of equality changed, however, when I asked about how she
and George divided the housework. After stating that their paid help "helps us with our
housework," Kim explained:
Now the yard is George’ s responsibility. That is something that he is
responsible for. ... Inside, we both help together with the washing the
dishes, and doing the laundry. ... I pay the bills. The grocery shopping
is my responsibility. Maybe once every six weeks, he'll go with me. I'm
the one who handles all of that, planning all the meals, doing all the
cooking. He will again help me. If tonight we're barbecuing chicken,
he'll light the barbecue and he'll cook the chicken, but it's basically my
decision as far as planning all that. So as far as running the household,
that's my decision.
Kim acknowledged the inequity in their division of housework tasks, but didn't
seem to perceive it as unfair. Even under very lopsided divisions of household work,
many of the women in this study were similar to a large majority o f women who do not
perceive unfairness in their primary responsibility for household work (Berk, 1985;
Major, 1993; Thompson, 1991). She demonstrated no conflict in her feelings and beliefs
about her participation in paid work and household work, suggesting that her surface and
deep gender ideologies were both transitional. Kim stated that she believed that the
division of child care was "probably leaning more towards George’ s doing more than I
am right now." George's shared responsibility for child care and his unique point o f view
on child rearing arising from his gender ideology and practices is evident in the
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following excerpt from my fieldnotes. We were talking about their decision not to have
any more children:
I said that they had a boy and girl which was nice. He agreed, saying
that if it hadn't worked out that way, then maybe they would have had
more. He said that he compared it to playing basketball. When you
move from playing two-on-two basketball to three-man basketball, you
change from a one-on-one defense to a zone coverage. I laughed as I
said that was a great analogy. He demonstrated, with his arms
outstretched to the sides, as he said that going from parenting two
children to three children changed from a one-on-one coverage to zone
coverage as in, "You cover that area, I'll cover this area."
This example demonstrates how men are able to incorporate their ways of
knowing and being into parenting once they increase their participation in child care. I
believe that, in addition to the need for fathers to participate equally in child care, it is
important for men to find their own ways of parenting that fit with their beliefs and
practices so that they may reach a level of comfort in completion of child care tasks.
Only through their participation in child care tasks will men's justifications of their lack
of training, inexperience, and incompetence no longer be acceptable to the women
already completing the lion's share of the work.
Three of the ten couples in the study had similar gender ideologies in that the
men's deep gender ideologies were traditional and the women's deep gender ideologies
were transitional. The three couples differed, however, in their gender practices. The
first couple, Peggy and Brent, had very traditional gender practices. (See Table 7.)
Peggy's surface gender ideology was traditional, whereas her deep gender ideology was
transitional. This discrepancy between what she thought she should believe and feel, that
is, she should stay home with the children and be happy while doing so, and what she
really wanted, which was to participate in part-time paid work so that she maintained
some contact with the outside world, resulted in her experience of internal conflict and
guilt over her choice to work outside the home.
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The second couple, Dawn and Mike, had traditional gender practices as well, but
they approached sharing child care. (See Table 4 for their Household Work
Questionnaire data.) Similarly to Peggy, Dawn's surface ideology was traditional, but
her deep ideology was transitional. She stated that she believed that a young child
needed the mother to be available and accessible, but she also emphatically stated that
she wanted to work outside the home. During the time that I spent in their home, Dawn
made several references to her plans to finish college and obtain a job that allowed her to
be home for the children after school. She expressed no guilt over her desire to identify
with both paid work and home responsibilities. In fact, she more frequently talked about
how she was going to manage to combine both areas of work successfully.
The third couple, Kim and George, had non-traditional gender practices. They
shared child care, but maintained a traditional division o f the housework. (See Table
i I.) Kim's surface gender and deep gender ideologies were both transitional. She
displayed no guilt or conflict over her decision to participate in paid work. She and
George had developed the gender strategies o f shared child care and reliance on outside
paid help to complete their cleaning tasks. Given that gender ideologies are based upon
individual experience as well as wider sociocultural influences, the effects o f the men's
traditional gender ideologies upon each family's gender practices cannot be discounted.
However, if we assume that the pull of their traditional gender ideologies towards
traditional gender practices were equal, then the differences between the three families
may be related to the differences between the women's surface and deep gender
ideologies.
The women's transitional deep gender ideologies led them to assume the
majority of the household work while still participating in paid work, but the amount of
their husbands’ participation in household work seemed to vary according to the women's
surface gender ideologies and attendant feelings. Peggy's internal conflict and guilt may
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have led her to believe that she should complete the bulk of the household work. Dawn,
although lacking in any overt conflict and guilt between her traditional surface and
transitional deep gender ideologies, seemed to actualize this incongruence in her efforts
to balance her participation in paid work and household work. Her struggle seemed to
pull Mike closer to sharing child care tasks than he might have done if she had simply
given up on her attempts to achieve such a balance. Kim’ s congruence between her
surface and deep gender ideologies allowed her to assume the responsibilities of her paid
work without worrying about the child care aspects of the household work. The fact that
her job was a primary source of income and therefore necessary for the good of the
family most likely led to her feelings of entitlement to George's participation in child
care (Ferree, 1991a; Thompson, 1991). He stepped in to fill in the gaps left by her paid
work participation. She remained, however, primarily responsible for the housework but
seemed to harbor no complaints or discontent with this arrangement.
Katie and David: Redefining Fatherhood
Katie and David both work full-time. She is an executive secretary and typically
works from 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. He is a real estate salesperson and generally works
sixty hours per week. He has some flexibility in his daytime hours but is frequently
conducting business in the evenings. David stated that he tries to keep one evening a
week and all day Sunday free of work commitments. They have two children. They are
Family #2 in Table 1. My contact with this family took place over the course of a year.
During that year, Kristin, their older daughter turned 4 years of age and their second
daughter, Meg, was bom. She was 9 months old when the data collection within this
family was completed. Kristin attended preschool during the daytime hours. Meg's day
care was problematic during the time I visited their home. David described it as "a day-
by-day" process wherein each night he and Katie asked each other what they were going
to do with Meg the next day. During one of my visits, David laughed in response to my
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question about the status of Meg's day care and said, "Well, Meg's been going to a lot of
real estate open houses!"
Katie and David had a non-traditional division of household work. Table 5
indicates that David crossed gender lines to share the child care, shopping and errands,
and managerial tasks within a 60-40% range. Table 12 presents their Household Work
Questionnaire data. Katie completed the majority of the tasks within the three categories
of Cooking and Meal Clean Up, Cleaning, and Laundry and Clothing Care. The work in
these areas is traditionally completed by women. The majority of the work within the
three categories of Outdoor, Indoor, and Car Maintenance, typically seen as men's work,
was completed by David. The remaining three categories of work, Child Care, Shopping
and Errands, and Managerial Tasks, were shared between Katie and David.
Table 12. Mean Percentage of Participation in Household Work:
Family #2-Katie and David
Types of Activities Katie
(%)
David
(%)
Total
(%)
Cooking and Meal Clean Up
( l-4)a
67.5 32.5 100
Cleaning
(5-15. 17,18. 23,24)
69 29 98°
Laundry and Clothing Care
(19-22. 25)
89 9 98
Outdoor Maintenance
(16, 32-35)
12 90 102
Indoor Maintenance
(26. 29-31, 39, 40, 70)
24 89 113c
Child Care
(41-58)
57 47 104
Shopping and Errands
(59-63)
55 47 102
Managerial Tasks
(27, 28, 36, 65-69,71)
50 45 95
Car Maintenance
(37, 38. 64)
15 93 108
aNumbers refer to questionnaire item numbers.
^Figures based on individuals’ own estimates and do not total 100.
cTotal is outside acceptable range of variance but since individual estimates do not
fall within 60-40% shared range, consensual agreement was not obtained.
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I noticed immediately that this couple’ s gender practices were different from
those o f other families. During my first visit in their home and while Katie was still
pregnant with Meg, she explained that she had stayed home with Kristin for the first two
and a half years of her life. David had had a good year in real estate sales so he had been
able to stay home for the first three months after her birth. She said that it had been fun
to be a new family together in this way and that they had been hoping to be able to do
the same thing with the new baby. Unfortunately, their financial situation was not going
to allow them to do so. At this point, they were hoping that she would be able to stay
home with the new baby but knew that David would not be able to.
While Katie had been talking to me, David had cleared the dining table and was
in the kitchen cleaning up after their dinner. I was excited both to hear what Katie was
telling me about David's time at home with Kristin when she was an infant and to see
him working in the kitchen. I was wondering if maybe they were a non-traditional
family. After David had finished in the kitchen, he entered the living room to sit and
read with Kristin while Katie went into the kitchen to get ready to make cookies for
Kristin to take to preschool the next day. I noted this transition in my fieldnotes:
MN: THE TRADE-OFF BETWEEN KATIE AND DAVID IN
DEALING WITH KRISTIN WAS VERY SMOOTH. I DIDNT EVEN
REALLY SEE EXACTLY HOW IT OCCURRED. DAVID JUST
JOINED KRISTIN IN THE LIVING ROOM AND KATIE TURNED
TO DO WHAT SHE NEEDED TO DO.
Approximately four months passed between my first and second visit to their
home. During this time, I made several telephone contacts with this family and
documented them in a memo. The log from one phone call offers some insight into their
gender ideology:
Katie said that they had made a commitment to step up their goals and
involvement in their small business program so that they would be in a
position for her stay home with the baby in May as she had done with
Kristin. ... They were trying to establish a business outside o f their jobs
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so that in a year or two they wouldn't have worry about jobs. She said
that they had a short timeline because of her pregnancy and that they
were doing this because they valued one of them being able to stay home
with the baby. ... The only way that they could do this was to have the
financial support from their business. If they thought that it was okay
for her to be home with the baby for only six weeks and then turn the
baby over to child care, then they wouldn't be worried about it. But that
wasn't what they believed, therefore, they had made this commitment.
MN: THIS WAS A VERY GOOD DESCRIPTION OF HOW THEIR
VALUES AS A COUPLE AND A FAMILY SHAPED THEIR
PRACTICES IN THE HOME AND OUTSIDE IT.
She went on to say that she could not guarantee that David would be
home when I came to visit next week because they had decided that
when he was not out doing real estate, he would be out doing work for
the business. It would just have to be that way for the next few months.
If that was what was needed to get their business going, then that was
what they would do. Her job would be to take care of the house, Kristin,
and the baby when it came, while David got the business going.
My notes in this memo indicate that my interest in how gender ideologies shape
and guide gender practices arose early in this study. In addition, I noted that this couple,
who had initially appeared to be non-traditional in the ways in which they shared the
household work, now seemed to be showing signs of a traditional gender ideology. Meg
was 7 weeks old by the time of my second visit. During that visit, Katie spoke of not
wanting to go back to her paid work at least two or three times. She had been able to
delay her return for another two weeks but at that time, when Meg was 9 weeks old, she
would have to leave her in the care of her mother-in-law while she went back to her daily
job. Katie said that she hoped it would only be for six months until they got their
business going to the point where she could quit her paid work.
Although Katie's gender ideology sounded as if it were traditional, she made
other comments that suggested her deep gender ideology was, in actuality, transitional.
At one point, when we were talking about another woman whose husband had provided
little help with the household work after she returned to paid work, Katie said:
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that was where David was different. She said that of all their friends,
with or without kids, "David was by far the best." She said that when
the men of these friends had the kids, they were baby-sitting. And as far
as she was concerned, "you don't baby-sit your own kids."
At another point, we were talking about the types of families that I was
recruiting for participation in the study. I said that I was looking for families where
either the mother or father was at home full-time with the children. Katie said, "David
would love that. He would love to stay home with the kids." Katie chose to participate
in paid work through both her job and her involvement in their business, but wanted to
base her identity at home with the children. She wanted David to base his identity at
home as well, yet still expected him to be responsible for the majority of their financial
support. Her true gender ideology seemed to be transitional.
My fieldnotes are filled with examples of how smoothly this couple shared the
work o f caregiving. Throughout the course of this family's participation in the study,
David stayed home with the children when they were sick on three different occasions. I
observed their bedtime routine three times, once with both parents home, once with Katie
home alone, and once with David home alone. All three times, the sequence o f events
were virtually identical, down to even the smallest of details such as putting Kristin's hair
elastics away in a wall cabinet in the bedroom and the placement of her vitamins on her
bedside table for her to take later. Here is one example of how finely tuned to each
other's caregiving needs this couple seemed to be:
Meg began to fuss from her position on the couch. David had returned
to making sandwiches in the kitchen. Katie said to Meg that maybe she
would be better off in her chair. She got up and was trying to move her
into a better position. David came into the living room, carrying the
baby sling chair, and placed it on the couch, securing it in the cushions
on the back of the couch. Katie put Meg in the chair and then sat back
down.
In this case, David heard Katie talking about what she needed to do make Meg
more comfortable and responded before Katie had the opportunity to do it herself.
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During my early morning visit to their home, I noticed similar occurrences in the course
of their morning routine. David had primary responsibility for getting Kristin ready for
preschool while Katie's responsibility was to get herself ready for her paid work. David
had already made Kristin's hot chocolate and was preparing to get it from the microwave:
He told Kristin that he needed to get her hot chocolate out of the
microwave. As he was saying this, I noticed Katie, dressed in her robe,
walking from the bedroom through the kitchen and into the dining room.
She took the hot chocolate out of the microwave. ... Katie entered the
room at this time. ... She handed the hot.chocolate in a plastic glass
with a sipper lid to Kristin and reached across David to cover Kristin's
bare legs with a blanket.
Given the countless times I observed David share in the child care tasks, imagine
my surprise when, in the course of a discussion of the public school system, he said that
problems could be traced back to:
the fact that men were forced to send their wives out to work to make
ends meet. Women had to go out to work and therefore weren't home
with their children. Because of this, children were latchkey kids and sat
in front of televisions until their parents came home from work.
Literally, in the next breath, David began to talk about how he had done the
grocery shopping for Thanksgiving dinner earlier that day and that Katie was starting
some of the cooking that night. He explained that he had a light day at work the next
day so he would finish the cooking then. During his interview, David shared his
traditional beliefs about who should be doing what within the family. He stated that he
believed that Katie:
belongs at home being a homemaker. And I don't mean that in any kind
of demeaning way at all. I think it's incredibly important job. We truly
believe that Kristin is where she is because of the amount of time her
mother spent with her for the first three years of her life.
When I asked him if the person who stayed home with Kristin needed to have
been Katie or could he have done the same job, he replied:
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No, it doesn't have to be the mom. I mean you can get out of the
traditional role but, traditional values, someone should be home with the
child and I guess traditionally then that would be Mom. So Mother is
home with the child. Katie nursed both our daughters,... both of them
exclusively for six months. So I couldn't do that anyway so I do think
that there is a mother-bonding there that takes place between mother and
child. ... Just because of the physical. The way nature works. But the
fact that somebody was there to interact with her and stimulate her on a
constant basis. I think that was very, very important.
Because I had spent the past year observing David participate in more household
work than most men in the study, I pressed him on this point:
L: So, in other words, you could've done the same things Katie did?
D: Yeah, because I think it's the nurturing. Mom does not have a
genetic lock on being a better nurturer.
L: A nurture gene? [laughs.]
D: Yeah. If we had nurture genes, [laughs.] No, she doesn't have
that.
L: Then why is it that you believe that the woman should stay
home?
D: Because it's the Ozzie and Harriet mentality that Dad goes to
work and makes a living.
L: So it's the whole outer social system that shapes that belief for
you?
D: Yeah. Yeah. In a perfect world, Dad goes to work and Mom
stays home.
Although David stated that he had strong values about a traditional division of
work within families, he stated equally clearly that he had made a commitment when he
and Katie had decided to have a family to "re-prioritize things" and not work ninety
hours a week. In addition, when I asked him if there were things that he felt he should
do with Kristen, he responded:
I should be there when she needs me. I should be there for the events in
her life. It's very important to me that I go to the school plays and that I
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go to the Girl Scouts or the Brownies or the soccer or whatever it is that
she chooses to become involved with. ... For a lot of reasons for me, it's
very important that I be at those things. When she had her little open
house for the preschool, I was there. Whatever my schedule is, I make
sure that I'm there for that. Those are veiy important.
I believe that David's traditional beliefs were at the surface level only. His
feelings about the importance of his family in his life and his need and desire to be
present in the daily life of his children led to the formation of a deep gender ideology that
was transitional. David demonstrated high levels of affective and cognitive attachment
to being a father. These feelings of attachment are likely to be found in men who share
child care with their wives (Coltrane, 1990). David wanted to base his identity at home,
but still saw himself as the primary financial supporter of his family. His transitional
deep gender ideology shaped and guided his non-traditional gender practices, which
included his maintenance of flexibility in his paid work during the daytime hours in
order to be available to his children and his shared child care and partial sharing of the
housework.
Katie recognized that David was different than other men. She said, "David's an
excellent help. I'm pretty lucky. Talking to other mothers, other working mothers, other
non-working mothers, I'm pretty lucky." Later, she added:
I don’ t want to say this too loud because it goes to his head, but I'm very
lucky. He does what needs to done. ... I have a lot of friends who the
husband comes home from work, sits down, watches TV, plays a bit,
eats dinner, watches TV, plays a little bit. That's it. That's not the case
here.
Six of the women in this study voiced similar sentiments when they made
within-gender comparisons between their husbands and other men. Two men also
compared themselves positively to other men. Three of the women were from non-
traditional families; three women were from traditional families. Monique, whose
husband, Stuart, was one of the men who saw himself as less demanding than other men,
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made several comments during her interview that indicated that she agreed with Stuart's
self-assessment. She stated, "It's kind of nice that Stuart's so flexible and doesn't expect
a home-cooked meal every night." She also said:
I'm not a fanatic when it comes to cleanliness ... but sometimes, I just
say, "Forget it. Let’ s just enjoy. The house will be here tomorrow."
And I'm really glad because Stuart is real kicked back about that, too.
He doesn't say, "Do this and do that." So that's good.
And later on in her interview, she said, "He does his part. He takes the kids in
the mornings and that's wonderful because a lot of Dads probably wouldn't do that."
Within-gender comparisons undermine women's sense of entitlement to fairness
in the division of household work (Major, 1993; Thompson, 1991). The women in this
study also made within-gender comparisons between themselves and other women.
They perceived themselves as more fortunate than other women to have men who help as
much as or, in some cases, as little as they did. Men who help out with some of the
household work are thought to be scarce and women consider themselves lucky to get the
help that they do (Hochschild, 1989). Between-gender comparisons, that is, comparisons
between women's and men's responsibility for household work, develop women's sense
of entitlement to equality in the division of household work (Major, 1993; Thompson,
1991). Few of the women in this study made between-gender comparisons between
themselves and their husbands that led to their claims for his increased participation in
household work. Peggy, in her summation of the conflicts between her and Brent,
compared herself to him and decided, "I got too much." This between-gender
comparison led to Peggy's perception of unfairness and her attempts to achieve more
equality in their division of work within their family.
David made both within-gender and between-gender comparisons when he
talked about how he and Katie shared the household work. He said, "I think I'm better
than the typical guy. I truly think I'm better than the typical guy, but I do have a long
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way to go. We don't have an equal split." When David compared himself to other men,
he perceived himself as contributing more than they did, but when he compared himself
to Katie, he recognized that she still completed more of the household work than he did.
His acknowledgment of this inequality between them was partially responsible for his
non-traditional gender practices.
As in the case of Susan and Bill, sole reliance upon what Katie and David said
they believed, without consideration of their gender practices, would have provided a
very different picture of the division of work within their family. O f the ten families in
this study, four couples had transitional deep gender ideologies. The actualization of
their ideologies, however, led to different gender practices. Two of these couples had
traditional divisions of work while two of them had non-traditional divisions o f work.
This finding indicates that the interaction of gender ideologies between individuals
within a couple may lead to diverse gender practices.
Carol and Paul: Sharing the Second Shift
Paul works full-time outside the home as an employee suggestion program
manager. Carol works part-time as a bank teller for a total of 24 hours a week. They
have a 3 year old boy, Greg, and a 1 year old girl, Kellie. They are Family #6 in Table 1.
During the time that I was present in their home, the children's day care varied according
to the day of the week. Carol worked four mornings and one full day a week. Two
mornings a week, Paul's father came to the house and stayed with the children. The
remaining three days, Greg went to preschool and Kellie went to a baby-sitter’ s house.
These arrangements gave Carol two afternoons a week to spend with the children and
two afternoons a week to further her acting career. Her hours on her full day of paid
work were 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. On that day, she had part of a morning to spend with
the children as well. My presence in their home occurred shortly after the death of
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Carol’ s father. Her mother was chronically ill so Carol spent a significant amount of
time at her house, taking care of her and settling her father’ s estate.
Table 5 indicates that this was a non-traditional family in that Paul crossed
gender lines to share child care, cooking and meal clean up, laundry and clothing care,
shopping and errands, and managerial tasks. Table 5 also shows that Carol did not cross
gender lines to participate in traditionally male household work. Their mean percentage
participation in household work is presented in Table 13. Although their estimated totals
in the categories of Cooking and Meal Clean Up, Laundry and Clothing Care, Child
Care, Shopping and Errands, and Managerial Tasks were within the range of 90-110%
determined to be acceptable for this study, I obtained their consensual agreement scores
because their individual estimates placed them within the 60-40% shared range.
Table ll^M ean Percentage of Participation in Household Work:
Family #6~Carol and Paul
Types of Activities Carol Paul Total
(%)
(%) (%)
Cooking and Meal Clean Up 56 52 108°
(l-4)a 45 55 I00c
Cleaning 73 42 115
(5-15, 17,18, 23,24) 62 38 100
Laundry and Clothing Care 65 40 105
(19-22.25) 60 40 100
Outdoor Maintenance 0 100 100
(16, 32-35)
Indoor Maintenance 26 74 100
(26, 29-31, 39, 40, 70)
Child Care 61 47 108
(41-58) 54 46 100
Shopping and Errands 40 56 96
(59-63) 36 64 100
Managerial Tasks 57 52 109
(27. 28. 36. 65-69,71) 52 48 100
Car Maintenance 17 83 100
(37. 38, 64)
aNumbers refer to questionnaire item numbers.
^Figures based on individuals' own estimates and do not total 100.
cBold type indicates figures obtained through couple's consensus.
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Carol was primarily responsible for the majority of work within one category of
work traditionally completed by women. Paul had primary responsibility for the tasks
within three categories of work typically completed by men. Outdoor maintenance tasks
were minimal, however, because they lived in a condominium. The remaining five
categories of household work, which are conventionally completed by women, were
shared by Carol and Paul within a 60-40% range.
I visited this family's home on six different occasions for the purposes of
observation. In addition, I documented observations I made when I was in their home to
baby-sit their children and to conduct their interviews. During this time, I observed
countless examples of their non-traditional gender practices. I watched both of them
wash dishes and do the laundry. I saw that they shared equally in feeding Kellie her
dinner. I noted that Paul prepared dinner more often than Carol, but that she was more
likely to clean up after dinner. Although they ate dinner as a family, it was Carol who
often sat with Greg while he finished dinner, but it was Paul who monitored his eating
progress and determined when he had finished his dinner. Paul was as likely as Carol to
monitor Kellie's movements throughout the house. Several times, I noticed that Paul was
already checking on her safety as Carol was just becoming aware of the need to do so.
Paul stood in marked contrast to Sam, who observed his daughter in a potentially
dangerous situation of pulling a gravy boat filled with gravy down on herself and pointed
this out to Linda so that she could act to ensure Mary Jane's safety. This finding
provides concrete evidence that Paul had a true sense o f responsibility for the children
that went beyond the simple involvement in the physical completion of tasks (Leslie,
Anderson, & Branson, 1991).
Throughout all of my home visits, it was obvious that Paul was the time-keeper.
He was the parent who kept track of what needed to be done with the children and when
it needed to occur in the course of the evening. The primary responsibility for planning
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and managing their care, during the evening hours at least, seemed to be his. Paul's
sense of responsibility for the children was a non-traditional gender practice. Generally,
women have "parental responsibility" while men provide "parental assistance" (Leslie et
ah, 1991, p. 198). Paul seemed to provide the primary care of the children on Saturday
mornings as well. Both o f the times that I visited at this time of day and week, Carol
was still upstairs in the bedroom when I arrived at 10:00 a.m. One day, Paul, the
children, and I left for the park before she came downstairs and she was not home when
we got back at lunch time. The other day, she came downstairs and joined us an hour
after my arrival.
On two separate occasions, I observed this couple engage in what I came to call
an argument over who would complete child care tasks. During one home visit, I
observed the following interaction:
Carol looked into the living room where Paul was sitting in the armchair,
holding Kellie. She went over to talk and play with her. Paul said that
she was wet again. Carol reached out to take her, saying that she would
go change her. Paul started to release her and then said that he could do
it. Carol continued to hold onto her as she repeated that she would do it.
Paul said okay and Carol took Kellie upstairs.
MN: THIS WAS INTERESTING BECAUSE AS I WATCHED IT
HAPPEN, IT LOOKED LIKE THEY WERE ARGUING OVER WHO
WOULD 'GET TO CHANGE THE BABY. IT WAS NOTABLE
BECAUSE PEOPLE USUALLY ARGUE OVER NOT CHANGING
THE BABY AND NOT OVER WANTING TO CHANGE THE BABY.
The following exchange took place during another home visit:
Paul asked Carol if she wanted him to bathe Kellie. Initially, she said
okay, but then she said that she would get it because it would be hard on
his back for him to bathe her in the sink. Paul said that it was okay and
he would do it in the tub. She said, "Oh no, that'll be worse." Paul
disagreed, saying that he thought that the sink wasn't as safe now that
she was moving as much as she was. Carol disagreed, saying that she
thought the sink was safer than the tub. She repeated for him not to
worry and that she would get her bath. Paul picked up Kellie from the
floor and held her. They didn't seem to have resolved the issue of who
was going to bathe her.
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MN: AGAIN, AS DURING A PREVIOUS VISIT, I WAS STRUCK
BY HOW THIS COUPLE WAS ARGUING OVER WHO WAS
GOING TO DO THE CHILD CARE. EACH ONE WAS SAYING
THAT HE OR SHE WOULD DO IT, RATHER THAN TRYING TO
GET THE OTHER ONE TO DO IT FOR THEM.
Although Paul's gender practices were non-traditional, I was surprised to learn
during his interview that his surface gender ideology was traditional. When I first asked
him how, in a perfect world, he would want to set up the arrangements for who works
and who takes care of the children, Paul replied:
Well, I don’ t think the same situation applies to every couple because 1
think it's dependent upon personality. And, from what I've seen, I don't
think it would be a preferable arrangement to have Carol not working at
all and have me working and have her home all the time. Because o f her
personality, her disposition, her time clock or personal time clock, I
don't think that it would be a healthy arrangement for her to be home all
the time.
I asked Paul to think about his perfect world in an abstract sense. After
protesting that I was asking a loaded question because he was going to sound
chauvinistic, Paul answered:
I think, in a broad sense, the natural order of things is that the mother is
usually the nurturer, seems to have certain proclivities or innate
characteristics that enable her to be a nurturer. So I think that [in an]
abstract, perfect world, it's a good thing to have the mother's occupation
to be the raising of the children.
His deep gender ideology emerged as he continued to speak:
I do not like the idea o f both parents working lull time and the kids
being raised by somebody other than the parents because to me that's
like ordering a dinner and having it delivered to somebody at another
table and you paying the check and you not getting to eat. I mean why
have children? To me it just doesn't make sense to want to have a full
time career and want to have children and want to do it all in an
overlapping fashion because I don't think that that's doing anybody any
good in the long run. I believe that you choose to have children, you're
going to want to know them and you're going to want to spend time with
them and you can't do that with both of you working full time. So
putting aside notions o f roles and any type o f so-called sexism ,... it's
important for the children to have their parents spend time with them.
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So whether that works out to Mother staying home or whether that
works out to both parents working part-time, that is not as important to
me as the fact that at least they're getting half of the 9 to 5 with one or
both of the parents during the week.
Paul's deep gender ideology was egalitarian. Given Carol's personality, he
strongly felt that her staying home full-time with the children was not their best option.
Given his personality, he believed that he was better-suited than Carol to be home with
the children. He explained, "If I were home, I would seek more things to do with the
kids to get them interacting with other kids. Whereas I think, if Carol was home, she
wouldn't do that." Paul's egalitarian gender ideology was stated clearly when he
concluded:
That's why a little of both, a little o f her working and a little of her being
home. I would prefer to be home more. I would prefer to be more
balanced and not have me necessarily working full-time and her working
part-time, but mix that up a little bit. I think would be more preferable
so that I could spend more time with them.
When I asked, "So what might be more preferable, would be for Carol to be
working more, closer to full-time, and you working less full-time?", he replied, "Maybe.
Yeah. Just to even it out a little bit."
Paul's non-traditional gender practices arose from his egalitarian deep gender
ideology. Time-use data indicate that men with egalitarian attitudes towards gender
expectations spend more time on housework than men with traditional attitudes (Baxter,
1992; Shelton, 1992). He wanted them both to maintain a balance between their
participation in household work and paid work. At this point in time, however, he was
working full-time outside of the home and sharing the household work within a 60-40%
split. Carol was spending large amounts of time at her mother's home. When she wasn't
participating in paid work, her time was often consumed by her participation in the
unpaid work of providing care to her mother. Paul admitted to some dissatisfaction with
their current arrangements. He explained:
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I'm not entirely happy with it. But that gets into a whole other area with
Carol's mother and why she's over there as much as she is. But I have to
say, just for the facts, most of the time it doesn't bother me, but
sometimes it does. ... Sometimes I feel like there's just no break from
the routine, even when there could be. When I do cook dinner, I try to
make sure it's ready by the time she gets home. But, by her not being
home even on her days off, I feel like there's no opportunity for me to
break from that routine.
During my first visit to their home, Carol talked about staying home with the
children:
She said that she felt like she "would have gone crazy" staying home
with Greg and that she needed to go to work. She went on to say that
she felt like she wasn't "doing everything right," that she wanted to be
"teaching" him all the time, and that she was "always after him" and
trying to do things with him. She said that she needed to go back to
work because she was going crazy trying to be the perfect mom and she
kept thinking that she wasn't doing it right.
She expanded on these feelings during her interview in response to my question
about why she participated in paid work:
It's practical. It is to pay the bills primarily and even though what I
make, I figure if you really broke it down, it goes strictly for child care.
And I know that sounds really funny, but.I like the idea of the kids
having interaction and being in a different setting because I know they're
away from me. Maybe I just think I'm not that great of a mom. ...
Maybe it’ s my own insecurity but, being an only child, I'm very aware
that I really want them to be with other kids and to learn the social skills.
... But again I'm thinking, "Well?" I guess it's the old having Mommy
versus not having, you know what I mean? Is it better for the child to be
with the Mom? I mean is Mom the only one, or the best fulfillment of
all their needs? You know what I'm saying? Versus well maybe they
can still have as good an experience in a different place. So I don't
know. And besides paying the bills, for me mentally, it was just better
to [work] on a part-time basis, and because they wanted me to go full
time almost since I started, but I just can't be away from the kids full
time. I just couldn't do it. ... But yet there was that sense of feeling of
failure. It was like, "Oh, if I were a better mother, I'd be happier."
This lengthy quote portrays the range of beliefs and feelings that Carol had about
her participation in paid work and household work. Her surface gender ideology was
traditional in that she believed that she should be happy to be home with her children.
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She acknowledged that her paid work earnings covered the cost of the children's day care
and not much else. Her traditional surface gender ideology dictated that she should be
the "perfect mother" at home with her children but, given her personality and her
perceived incompetence at mothering, she believed that it was best for both her and the
children that she worked outside the home and that they spent time away from her. Carol
was not alone in her feelings of failure at mothering. In stark contrast to the socially-
legitimated belief that women enjoy parenting more than men, many more women than
men reported feelings of failure and guilt when they talked about their parenting
experiences (Komter, 1989). Although Carol experienced conflict between her surface
and deep gender ideologies, her transitional deep gender ideology not only allowed her to
identify with both home and work in a way that was a good fit for her, but also preserved
her ability to see herself as a good mother.
Carol's transitional deep gender ideology and the fact that she participated in
part-time paid work while Paul held a full-time job led her to believe that she should
have primary responsibility for the household work. Their non-traditional gender
practices resulted in her experience of conflicting feelings:
He's just so willing to help that, if I haven't done it, he will, boom, just
go right in there and do it. Which will kind o f make me mad because I
feel like a failure. I feel like I'm making him work double time.
I asked her why she felt as if Paul were doing double work. She replied, "I just
feel like with him working full-time and I know how tired he is." In response to my
question about her satisfaction with their division of household work, Carol said, "I'm
satisfied. I just don't want him to feel overly-taxed or something because I know he's
really tired. But I like it." When I asked her about any conflicts or tension over who
does what, she said:
If I feel tension, it's guilt that he's doing it. But it's never cases like,
"Well, I did it last night." That's just never ... been the case. I mean
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we'll get into, not arguments, but I'll get mad at him for doing the dishes.
I'm like, "No. I want to do them. No! No! No!" Which is kind of
funny. But that's how he is. He's just so, "I'll do it." ... He'll just go on
ahead and do things and I just feel guilty.
Thompson (1991) stated that between-gender comparisons, that is, comparisons
between women and men in terms of how much each one participates in household work,
give rise to women's feelings of injustice about their greater responsibility for household
work. In this case, Carol's comparison between herself and Paul had the reverse effect.
She questioned the fairness of their division of work in which he shared household work
in addition to his full-time participation in paid work. Her within-gender comparison of
herself to the deeply ingrained social norms that define women upon the basis of their
participation in household work led to her feelings of guilt and insecurity when she made
the between-gender comparison of herself to Paul and found herself to be lacking (Major,
1993).
Although Paul differed from other men in terms of the absolute amount of his
participation in household work conventionally completed by women, the types of work
he completed did not differ. Other men also crossed gender lines to participate in those
same types of tasks, as indicated in Table 5. None of the men in this study crossed
gender lines to share in the cleaning tasks. Cleaning the house is one of the types of
household work that remains a stronghold o f gender specialization (Blair & Lichter,
1991; Ferree, 1991b; Shelton, 1992). Laundry and clothing care and cleaning are more
resistant to change in the traditional allocation o f these tasks to women than are washing
the dishes and grocery shopping (Ferree, 1991b). Parents from all four of the non-
traditional families in this study spoke of the men's willingness to care for the children
while the women completed the cleaning tasks rather than physically participating in the
cleaning tasks themselves.
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Among the four men in the study who participated in non-traditional gender
practices, three of them had traditional surface gender ideologies. However, each o f their
deep gender ideologies was different. George had a traditional deep gender ideology,
David had a transitional deep gender ideology, and Paul had a egalitarian deep gender
ideology. This finding suggests that what these men said they believed was tempered by
their own feelings, the feelings of their wives, or both. O f note is how their deep gender
ideologies corresponded with their gender practices. As their ideologies moved along the
continuum from traditional to non-traditional, so did their gender practices. George, with
his traditional deep gender ideology, shared child care only; David, with a transitional
deep gender ideology, shared child care and some housework; Paul, with his egalitarian
deep gender ideology, shared all of the household work.
Summary
This chapter began with an overview o f the division of work within the ten
families in this study. The rest of the chapter discussed the gender ideologies and gender
practices of the families to demonstrate how beliefs and feelings about gender
expectations and scripts led to a wide range of behaviors and practices. The case studies
in this chapter illustrated how the interaction o f thought and feelings within and between
individuals created variability in gender ideologies and gender practices among the
couples. Each case was. unique. The findings on work within families as presented in
this chapter hold potential for significant insights into the study of human behavior.
Had I solely gathered data on gender ideologies and gender practices by asking
the parents in this study to tell me what they believed and felt about gender expectations,
I would have obtained only a partial picture of the divisions of work within their
families. Similarly, had I relied upon my observations of the parents' participation in
household work and my examination o f their Household Work Questionnaire data, again,
I would have seen only a piece o f the picture. Together, the interview data, questionnaire
167
data, and observational data amplified my vision so that I obtained a complete
understanding of their behavior. It was only through the linking and comparison of what
the parents said with what they did that a well-rounded picture of their unique divisions
of household work emerged. Examination o f both gender ideologies and gender
practices in this way may lead to a new understanding o f the division of work within
families.
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CHAPTER 5
Play Within Families
Introduction
Craig began to chase Poppy the dog in earnest. Poppy ran around in
circles as Craig followed her. Maggie turned to me and said how this
was a good thing to do because it wore out both the dog and the boy.
We laughed as we watched the dog and Craig chase each other. ... He
was trying to catch Poppy to get the ball and Poppy was trying to get
Craig to continue to chase her. When Craig stopped running, she would
run back to him and around him to entice him to chase her again. ...
Finally, Craig asked if he could throw the ball for Poppy to fetch.
Maggie told him to get the ball from Poppy. I think he did get lucky and
was able to get the ball from her. He pretended to throw the ball and
Poppy took off across the yard, stopping once she realized the ball wasn't
there. Craig collapsed into giggles at how he had tricked Poppy.
Maggie, Colin, and I laughed at Craig's laughter. He pretended to throw
the ball again. This time Poppy stopped sooner as she realized what was
happening. After the third pretend throw, Colin quietly told Craig to
throw the ball this time. Craig did not do so and Poppy just stood there
waiting for him to throw the ball. Maggie pointed out to Craig that
Poppy had caught onto him. This time, Craig did throw the ball and
Poppy charged after it.
This excerpt describes parent-child play within a home setting. It is only one of
the hundreds of play episodes I observed over the course of the two years I spent in the
homes of the ten families who participated in the study. This chapter will present the
findings on play within families. For the purposes of this study, I clustered the types of
parent-child play previously described in the literature into broad categories o f rough and
tumble play, active play, sedentary play, and imaginary play. I will also discuss a type
of play that I called "scaffolded play," a process through which the parents whom I
observed extended the capacity of their children to participate in play activities.
Rough and Tumble Play
Studies in the literature on parent-child play within traditional families
consistently indicate that the most significant parental gender play difference occurs in
rough and tumble play (Clarke-Stewart, 1980; Lamb, 1976; MacDonald & Parke, 1984,
169
1986; Power & Parke, 1982; Roopnarine & Mounts, 1985; Russell, 1982; Teti, Bonds, &
Gibbs, 1988), Rough and tumble play includes tickling, wrestling, play-fighting,
chasing, and throwing and swinging the child into the air. Fathers were found to engage
in greater amounts of rough and tumble play with their children than were mothers. The
findings of studies on parent-child play within non-traditional families are not as clear-
cut. Some studies reported no parental differences in rough and tumble play (Pedersen,
Cain, Zaslow, & Anderson, 1982; Russell, 1982). Studies conducted within cultures
with more egalitarian child care arrangements than the United States, such as Sweden
and the kittbutzim in Israel, indicated that there were no parental differences in the
initiation of rough and tumble play (Lamb, Frodi, Hwang, Frodi, & Steinberg, 1982;
Sagi, Lamb, Shoham, Dvir, & Lewkowicz, 1985). Other studies, however, supported
findings from traditional families, that fathers were more likely to encourage and
participate in rough and tumble play than were mothers (Ehrensaft, 1987; Yogman,
1982).
All of the fathers and half of the mothers in this study provided examples of
rough and tumble play when asked what they did with their child. I observed four other
mothers engage in rough and tumble play during my home visits. In all, 19 out of 20
parents participated in rough and tumble play with their children. The lone mother who
did not play rough and tumble with her daughter was from a non-traditional family.
When asked about similarities and differences between themselves and their
partners during play with their children, all of the mothers and seven of the fathers stated
that the fathers were rougher and engaged in more rough and tumble play than the
mothers. Many of these parents stated that this occurred because the mothers were not as
strong or as big as the fathers, and therefore, they were unable to make rough and tumble
play as much fun as the fathers could. Several parents said that the mothers were more
watchful and protective and took fewer risks in play with their children than their
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partners. Thus, although mothers did engage in rough and tumble play, biological
differences were most often cited as the reason why the fathers did so more frequently.
Comparison of the rough and tumble play I observed within one traditional
family illustrates some common differences between the rough and tumble play of
fathers and mothers. First, an example of play between the father and his son:
Bill continued to finish up what he was doing with his computer.
Michael went to his room. He came back out with the stuffed cat,
holding it in front of his face and meowing. He walked over to Bill and
made a motion to poke the cat into Bill's stomach. Bill leaned over,
pulled Michael to him, and gave him a hug. After hugging him, he
picked him up and turned him upside down. He carried him this way
back towards the bedrooms. As he passed the plastic basketball
standard, he said "Let's slam-dunk you!" He lowered Michael head first,
with his face towards the backboard, into the net. Michael seemed
momentarily surprised and then giggled as Bill lifted him out. Bill set
him down on the ground and laughed as he looked at me. Michael stood
up and shouted, "One more time!" Bill laughed louder as he looked at
Michael and said, "Look at you! You can't even stand up and you want
to do it one more time."
Next, a sequence of rough and tumble play between the mother and son:
While she still had him in her lap, Susan leaned over and started to tickle
his neck. He said, "No, no! I do it!" Michael reached up and tickled her
neck. She giggled and then pulled her head away with a loud guffawing
laugh. He giggled in response. Then Susan said, "Okay, okay. Now it's
my turn!" She reached down to tickle his neck. He mimicked her laugh
and pulled his head away. The two of them were laughing and enjoying
themselves tremendously. I laughed too. Then he said, "It's my turn!"
He reached up and tickled her neck again. Susan took her turn again and
then the game ended.
These two examples indicate the differences that I frequently observed in
intensity, risk-taking, and style between the rough and tumble play of fathers and
mothers. One of the non-traditional fathers believed that he and his wife played with
their daughter differently. As he said, "We're very different. I think a lot of it is male-
female, Mom-Dad differences. She's probably gentler, I'm a little more physical, a little
rougher. I throw the girls where Katie wouldn't do that."
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When I questioned him further about the likelihood of his wife's participating in
rough and tumble play with their daughter, he laughed as he said, "Well, because
Mommy really doesn't approve of it. So she would prefer it not happening." Although
his wife stated that she thought that she and her husband played with their daughter in
similar ways, she admitted, "Probably what is not similar is I'm a little more, and I don't
want to say protective, but he's a little more apt to not be so watchful. If that makes
sense?" A passage from my fieldnotes makes sense of what they are both saying:
Kristin said, "Come on, Daddy, I want to climb on you. Remember
when I used to climb on you?" She was clawing at his legs and chest as
she said this as if she were trying to climb up him. He asked, "What do
you mean, you want to climb on me?" He picked her up and put her on
top of his shoulders, letting her fall back to hang upside down. He
asked, "Like this? Like this? Is this what you mean?" She was hanging
upside down on his back. He slowly lowered her to the ground while
holding her against his back and legs. She was squealing and giggling
as he did this. He put her down. She said, "No, Daddy, I want to climb
on you." She scratched and clawed at the front of his body again. He
asked, "What do you mean, you want to climb on me?" She told him to
get down on the floor. He got down on all fours and she climbed up
onto his back like he was a horse. David said, "Okay, I'm a horse." He
bucked up and down like a bucking bronco. She squealed and giggled as
she tried to hang on. He bucked her off and she fell onto her back with
her head hitting the carpet with a ker-plunk. Katie winced and we both
wondered if that had hurt. Kristin didn't seem to notice. ... Katie
suggested that they move away ffom the entertainment wall unit. David
did so and began to buck Kristin again. Kristin's face lit up in
anticipation and she giggled hysterically as she bounced up and down on
his back. Katie cautioned her to hang on tight because she didn't want
her to go through the window.
The father from one of the other non-traditional families also talked about how
he and his wife differed in their play:
Well, it's the roughness factor for one. ... She tries to see the things that
I play with them, the wrestling and the things, but she doesn't understand
the protecting of herself and more than likely she'll be wrestling and one
of their knees will crash, hit her in the face or something because she's
not ready for it. ... She loses it because ... her pain hurts and makes you
say things and do things and I understand. But it’ s like I go, "Hey, you
know, if you're going do that, you're going to probably get hurt so you
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got to understand it." Well, she can't play the same way I can and vice
versa. I can't sit and play a game with them. I can’ t. So we have our
definite differences.
The parents from one of the traditional families said that they played similarly
with their little girl, Jennifer. The mother recognized that one of the few differences was
that she was less likely than the father to get down on the floor and give horsie rides.
She was adamant that she would never throw her up in the air. The father thought that
the "horseplay" with Jennifer was the same no matter who did it with her. But when I
asked him if Jennifer played similarly or differently with him and her mother, Dawn, he
replied that she often asked him to do "circus girl." Jennifer wouldn't ask Dawn to do
that because she had never done it before and he didn't think that she would feel safe
doing it. I observed the father, Mike, playing "circus girl" with Jennifer during one of
my visits:
Mike sat down on the floor with his legs stretched out in front of him
and his back against the chair. Jennifer leaned forward, putting her arms
around his neck and forward onto his chest so that her tummy was on top
of his head. Mike reached up, grabbing a hold of her at her hips, and
flipped her forward over his head so that she did a somersault in the air
and landed on the floor between his legs. Jennifer giggled and laughed
with this activity.
The similarities between these two parents were evident later on during this same
visit:
While we were talking, Jennifer jumped tip onto Dawn's lap and then she
jumped from there over to where Mike was sitting in the armchair. Mike
reached out to catch her and ... held her on his lap. He played with her
for a few minutes, cuddling her and tickling her a little. Jennifer
shrieked a couple of times in excitement. Then Jennifer asked him to
"throw her to Mommy." He couldn't understand what she was saying.
He asked her if she wanted to "follow Mommy." She repeated what she
wanted, saying "You do it." He asked her again what she wanted and
she said, "Throw me." Finally, Mike understood and he said, "No, I'm
not going to throw you." She said, "Yeah, you do it. Throw me to
Mommy." He repeated that he wasn't going to do that. She got down
and threw herself at Dawn so that she caught her, lying lengthwise
across her lap. Dawn held her and tickled her a little as she lay there.
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In summary, all of the fathers and nine out of ten of the mothers in this study
participated in rough and tumble play. Almost all of the parents stated that the fathers
engaged in rough and tumble with their children more often and were rougher and more
physical than the mothers. Biological factors related to size and strength differences and
pregnancy were most often cited as the reasons for this difference. This parental gender
play difference occurred in both traditional families and non-traditional families.
Similar to rough and tumble play is a type of play that I have called active play.
Active play includes gross motor play such as throwing or kicking a ball, riding bikes,
roller-skating, swimming, playing sports, and taking the child out in the community to
parks, the beach, the mall, and amusement parks. All of the parents reported engaging in
this type of play with their children. Six fathers and three mothers included it as one of
their favorite things to do. Five parents, two fathers and three mothers, thought that
fathers were more likely to participate in this type of play than were mothers. Popular
literature which focused on differences between mothers and fathers as being
complementary and equally essential argue that fathers' play is necessary for the physical
and psychological development of their children (Gibbs, 1993). Fathers were found to
encourage the child to compete and to expand the limits of their skills and abilities
(Shapiro, 1994).
A Time magazine cover story in June 1993 quoted the director of the Family
Research Council:
Go to a park and watch father and mother next to a child on a jungle
gym. The father encourages the kid to challenge himself by climbing to
the top; the mother tells him to be careful. What's most important is to
have a balance of encouragement along with a warning. (Gibbs, 1993, p.
61)
Before I read this particular article, I had already observed this gender difference
during a visit to a neighborhood park with one of the non-traditional families:
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Greg had left the chicken ride and climbed up the arched ladder structure
to reach the platform area of the climbing structure. He immediately
went over to a pole which was adjacent to the platform and made as if to
slide down it to the ground. Carol, Paul, and I were standing next to
Kellie in her stroller watching Greg as he played. Carol called out
anxiously, "Oh no, Greg, don't do that!" Paul said, "Oh, that's okay. He
can do it." Greg looked at his parents and asked if he could go down the
pole. Paul nodded and said yes as Carol stood next to him shaking her
head no. Greg reached out with his hands towards the pole, but hesitated
before reaching out with his feet. From where I was standing, it looked
as if this pole were further away from the platform than the pole on the
structure that he had successfully negotiated at another park during one
of my previous visits. Paul told Greg that he could do it and started over
to help him. As Paul walked over to Greg, Carol turned her back on
them as she said, "Oh, fear of heights! High anxiety!" By the time Paul
got over there, Greg had decided not to try it and refused Paul's help.
In direct contrast to this observation, one of the traditional fathers talked about
his feelings while watching his daughter climb to the top of a climbing structure:
Well, about eight feet up, is this other platform that they can go sit in
and do some fun stuff. She's got to climb up that thing. And every time
we go over to [her uncle's house], she's in that thing. It always make me
real scared to see her climb things, but she goes right up. Because I'm
kind of controlling about a lot of that stuff. I'm like, "You're going to
hurt yourself! Don't do it."
I asked him if his wife was like that as well. He replied, "No. Me, I'm the
worrier. Linda's like,'Oh, well.' ... She can just let them go. She's fine with that.
Although most of the data in this study indicated that fathers were more likely to
engage their children in risk-taking behaviors than mothers, some negative instances,
such as the one presented above, surfaced. Whether or not one believes that "a balance
of encouragement along with a warning" (Gibbs, 1993, p. 61) is essential to a child's
development, my data indicate that the parts of the "encourager" and the "wamer" are
assumed by parents, sometimes contradicting gender stereotypes.
Sedentary Plav
Sedentary play includes quiet, intellectual, and/or creative play activities such as
reading, drawing, coloring, singing, playing with playdoh, watching videos, holding and
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cuddling the child, and simply talking with the child. These activities in the literature
have been called instructive or verbal play, interactive play, object play, and/or toy-
mediated play (Clarke-Stewart, 1980; MacDonald & Parke, 1984; Roopnarine &
Mounts, 1985; Stevenson, Leavitt, Thompson, & Roack, 1988; Teti, Bond, & Gibbs,
1988). Studies conducted on parent-child play within traditional families consistently
indicate that mothers were more likely to engage in these types o f sedentary play
activities with their children than were fathers. Findings from studies within non-
traditional families are inconclusive. Studies within cultures that are typically non-
traditional in their arrangements for child care suggested that differences between
parents' sedentary play with their infants within these families were not as marked as
they were in families with traditional divisions of household work (Lamb et al., 1982;
Sagi et al., 1985). O f the studies that specifically looked at sedentary play between
parents and their preschool-aged children, one study supported a parental gender play
difference (Ehrensaft, 1987), while the other study did not (Russell, 1982).
All o f the mothers and nine of the ten fathers in this study provided examples of
sedentary play activities when asked what they did with their child. The remaining
father, who was from one of the non-traditional families, specifically stated that he did
not play games or read to his children. Nine mothers and five fathers included sedentary
play activities such as watching videos, talking with the child, playing games, singing
together, and reading to the child among their favorite things to do with their children.
One father from a traditional family reported his singlemost favorite thing to do with his
child was story-telling. This is how he explained it:
Story-telling is making up a story about whatever it is. It could be, when
he was younger, he liked to hear stories about when Mommy and me
were dating. It's like, "How did you meet Mommy?" kind o f story so we
would paraphrase and modify and tailor it. That kind of story-telling.
Or "Why do airplanes fly?" ... Or even making up stories sometimes. If
it's about fictitious people, characters, things like that and maybe taking
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a grain of truth from a real event and then making a story of it. ...
Sitting and just curling up in the couch or in the bed or whatever and
telling a story and just having him paying a 100% attention is very
enjoyable to me.
One other father from a traditional family as well as seven mothers from both
traditional and non-traditional families spoke of their enjoyment in simply watching their
children while they played or sitting with them and talking to them. They often talked
about watching their children to see what they did and listening to them to hear what
they had to say and see where their minds were taking them.
I observed a wide range of sedentary play activities during my home visits. One
day during a visit to a non-traditional family, I arrived to find the mother, Kim, and the
two children, Christian and Julia, seated at the kitchen table. Christian, a 5 year old boy,
called out to me as I entered the house, "We're doing my stuff." Kim explained that they
were doing stencils and that they were trying out some of the things that Christian had
gotten for his birthday. Julia, a 2 year old girl, had a coloring book and several marker
pens in front of her. I joined them at the table and watched:
Kim handed the stencil to Christian and asked him which one he wanted
to do. She set an 8 1/2 by 11 inch piece of paper in front o f him. She
asked him if he wanted to make "a card for Daddy." ... Julia was
coloring in her book with a blue marker. Kim turned to Christian and
asked him which materials did he want to use, the markers, crayons, or
paints. He responded that he wanted to use the paints. She went over to
the sink and got some water in a little bowl. ... She asked Christian if
he wanted her to show him how to do it. He said that he knew how.
She half-asked, half-stated that he had done it before. He said that he
had. She asked him which stencil he wanted to do. Kim identified them
for him, saying that there was a motorboat, a car, and a truck. He said
that he wanted to do the motorboat. Julia was very intrigued by this
whole process. She was lying across the table on her bare belly to watch
what they were doing. She was grinning as she watched and turned to
me with a big smile a couple of times. Kim told Christian that she
would hold the stencil for him while he painted. He dipped his brush in
the water and then the paint. He began to paint in the openings in the
stencil.
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In reply to the question of whether they played with their children in ways
similar to or different from their partners, nine of the fathers and six of the mothers said
that they thought the mothers participated more frequently in sedentary play activities
than did the fathers. This difference was often couched in terms of personal attributes or
personality characteristics. For example, Kim's husband, George, said:
I was never a sit-down person. ... I can't sit down and play games with
them. It drives me bananas. ... It goes too slow. It drives me crazy. I
mean sometimes I can do it. ... Sometimes I'm just in a veiy low key
mood so I don't need something to keep me going. ... So I can sit down
and then I'm all right with it. But that doesn't happen often and I can't
ever think like, "What should I do with them? Go outside and do this or
do a game that makes them think? Well, let's go outside!"
Another father said:
She does more artistic things with him. Like color, she colors with him.
... Creative things, more artistic things and I do the standard out and
play ball kind of stuff. ... So she's more creative, does more artistic
things and more creative things.
Within three of the four non-traditional families, there was a lack of agreement
between the parents as to whether the mother was more likely to participate in sedentary
play activities than the father. Two fathers and one mother believed that to be true while
two mothers and one father disagreed. One mother stated that her husband had more
patience and a longer attention span for sitting and playing with their son than she did.
Another mother had not mentioned any differences between her and her husband in
sedentary play in response to several questions designed to tease out parental gender play
difference. In response to my final question in this area about who their child was most
likely to approach for play she explained that it depended upon what Kristin, their
daughter, wanted to do. When I asked her what types of play activities might be
different, she replied:
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Maybe if it was something more with the dolls or something more with
reading or writing, something like that, [she'd approach me]. ... If it's
just something fun or dancing or I don't know, something along those
lines, probably him more.
Her husband, however, maintained that, other than the rough and tumble play
differences which he'd already described, there were no other differences between him
and his wife. When I asked him if both of them would be equally likely to play the same
things with Kristin, he answered:
Yeah, but again I think it’ s also Kristin-driven with Katie. ... I don't see
Katie saying, "Come on, Kristin, let's play house." "Come on, Kristin,
let’ s play make-up. Come on." Kristin will just say, "Let's play make
up." and we just sort of go with it. And if one of us is there or both o f us
is there, it doesn't matter.
I questioned him further, asking him if Kristin approached Katie more often than
him to play Barbies. He responded, "Not that I'm aware of because I think who's ever
available to have the time will sit down and play with her. Somebody will sit down and
play with her."
In summary, 19 of 20 parents said that they participated in sedentary play
activities, including 5 fathers who stated that it was one of their favorite things to do with
their children. However, 15 parents, including the parents from one o f the non-
traditional families, stated that they believed that mothers were more likely to engage in
sedentary play with their children than were fathers. Within the other non-traditional
families, there was a lack of agreement on whether the mothers played in a more
sedentary manner than did the fathers. Differences between mothers' and fathers'
engagement in sedentary play activities with their children appeared to be more marked
within the traditional families than they were within the non-traditional families.
Imaginary Play
Imaginary play encompasses what my respondents called pretend play, role-
playing, or play-acting. According to the literature, mothers within traditional families
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were more likely to encourage and participate in this type of play than were fathers
(Power, 1985; Roopnarine & Mounts, 1985). The only study on parent-child play in
non-traditional families that included imaginary play also reported that mothers
participated in more role-playing activities than did fathers (Ehrensaft, 1987).
When asked what they did with their children, 15 out of 20 parents said that they
did some type of imaginary play. Nine mothers talked about imaginary play with their
children; the remaining mother was observed to participate in an imaginary play
sequence during a home visit. Four fathers, three of whom were from non-traditional
families, neither talked about nor were observed to participate in any imaginary play with
their children during the in-home visits. The mother from a traditional family who
specifically stated in her interview that she didn't do pretend play was observed during an
in-home visit to initiate and engage in an imaginary play sequence that seemed to be
well-known to both her and her son. In this passage from my fleldnotes, Susan, the
mother, has just told Michael, her 3 year old son, not to put playdoh in his ear:
She took it away from him and then checked his ear. She exclaimed,
"Wait a minute! There's a carrot in your ear!" Michael giggled and
looked at her. This seemed to be a familiar game. She continued,
"There are! There are carrots in your ear! Go ask your dad to look."
Then she asked, "Bill, would you look in Michael's left ear? There’ s a
carrot in his ear." He walked over to his dad who looked in his ear and
said, "Yeah, there sure are. There's carrots in there." Michael said,
"Take it out. Take it out." Bill told him to go get his mother to take
them out. Michael went back to her and said, "Get it out! Get it out!"
Susan put her thumb and forefinger in his ear and made a quick snapping
motion as she pretended to pull a carrot out of his ear. She showed him
the pretend carrot. She said, "Wait a minute. There’ s another one." She
pretended to pull out another carrot to show him. He turned his other ear
to her and asked her to check it. She said that she didn’ t think there was
anything there but he said, "Yeah, cauliflower." Susan laughed, "His
two favorite vegetables." She said, as she pretended to pull it out,
"Yeah, you're right, there is cauliflower in there."
Next, it was his turn. He checked her ear and said that there were carrots
there. He imitated her motion of pulling out a carrot. He decided to
check her other ear. She asked, "Is there anything else in there?"
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Michael said, as he pretended to take it out, "Cauliflower." Susan asked,
"What about chocolate? Is there chocolate in my ear?" He nodded and
said yes. She asked him to get it out. He showed it to her and she
pretended to eat it and said, "Yum-yum." She asked if there was any
more. He pretended to pull out another piece and she pretended to eat it.
After she finished eating, he said, "That was a bee." She asked, "That
was a bee? I just ate a bee?" He said yes and giggled hysterically. He
said, "See if there's a bee in my ear." She responded, "No, Michael, bees
don't go in your ear."
All of the mothers and six of the fathers engaged in imaginary play with their
children. Four parents stated that it was one of their favorite things to do with their
child. Some of the parents talked about playing with toy figurines, such as Ninja Turtles,
Batman, Ghostbusters and other fictional characters, in an imaginary way. Here is an
excerpt from my fieldnotes which demonstrates this type of play between a father and his
daughter:
Kristin set three figurines down on the table in front of the houses. One
was Beauty, one was the Beast, and one was the Candelabra from the
movie "Beauty and the Beast." She took the Beauty figurine and David
picked up the Beast. Both of them started singing the song from the
movie, "Be My Guest." They moved the figurines as if they were
dancing together. They sang only a few lines of the song and then
stopped. David moved Beast over to the Candelabra and said in a
confrontational tone, "She will eat dinner with me. She's not going to
eat dinner with anybody but me." The play quickly turned into a game
of chase. They made the figurines run around for a bit and then Kristin
made Beauty run up into one house and slam the door behind her.
Kristin called out to David to knock on the door. He made the Beast
move up the stairs to the house, knock on the door, and look in through
the windows. He began to speak in a loud, threatening voice, "Let me
in! Let me in!" Kristin responded, "No, this is my house!" David went
on to say things like, "No, this is my house! I think you should let me
into my house. I own this house and I should be allowed into my own
house!" Kristin continued to refuse to open the door and let him in.
They continued to yell back and forth like this for a few minutes.
Kristin's Beauty was still refusing to open the door. David's Beast was
still on the front porch, yelling to be let in. He repeatedly yelled, "Let
me in! Let me in!" several times, rising to a final threatening, "Let me
in!" Kristin, from the other side of the house, reprimanded him by
saying, "You don't have to yell!" David made the Beast run over to
Candelabra and say, "She's being so irrational. She won't let me in. It's
my own house."
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When asked about differences and similarities in play between themselves and
their partners, four mothers from both traditional and non-traditional families and one
father from a traditional family said that they thought that mothers participated in
imaginary play more often than fathers. When I asked the mother from one of the non-
traditional families if her husband participated in pretend play with their children, she
responded emphatically, "Never. No. Never. I've never seen him do that, no." Both
parents from another non-traditional family stated that they believed that there were no
differences between them in terms of initiating or engaging in imaginary play nor in
whom their daughter approached for imaginary play. One couple who had a traditional
division o f household work both agreed that the father engaged in more imaginary play
with their son than the mother. This is how they described it. First the mother:
S: Sometimes he just plays with the stuff to just play. Especially if
it involves imagination play and pretend play. He loves that.
L: By himself?
S: Or with Bill. He and Bill play Batman all the time. I have no
idea what it is. It involves neckties. I don't know.
L: It involves neckties?
S: I don't know. I don't know. They go in the bedroom and they
play Batman and he uses one of Bill's old ties. I don't know.
And sometimes they'll play boats.
L: Those are types of play that you don't do with Michael?
S: I don't know. I don't understand. I don't understand. He wants
to play Batman all the time. I don’ t understand what it is. It's
their thing.
In his interview, the father explained:
B: Role-playing. Good-guy, bad-guy. He'll be Batman ... and I’ ll
be the bad guy and he'll take me off to jail or something like that
and capture me. Those kinds of things I call more role-playing
games.
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L: Now is that the game that involves neckties?
B: Yeah, I have some old neckties, so he wanted to tie me up so I
could go to jail. So I gave him an old necktie to use and he'll
take the helicopter and go take me away.
To summarize the findings on imaginary play, the majority of both mothers and
fathers were found to participate in this type of play. There were no parental gender play
differences in imaginary play within one of the non-traditional families. Within one
traditional family, the findings in the literature were actually reversed, that is, the father
was found to initiate and engage in imaginary play more frequently than the mother.
Scaffolded Play
I sat on the arm of the armchair and watched Kim trying to teach Julia
how to jump rope. Kim was showing her how to throw the rope forward
over her head. Julia was either shaking it ineffectively in front o f her or
throwing it backward over her head so that it ended up behind her. Kim
got her to start with the rope behind her and then showed her how it was
supposed to come forward and land in front of her. After several tries
and several corrections from Kim, Julia was able to throw the rope
forward over her head. When she did so, Kim would clap and say, "Yea!
You did it! Now you have to jump." All that Julia was able to do was
to bring the rope forward over her head. She was very excited when she
did so because as far as she was concerned she was doing what needed to
be done. She didn't seem to get the idea that there was anything more
involved. Once she was consistently getting the rope forward more often
than not, Kim would tell her to jump. Julia would then jump, but not
over the rope. She would throw the rope forward and leave it hanging
on the floor as she jumped straight up into the air. Kim laughed as she
tried to explain to her that she needed to jump over the rope as it hit the
floor. This was a very funny scene because Julia had the parts right, that
is, throwing the rope over her head and jumping, but she didn't have her
timing right to be able to jump forward over the rope. Kim continued to
verbally instruct Julia as she tried to skip.
In a classic paper, "The Genesis of Higher Mental Functions," Vygotsky (1981)
formulated a general law of cultural development: "Any function in the child's cultural
development appears twice, or on two planes. First it appears on the social plane, and
then on the psychological plane. First it appears between people as an interpsychological
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category, and then within the child as an intrapsychological category" (p. 163). The
process o f internalization of behaviors occurs through the child's transition from
interpyschological functioning to intrapsychological functioning. At the level of
interpsychological functioning, the child relies upon others and the social interactive
environment to complete a goal-directed action. For example, a mother interprets a
child's random reaching for an object as the child's signal that she wants the object. The
combination of the child's reaching and the mother's response to it transforms a non-
communicative behavior into a goal-directed action. At the level of intrapsychological
functioning, the child has voluntary control over what had previously only existed in
terms of social interaction. The child is able to purposively point to the object that she
wants (Vygotsky, 1981).
In the episode of active play between Kim and her 2 year old daughter, Julia,
their actions combined to approximate the act of jumping rope. Wertsch (1979) extended
Vygotsky's theory when he identified and described four levels in the transition from
interpsychological to intrapsychological functioning. Kim's and Julia's play illustrates
the first level in which the situation is defined so differently for the adult and the child
that communication around the action is difficult. Kim attempted to guide her daughter
through the steps needed to complete the action of skipping, but Julia’ s understanding of
what she needed to do was so limited that she was unable to interpret Kim's directions
appropriately. She thought that, once she had brought the rope forward over her head,
she was skipping. Given Julia's age and level o f motor development, it is not surprising
that she was unable to formulate the idea, plan, and execute the necessary motor acts to
jump the rope (Ayres, 1985).
The second and third levels of the transition from interpsychological to
intrapyschological functioning are portrayed in this next excerpt from my fieldnotes.
Kim was again playing with Julia, but this time Christian, Julia's 5 year old brother, had
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joined them. They were playing a board game in which each player must connect four
game pieces in a vertical, horizontal, or diagonal row:
Julia went over to Kim who pulled her onto her lap, saying that she
could play with Mommy. They took turns putting their pieces into the
game board. When Christian got three black pieces in a row, he said,
"You better stop me. You better stop me." Kim put her own pieces in
until Julia said that she wanted to do it. Kim let her put them in after she
showed her where to put them. ... When Christian had three in a row on
the diagonal and could win the game with his next move, Kim stopped
the play and asked, "Okay, Christian, do you see how you can win? Do
you see how you can get four? Do you see where it is?" She gave him
the opportunity to stop and look before he took his turn. He said, "Okay,
I won." without putting his game piece in. She told him no, that he
hadn't won yet because he hadn't put his piece in. She asked him again
if he knew where to put it. He seemed to be looking in the right area,
but didn't look as if he knew for sure. He had been trying to get four in a
row vertically and horizontally, but didn't see the diagonal connection.
Finally, he held his hand with the piece in it over the correct slot and
asked, "Here?" Kim said yes and he dropped it into place. She took the
game board and tipped it for him to look at and asked him where it was.
She wanted him to count out the four in a row. He counted out three in a
row and then found four in a row by jumping across horizontal rows
before he found the four in a row on the diagonal. He didn't seem to
realize how he had won until Kim got him to see it and had him count it
out.
They played one more game. During this game, Kim seemed to spend
more time and effort trying to get Julia to play more independently. She
let Julia choose where to put the pieces by herself. ... At one point, Julia
didn't block Christian's three in a row. She put her piece somewhere
else. Kim stopped her. Christian said that she had already taken her
turn. Kim took the piece out and had Julia place it to block his play as
she told him, "she needs to learn." Christian won this game. It was
another diagonal four in a row. As she had done before, Kim let him
know that he could win the game with his next turn. He got the
placement of the piece correct, but still could not count out his four
pieces on the diagonal. He was counting horizontally and vertically.
Kim showed him the diagonal connection and had him count it out. She
commented that he always missed those connections.
Julia's actions in this play sequence illustrate the second level of transition to
intrapsychological functioning. Her definition of the situation was not as restricted by
her skill level as it was during her jump rope play. She shared a basic understanding of
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the need to drop the game pieces into the slots, but didn't understand the purpose of the
game. "The nature of the goal-directed action in which these objects were embedded"
(Wertsch, 1979, p. 163) eluded her understanding, therefore, she was unable to interpret
Kim's directions to block Christian's three game pieces in a row. Kim's action of
removing the piece in combination with Julia's action of placing it in the correct slot to
stop Christian transformed an unsuccessful game strategy into a successful one.
Christian's play depicts the third transition level to intrapsychological
functioning. He understood the purpose of the game well enough to be able to play
independently and without step-by-step directions. His definition of the situation was
adult-like in that he understood the rules and what was required of him to play and win
the game. When Kim's intervention was necessary to extend his level of understanding
of the game, he was able to respond to her indirect and non-explicit hints. The fourth
and final level in the transition from interpsychological and intrapsychological
functioning is reached when the child is entirely responsible for all aspects of the goal-
directed action and does not need any strategic assistance from the adult. As a child
achieves each of the four levels, more and more responsibility for the task that was
previously assumed by the adult is transferred to the child (Wertsch, 1979).
A common feature of a child's mastery of goal-directed tasks is the execution of
the task on the interpsychological plane prior to recognition of the strategic significance
of his or her actions. In essence, instead o f understanding the task and then completing
it, the child completes the task first and then understands what it is that he or she has
done. Interpsychological functioning, at one end of the continuum, refers to the adult's
and child's joint participation in the task. Intrapsychological functioning, at the other end
of the continuum, refers to the child's ability to complete the task by herself or himself.
The adult, through interpsychological functioning, walks the child through the task even
though the child may not understand why or what he or she is doing. So, in effect, the
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child learns by doing. Although Christian knew he had won the first game, he didn’ t
understand how he had done so. He made the winning move and then, with Kim's
guidance, he understood how it was that he had won. Similarly, Julia didn't understand
why Kim removed her game piece and had her place it somewhere else, but she jointly
participated in the action of replaying her piece. Because she was at the second level of
transition, unlike Christian, she did not understand what she had done even after she had
completed the action.
The first three levels of transition from interpsychological to intrapsychological
functioning are in the zone of proximal development (Wertsch, 1979). The zone of
proximal development is defined as "the distance between the actual developmental level
as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as
determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more
capable peers" (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86). Both Christian and Julia were able to participate
in the board game at a higher level of play under Kim's guidance than they would have
been if left to their own devices. Her guidance was slightly ahead o f their developmental
levels. According to Vygotsky,
Instruction is good only when it proceeds ahead of development. Then it
awakens and rouses to life an entire set of functions which are in the
stage o f maturing, which lie in the zone of proximal development. It is
in this way that instruction plays an extremely important role in
development, (cited in Wertsch, 1985, p. 71)
Bruner (1985) suggested that he believed that children often venture into the
zone of proximal development in the course o f play. Once there and when the child has
achieved some mastery of the activity, the role of the tutor, who acts "as a support
system for the child's foray into the zone of proximal development" (p. 29), is to increase
the level of challenge. A challenge that is on the leading edge o f the child's development
(Lee, 1985) keeps the child in the zone and prevents boredom. Kim was able to keep
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both Christian and Julia in the zone of proximal development by increasing the level of
the behaviors that she expected from them. Instead of allowing Christian to play the
game until he connected four pieces in a row in the horizontal or vertical plane, she
increased the challenge of the game by suggesting that he look for his winning
connection in the diagonal plane. Similarly, she required Julia to replay her piece to
block Christian's move instead of allowing her to drop her pieces willy-nilly into the
slots even though, at this point in time, she did not understand the difference.
In her interview, Kim shared her beliefs about challenge and play with her
children:
They think it's play but, to me, everything's a learning experience. I
think it's important that as you repeat things, you make it more
challenging. So that the next time, it becomes harder for them. ...I
think your level o f expectations, you need to raise them for them.
Kim's success in challenging her children was matched by her ability to fill in
the gaps in their abilities in such a way that they were successful. When Christian was
unable to see how he had won the game, she increased the amount o f information that
she gave him until he understood what he had done. This process of permitting the child
to do as much as he or she is spontaneously able to do and then filling in with whatever
the child cannot do has been called "scaffolding" (Bruner, 1985). The metaphor o f a
scaffold was first used by Wood, Bruner, and Ross in 1976 to describe a process which
enables the child or novice to solve a problem, carry out a task or
achieve a goal which would be beyond his unassisted efforts. This
scaffolding consists essentially o f the adult 'controlling' those elements
of the task that are initially beyond the learner's capacity, thus permitting
him to concentrate upon and complete only those elements that are
within his range o f competence. The task thus proceeds to a successful
conclusion. (Wood et al., 1976, p. 90)
Based upon observations of children and an adult engaged in a problem solving
task within a tutorial, Wood et al. described a scaffolding process that consists of several
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scaffolding functions. These functions are (a) recruitment or the enlistment of the child's
interest and engagement in the task at hand; (b) reduction in the degrees of freedom, that
is, simplification of the task through reduction of the steps required of the child as the
tutor fills in the remaining steps; (c) direction maintenance to ensure that the child stays
on track, remains motivated, and is able to risk taking the next step to reach the desired
goal; (d) marking critical features by drawing attention to or accentuating relevant
features of the task; (e) frustration control through assisting the child in management of
feelings of frustration; and (f) demonstration or modeling a correct solution to the task
that has been attempted, or assumed to be attempted, by the child. The tutor, in fact,
completes or explicates the solution that may have already been partially executed by the
child.
Recruitment of the child's interest was seldom a problem in the scaffolded play I
observed and documented throughout this study. Generally, the children were motivated
to participate in play activities and special efforts on the part of the parents were not
required. In some instances, however, the child wanted to move on to a different type of
play or game before the parent was ready to do so. In the following example, David and
Kristin were playing on the computer with some newly-installed computer software.
There were five separate games all with a mathematical focus. This excerpt shows how
David worked to engage Kristin in a particular game:
Kristin quit that game and moved on to the fourth game which was a dart
game with balloons on the dart board. A screen appeared that showed
squares with a number of different objects in them and some numbers.
The objects included things like clown faces, ducks, stars. Katie, from
where she was sitting on the couch, said, "This is the game that we didn't
do this morning." As he had done with each of the previous games,
David read the New Player's Hint in the message box slowly and out
loud, while pointing out each word with his finger. The instructions
were a little confusing. The game seemed to be a version of
Concentration where the player had to click on different squares to find
the number in one square that matched the number o f objects in another
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square. The confusing thing was that the entire board was revealed first
to give the player a chance to see where everything was. The player had
to then click the mouse so that the squares turned, like in the old game of
Concentration on TV, to reveal balloons that covered each square.
After reading the game instructions, David told Kristin to click the
mouse. She did so on the big top tent icon which sent her back to the
main menu screen. She went to click on the fifth game. David said,
"No, we didn't want to do that." Kristin said, "Let's do number 5."
David responded, "We didn't do number 4 yet. Let's go back and try that
one first." Kristin clicked back on game number 4. The balloon and
dart board game came up again. He said, "Okay, let's try clicking here."
Part of the problem seemed to be that it wasn't that clear from the
instructions how to get the game to start. Before he could show Kristin
where he wanted her to click, she clicked on the big top tent icon which
dumped her back out to the main menu again. David lurched forward as
if he were going to try to take the mouse from her to prevent her from
clicking and then groaned as the main menu appeared again. She tried to
go on to the fifth game. David said to her again, "Come on, let's try this
one. Let's give it one more try."
Once he successfully recruited Kristin to try the new game, David and Kristin
jointly participated in it:
When the screen came up, he pointed to where he wanted her to click
and said, "Okay, click there." She did so and the balloons covered the
numbers and objects on the squares. She clicked on two balloons. One
square contained six clown faces set up in such a way that you could not
immediately recognize them as six. You needed to count them to figure
it out. The other square had a number in it. I think it was nine. After a
few seconds, the squares turned around again, hiding what was on them.
David seemed to be still trying to figure this game out. He told Kristin
to click on two more squares. This time nine objects came up. He told
her to count them to see how many were there. As she moved the mouse
over to point at each one to count them, the squares turned around again.
David realized that there was a problem here. He took the mouse from
Kristin and went into the Game Options menu to look at the level of skill
required. The game was already at the lowest level. He commented on
this and returned to the game. He kept the mouse, clicked on two
squares, and said, "Okay. How many are here? Let's count them real
fast. 1 2 3 4 5 6. Okay, now where's the number 6?" David was able to
structure this game so that Kristin could be successful. He would click
on one square and wait so that they could count the objects together
before clicking on the second one. Then he would say, "Okay, where's
that number?" With the game structured in this manner, Kristin was able
to do it. She had a good memory of where the number that she needed
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was. Better than mine. I never quite figured out this game. David and
Kristin completed one game round in this manner. As the computer
started to set up the dart board again, Kristin clicked on the big top icon
to quit this game. It seemed as if she were not really interested in it,
probably because it was beyond her skill level. David said, as the
computer returned to the main screen, "We'll have to work on this one."
David used the scaffolding process to engage Kristin in a game that was clearly
above her current level in both mathematical and computer skills. Without his
intervention, she would not have been able to participate in it. David took over for
Kristin and structured the game so that she was able to do what she could do on her own
while he filled in the rest of the process for her. He reduced the degrees of freedom that
she needed to manage in the game by reducing the number of constituent acts required to
play the game successfully (Bruner, 1985; Wood et al., 1976). By taking over the
management of the mouse and the computer screen and using verbal cues, David allowed
Kristin to focus on the mathematical component of the game. In this manner, she was
able to practice her math skills at a level beyond that which she could have achieved
independently.
When goal-directed activity occurs on the interpsychological plane, the actions
of the child are often regulated by the adult in the adult-child dyad. The adult plans,
directs, and reflects on the activity at hand (Wertsch, McNamee, McLane, & Budwig,
1980). Thus, the responsibilities for achieving the goal of the activity are split between
the adult and child who function as an integrated social system. Specific actions of the
child, if done independently, are described as being self-regulated, but if the actions are
completed at the strategic direction of the adult, they are termed other-regulated. In the
following excerpt from my fieldnotes, Dawn and her 2 year old daughter, Jennifer, were
sorting and matching Sesame Street picture cards on Jennifer’s bedroom floor:
Now that at least one piece of all of the characters were down on the
floor, Dawn started showing Jennifer the matching pieces and asking her
where they went. Dawn had already found the body of Grover and had
placed it on the floor, asking Jennifer at the time that she found it who it
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was. Jennifer had not responded, seeming not to be able to recognize it
or know who it was. Now Dawn found Grover’ s head. She showed it to
Jennifer and asked, "Where does this one go?" Jennifer surveyed all the
cards spread out on the floor, but didn't see where it went. Dawn moved
the card back so that she held it over the card that was Grover's body.
Jennifer said, "There. It goes there." Dawn said, "Good girl." as she put
it down with the other one.
This interaction between Dawn and Jennifer illustrates the process of other-
regulation. When Jennifer scanned the cards and could not find a match for the one that
her mother held in her hand, Dawn moved it into the physical proximity of its match.
She regulated the direction of Jennifer’ s gaze and facilitated her daughter's achievement
of the matching task. This example also demonstrates another feature o f the scaffolding
process. Dawn's request for Jennifer to match the Sesame Street character’ s head with his
body functioned as direction maintenance (Wood et a!., 1976). Dawn and Jennifer had
been working together to sort the large stack of picture cards with the intent to pack them
for their use on a long airplane trip to their vacation destination. Jennifer had been
moving in and out of the process of sorting and matching the cards. Dawn successfully
brought her back to pursue their original objective. They continued to match the cards:
Dawn found the head of the Snuffluppopotamus. She gave it to Jennifer
to match with the animal's hind quarters. Jennifer placed the head in
front of the body in the correct place, but in the wrong orientation so that
the head was upside down. Dawn glanced over and then said, "Look at
it. Does it look right? What's wrong with it?" When Jennifer didn’ t
answer, Dawn said, "The head is upside down." Jennifer picked the
head piece up and turned it right side up. 1 was surprised to see that she
was able to figure out how to fix it after simply being told that it was
upside down. Dawn picked up the trunk that she had placed as a tail
earlier as she said that the trunk mustn't belong there. She told Jennifer
that the trunk must go up there as she handed it to her. Jennifer set it
down in front of the head, again in the correct place but upside down.
This time, Dawn said, "That doesn't look right. Why don't you try it the
other way and see what you think?" Jennifer turned it right side up.
Here, Dawn marked critical features of the matching task that were relevant to its
completion. In so doing, she pointed out a discrepancy between what Jennifer had done
and the correct match; the head was upside down. Dawn's interpretation of this
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discrepancy facilitated Jennifer's correct placement of the card. Her verbalizations
functioned as a scaffold to extend Jennifer's capabilities beyond what she was able to do
independently. These verbalizations are representative of a dimension of parental
teaching known as distancing strategies (Diaz, Neal, & Vachio, 1991; Sigel, 1982). The
conceptual questions of "Does it look right?" and "What's wrong with it?" as well as the
direct relinquishment question of "Why don't you try it the other way and see what you
think?" evoked Jennifer's mental representation of what she was doing and led to her
increased self-regulation and autonomy in the task (Diaz et al., 1991).
The transition from interpyschological functioning to intrapsychological
functioning as well as from other-regulation to self-regulation is illustrated in the next
example of scaffolded play with a toy. The entire scaffolding process, including
frustration control and modeling of the task previously attempted by the child with
limited success, is depicted. First, the toy was demonstrated prior to the child's play with
Paul had taken the whirly-gig toy out of its plastic bag and was
demonstrating it to Greg. The toy consisted of a small red cylindrical
piece that formed a handle and several circular pieces with blades similar
to the top blade of a helicopter. The circular pieces fit onto the top of
the cylindrical piece. Holding onto the handle of this bottom piece, Paul
pulled a smaller handle similar to the pull-start of a lawnmower. A
string unwound sending the circular blade piece sailing up into the air
and out into the grassy field. We all watched the blade fly through the
air. Greg laughed and squealed excitedly.
Next, Paul and Greg jointly participated in play with the toy as Paul scaffolded
his son's attempts to master it:
Greg came running back in towards Paul. Paul asked him if he wanted
to tiy it. Greg said okay. Paul helped Greg fit a blade onto the handle
by guiding his hands and showing him how to hold the handle piece. He
got Greg to hold the handle part out with one hand and then guided his
other hand to pull the string to release the blade. Greg's arms were not
stretched out that far from his body. As Paul helped Greg to pull out the
string, with Paul doing most of it, Carol cautioned them to watch Greg's
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eyes as she expressed her fear that the toy was too close to Greg's face.
Greg watched excitedly as the blade that he released flew through the air
to land out on the grass. Together, Paul and Greg released two more
blades into the air. ... After they had sent three blades out, Paul went
out to the field to pick them up.
Then, Greg attempted to play with the toy on his own with limited success:
Greg told Carol and I to watch as he did one by himself because he knew
how to do it now. He fit a blade onto the handle, but not securely
enough for it to stay on. When he tried to pull the string, he tipped the
handle towards the ground and the blade fell off, getting tangled up in
the string and his hands. Greg said, "Oops, I missed. I'll try again." He
took the blade and put it back on. Carol took a step towards him, saying
that she would show him how to hold it. Greg yelled out, "No, no! I'm
going to do it myself!" He ran away from her and ended up standing
about twelve feet behind us. Paul joined us with the blades that he had
retrieved. Greg continued to insist that he was going to do it himself.
He fit another blade on which also fell off before he could release it
because he was tipping the handle towards the ground when he tried to
pull the string. Greg said that he missed again. Carol approached Greg
as he said that he wanted to do it himself. She said that she understood
that, but that she just wanted to come and show him how to do it. As
she continued to talk to him in a gentle and soothing manner, she was
able to get close enough to him so that he allowed her to guide his arms
out in front of him. She straightened his elbows out so that the toy was
held away from his face at about nose level and positioned his hand so
that the handle remained perpendicular to the ground. She guided his
hand so that he was able to pull the string. This blade successfully flew
through the air. Excited and motivated by his success, Greg released
three or four more blades by himself.
After Greg’ s two unsuccessful attempts with the toy, Carol moved in to help him.
Initially, it appeared as if he were going to engage her in a stand-off as he insisted that he
wanted to do it himself. She was able to intervene and demonstrate the correct physical
position and movements, using him as a model, and thereby, prevented any further
frustration and lack of success on his part. Both Carol and Paul used the scaffolding
process to help Greg gain mastery over a new toy. His play with the toy became self
regulated as the responsibility for the play with the toy was transferred from his parents
to him.
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The transition from other-regulation to self-regulation is dramatically portrayed
in a microgenetic analysis of another computer game playing session between David and
Kristin. Microgenetic analysis of a limited observational session allows one to see how a
child learns a skill or becomes familiar with a concept within a matter of minutes or
hours (Wertsch & Hickmann, 1987). The computer game required Kristin to use the
keyboard functions instead of the mouse. David’ s level of scaffolding decreased as
Kristin took over responsibility for completing the necessary keyboard actions:
Initially, David needed to give Kristin a lot of help to figure out how this
game worked. The screen was a patchwork of quilt squares. Granny
Bear was sitting in a rocking chair in the upper left-hand comer knitting.
Some of the squares had lower case or upper case letters with blanks
where the missing upper case or lower case letters went. The rest of
squares were patterned like a patchwork quilt. The letters included j, s,
t, u, and v. Along the bottom of the screen were the missing letters.
Kristin was supposed to pick a letter and move it next to its matching
letter in the quilt. ... There were four steps to complete the mechanics of
this program. Kristin had to use the arrow keys to highlight a letter, then
the enter key to select that letter, then the arrow keys to position the
letter next to its match in the top part of the screen, and finally the enter
key to complete the process. Once she did this, Granny Bear would say,
"Very good!" while rocking and knitting energetically.
David had to walk Kristin through this process step-by-step for the first
letter. For example; Use the arrow keys to highlight a letter, hit enter.
Use the arrow keys to move it up to its match. Get it closer and inside
the box. Now hit enter. After the first time, David told her to pick
another letter. Kristin picked the letter u. David had to tell her to hit the
enter key. She was able to position it in its correct place by herself, but
David needed to remind her to hit the enter key to complete the process.
She selected j next. This time she used the enter key to select it and was
able to position it by herself. She forgot to hit the enter key to complete
the process. David leaned over and whispered in her ear, "Press enter."
The fourth letter was t. Kristin was able to highlight it herself, but
needed David to remind her to press enter to select it. ... She moved the
t up to its spot, started to hit the enter key, and then stopped. David said
"That's right, Kristin. Hit enter." She did so. She returned to the
bottom of the screen to select the last letter, a lower case s. ... Kristin
positioned the letter correctly and hit the enter key without David's help.
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The keyboard actions were initially jointly managed by David and Kristin. He
guided her through the first round of the game with highly supportive scaffolding that led
her step-by-step through the procedure. As the game progressed, both David and Kristin
tried out her readiness to take on greater responsibility for the management of the
keyboard actions (Rogoff & Gardner, 1984). In this way, they negotiated the division of
responsibility until she was able to play independently. The construction of a scaffold is
an interactive process between the parent and the child (Greenfield, 1984). In response
to the child's needs, the parent acts to assist him or her. The child's response to the
parent's assistance guides the nature and extent of the scaffolding provided. Thus, the
parent and child exert a mutual influence upon each other. This process is apparent in
the following example. Donna and her 4 year old daughter, Brenda, were playing
"school time", during which they practiced pre-academic skills. Brenda was tracing
letters in a pre-writing skills workbook. The visual cues for each letter provided by the
worksheet decreased as she moved horizontally across the page.
Brenda started at the top of the page with the letter A. She was able to
trace the solid-lined letter on her own with Donna's verbals on where to
start. Donna was focused throughout this worksheet on the order in
which each letter stroke was made. For example, with the letter A,
Donna told Brenda to start at the top and go down, and then go back to
the top and go down again, and then finally to draw the line across,
joining the slanted lines. Donna referred back to the slanted lines that
Brenda had traced on the previous, page and said that these lines were
just like those ones. Donna always provided verbal support and
direction for Brenda, but she also provided hands-on physical guidance
when the verbals were not enough on their own or when Brenda was
moving too quickly and not listening to the verbals her mother was
giving her. For the first two or three squares of each letter, Donna used
her hands to guide Brenda as necessary. Once Brenda seemed to catch
on to that particular letter, Donna would back off with the physical
guidance and use verbal directions to tell Brenda what to do. She might
tell her to start at the top and go down or to draw a line across depending
upon the assistance Brenda required. When she needed to, she would
step back in with physical guidance and use her fingertips to provide
light pressure to Brenda's hand or to point to where Brenda should put
her crayon and the direction in which she should move it. Brenda was
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able to draw most of the letters by herself once she reached the end of
each letter's row.
Although this interaction between Donna and Brenda was not as playful as the
previous examples of parent-child play, I have included it for its value in clearly
demonstrating the parental scaffolding process. Donna also defined the entire interaction
with her daughter from which this episode was taken as a form of play for Brenda. Her
definition o f play included "learning because that's what we do is we play to figure
things out." The levels of the scaffold which Donna provided Brenda in order of
decreasing support were (a) full grasp of and actual physical movement of Brenda's hand,
(b) light fingertip pressure to her hand as physical guidance, (c) pointing to the
worksheet, and (d) verbal direction. Parental scaffolding is not always perfectly fitted to
the child's needs, nor should it be. Besides being inevitable, errors allow the parent to
test the child's understanding and readiness for self-regulation of the task (Rogoff &
Gardner, 1984). Donna was observed to test Brenda in this manner:
On the last F where the square was blank, Donna left Brenda to do it on
her own. She didn't provide any hands-on physical guidance or any
verbal direction. Brenda's F ended up being upside down. She started
her stroke at the top of the page as she'd learned, but she drew her line up
instead o f down. Then she drew the top horizontal line of the F in the
correct place, but drew the second one above it so that the F was upside
down. When she was finished, she sat back and seemed to be
scrutinizing it as if to figure out what had gone wrong. Donna asked,
"What's wrong with it?" Brenda continued to look at it. Donna said,
"It's upside down, isn't it?" Brenda nodded yes. Donna said, "Okay.
Make your line here." as she pointed and moved her hand down to
indicate the direction in which Brenda needed to draw. Brenda made the
correct downstroke and then drew the bottom horizontal line so that she
had printed her F correctly, although there was still an upside down F
connected to it.
Donna's behavior was consistent with other parents who were found to decrease
their scaffolding with the child's success and increase it following failure (Pratt, Kerig,
Cowan, & Cowan, 1988; Rogoff & Gardner, 1984). Brenda’ s error provided Donna with
valuable information about her daughter's readiness for the transfer of responsibility. In
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this case, the error indicated that Brenda was not ready to take on any more responsibility
and still required other-regulation to successfully print the letters on her worksheet.
Along with these almost-textbook cases of scaffolded play, I observed negative
instances in which the parents seemed to provide too much support and failed in their
attempts to scaffold their child's play. Play with a puzzle between Peggy and her 2 year
old daughter, Laura, is one example:
Laura returned with a wooden puzzle with cut-out pieces. It contained
barnyard animals and a bam. She had brought only a few of the pieces
with her. She almost lined up the first piece. Peggy helped her to push
it into place. As Laura held up a piece of the puzzle, Peggy asked her
what it was and then identified it for her. For example, she said, "What
is that?" When Laura didn't respond, Peggy said, "It's a pig. Where
does the pig go?" Sometimes, Laura found the correct spot.
Occasionally, Peggy had to correct her by saying, "No, that's the cow.
Where's the pig?" Laura was able to find and fit the second piece into
place by herself. As she attempted to do this, Peggy told her to turn the
piece until it fit. When she was successful, Peggy praised her. After she
had finished with these two pieces, she held up her empty hands and
said, "Done." Peggy said that there were more pieces and that they must
be in her room.
Laura got up and went to look for more pieces. ... She returned with
more puzzle pieces. Peggy picked up some Lego pieces and began to
put them together in a haphazard fashion. Laura sat down by the puzzle
board and said, "Mommy." to get Peggy’ s attention. Peggy looked up,
identified the animal, asked where it went, and then showed her. Laura
made a minimal attempt to put the piece in and then said, "Mommy."
Peggy reached over and helped Laura by turning the piece for her so that
it fell into place. Peggy continued to build with the Lego. Laura said,
"Done." Peggy repeated that there must be some more pieces in her
room. Laura got up and ran to her room. She returned with more puzzle
pieces. Before she tried to place a piece, Laura said, "Mommy." and
handed it to Peggy. Peggy identified the piece, found the correct spot,
and put it in the formboard.
Initially, Peggy seemed to provide the level of scaffolding that Laura needed to
successfully place the puzzle pieces but, as they continued to play, Laura appeared to
become less self-regulated than she had been and began to ask her mother for more help.
By the end of this play sequence, Peggy took the puzzle pieces as Laura handed them to
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her and placed them in the puzzle for her. Not only did Peggy stop scaffolding her
daughter's play, but also she took over most of the responsibility for their joint
participation in the puzzle. Placement of the puzzle pieces started as a joint action
between mother and daughter, but ended with the solitary action of the mother.
During the participant observation phase o f this study, I observed many play
sequences between parents and their children. Some of them included episodes of
scaffolded play, some of them did not, and some of them included negative instances, or
missed opportunities for scaffolded play. Although I have called this type of parent-child
play scaffolded play, it has been referred to in the literature as scaffolding or tutoring
(Bruner, 1985; Farver, 1993; Findji, 1993; Hodapp, Goldfield, & Boyatzis, 1984;
McNaughton & Leyland, 1990; Sigel, 1982; Vandell & Wilson, 1987; Wood et al.,
1976). The majority of studies have focused on maternal scaffolding, but the few studies
to investigate paternal scaffolding have not indicated any parental gender differences
(Parke, 1981; Pratt et al., 1988; Sigel, 1982). O f the 18 parents who were observed
within their homes, 16 of them, 9 mothers and 7 fathers, were found to engage in
scaffolded play with their children. The two fathers who were not observed to participate
in this type o f play were from traditional and non-traditional families. These findings
suggest that this type of parent-child play was unrelated to either gender per se or to
divisions o f household work based upon gender.
Summary
The data collected in this study provided many examples of the types of parent-
child play that have been described in the literature. For the purposes of this study, these
types o f play were labeled rough and tumble play, active play, sedentary play, imaginary
play, and scaffolded play. The majority of studies within the literature indicated that
fathers were more likely than mothers to engage in rough and tumble play with their
children, whereas mothers were more likely than fathers to participate in sedentary and
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imaginary play activities with their children (Carson, Burks, & Parke, 1993). Studies of
parents' engagement in scaffolded play with their children did not demonstrate any
differences between mothers and fathers (Parke, 1981; Pratt et al., 1988; Sigel, 1982).
A gender analysis of my data generally replicated some of the findings within the
literature, but negative cases occurred in which the findings were not supported or were
reversed. Parental gender play differences were noted in rough and tumble play across
both traditional and non-traditional families. Sedentary play differences between
mothers and fathers were more marked within the traditional families than the non-
traditional families. The data on imaginary play were conflicting. Five traditional and
non-traditional families reported parental gender play differences, one non-traditional
family reported no differences, and one traditional family demonstrated parental gender
differences that actually reversed those found in the literature. The data on scaffolded
play supported the findings in the literature of no parental gender differences.
The fact that all ten of the fathers engaged in rough and tumble play and all ten
o f the mothers participated in sedentary and imaginary play supports parental gender play
differences, but equally significant are the findings that nine mothers engaged in rough
and tumble play, nine fathers participated in sedentary play, and six fathers engaged in
imaginary play with their children. The bigger picture o f gender similarities may be lost
if too narrow a focus on gender differences is applied to the data. Within the Held of
scientific research and the world at large, differences between men and women, or
mothers and fathers, are often exaggerated and similarities too frequently are suppressed
(Fausto-Sterling, 1985; Rubin, 1975; West & Zimmerman, 1987). The findings of this
study dramatically demonstrated that fathers and mothers were more likely to engage in a
wide range of play activities than they were to limit themselves to gender-specialized
types o f play. Rough and tumble play, which has long been the stronghold of parental
gender play differences (Carson, Burks, & Parke, 1993), differentiated between fathers
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and mothers more in terms o f the intensity and amount o f risk-taking than in the actual
quantity of the play itself.
Another interesting finding was that parental gender play differences in rough
and tumble play and sedentary play were most salient to members of the other gender. In
the case of rough and tumble play, all ten o f the mothers said that the fathers participated
in more rough and tumble play than they did, whereas only seven fathers noted the same
difference. In the case of sedentary play, all ten of the fathers said that the mothers
engaged in more sedentary play activities than they did, but only six mothers perceived
themselves as doing so. This finding suggests that the parents may have been more
likely to compare themselves to their partners than to note their own play styles. Two
parents from different traditional families specifically referred to this tendency to notice
their children's enjoyment of something that their partners were doing with them. They
talked about how they and their partners adopted play activities from each other and
incorporated them into their own play with their children. The mothers and fathers in
this study participated in a wide range of play activities and were not limited to gender-
specialized types of play. O f note was the amount of overlap between the play activities
o f the mothers and fathers. In some cases, their similarities were as striking as their
differences.
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CHAPTER 6
Orchestration of Work and Play Within Families
Introduction
David left the room and returned with a package of clean diapers from
the diaper service and the hanging diaper holder from Kristin's and
Meg's room. He sat down on the floor next to Kristin. He began to fold
the diapers and put them in the diaper holder. Kristin played with her
two Barbie dolls. She sat each one of them in turn in the beauty salon
chair and pretended to cut and fix their hair. It was actually Katie who
did most of the verbalization around Kristin's play. She was sitting on
the couch while she breastfed Meg. She would say, "Oh, are you cutting
their hair?" and "Shouldn't you brush it out now?" and "Did you wash
their hair in the sink already?" David was sitting next to Kristin on the
floor, but was not really interacting with her to the extent that Katie was.
He was listening to the football game as he folded the diapers. At one
point, Kristin asked him if he was going to play Barbies with her. He
said that he was folding the diapers and that he would play with her
when he was done with them. Every once in a while, he would say,
"Oh, so you cut Barbie's hair. Very nice." but it was really Katie who
was engaged in Kristin's Barbie play on an ongoing basis.
The parents in this passage from my fieldnotes demonstrate two different types
of strategies used by the parents in the study to include time and play with their
preschool-aged children in their daily routines and occupations. Both of the parents were
engaged in household work occupations. The father was folding diapers and putting
them away, a laundry and clothing care task, while listening attentively to the football
game on the radio. The mother was feeding the baby, a child care task. Their 4 year old
daughter was playing with her Barbie dolls. The father, David, segregated his
participation in household work from his play with Kristin. The mother, Katie,
participated in Kristin's play at the same time as she provided child care to the baby,
Meg. Both parents enjoyed football and were listening to the game on the radio, but
Katie managed to enfold all three occupations, feeding the baby, listening to the football
game, and playing with Kristin, while David enfolded only two, folding the diapers and
listening to the football game. Bateson (in press) stated that women were more likely
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than men to enfold occupations by participating in more than one occupation
simultaneously. Here both Katie and David were engaged in enfolded occupations, but
David segregated his participation in his occupations from his play with his daughter.
I identified two types of strategies used by parents to orchestrate their work and
play involvement within their families. They were (a) strategies of segregation, and (b)
strategies of inclusion. Strategies of segregation were used when parents segregated
themselves from their children's play or segregated their children from them while they
were engaged in work occupations. In the example provided above, although in close
physical proximity to Kristin, David limited his involvement in her play while he was
engaged in a work task. Prior to beginning this work task, David and Kristin had played
at length on the computer. Once this task was completed, David returned to rough and
tumble and imaginary play with her. Strategies of inclusion occurred when parents
participated in play with their children while engaged in household work activities or
allowed their children to participate in the work tasks with them. Katie, although
physically farther away from Kristin than David, was more actively involved in her play
while she breastfed the baby. Strategies o f segregation resulted in parent-child play
within the context of daily routines. Strategies of inclusion were manifested as play
embedded in household work.
The following chapter will present the study's findings on the orchestration of
work and play within families. First, play within the context of daily routines will be
discussed. Strategies of segregation used by the parents to incorporate parent-child play
into the families' daily routines will be described. Next, play embedded in household
work will presented. The parents' strategies of inclusion which resulted in two types of
parent-child play: (a) parental participation in play within household work, and (b)
scaffolded play within household work will be introduced and detailed. The experience
of the participants in play embedded in household work will also be described. Finally, a
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summary of the findings on the orchestration of work and play within families will be
provided.
Play Within the Context of Daily Routines
Every day, I am comforted that I know that there's always going to be
that time when we are playing, even if it's not by the clock, but I just
know that it's going to take place. That certain things are going to be
done. It's almost like the invisible routine that you know it's there, but
you're not really aware that you're doing it. I know we'll have our little
times because that's just a daily thing, but I couldn't tell you exactly
when or what we would do. It's just kind of whatever is going on at the
moment. ... I try to keep the balance thing. And I always know that, if I
feel like I'm doing too much of the work thing, that I'm going to pull
back and say, "Okay, enough of this. Let's go roll around on the couch."
... There's going to be that break. Whatever is at hand, either playing
with toys or watching something together on TV. I just count on that
happening. Because it always does.
Carol, a mother from a non-traditional family, gave this description in response
to my question of whether she planned time in her day to spend with her son, Greg.
Other parents responded in similar fashion. When I asked Dawn, who was from a
traditional family, how she fit time or play with her daughter, Jennifer, into her day, she
replied, "It just falls into the schedule." George, a father who shared child care, said that
play time with his children fit in around his paid work and household work because "I
usually know that I'm going to have time for them somewhere. It's not like I feel like I
need to make time because I may not have it. I know I'll have it somewhere."
Carol's "invisible routine" was the result of her use of strategies of segregation to
balance her daily participation in household work and play with her children. Nine of the
ten women in the study and six of the ten men used strategies of segregation while
engaged in household work. All of the men from the four most traditional families
segregated their play with their children from their participation in household work. The
parents frequently talked about the process of interspersing time and play with their
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children among their other household responsibilities. Peggy, who was from a family
with a traditional division of household work, explained it in this way:
Got to go clean house now. You guys can play with yourselves. ... I
decide when it's time for me to stop [playing because] I have to go clean
or something or do something. ... I know everything else I have to do,
so I'm thinking, "I've got to do this." while I'm playing with them, so it's
real short. ... Someone told me that, with kids, even if you spend ten
minutes with them, it seems like an hour to them. So if I spend ten
minutes with them, I'm fine. They know that I'm spending time. I break
it up. Brent will spend a whole hour with them. I'll break it up here and
there.
Kim, whose husband, George, shared the child care but not the housework,
talked about this same strategy of interspersing play with work. She said, "I've always
had to work around, I've always had to incorporate things for them around what I have to
get done. ... I'm grabbing 15 minutes here to play a game before I have to start doing
something here."
While talking about how her play with her son was "interspersed with the other
priorities or duties," Carol, who shared both child care and housework with her husband,
said that she tried to make their daily routines fun for Greg:
I don't want him to feel like, "Oh, what a drag." ... I think that’ s why in
my mind I'm like, "Fun! Fun! Fun!" Even though I know it doesn't
translate all the time like, "Fun! Fun! Fun!" It's more like, "Fun! Do
some work and then have a little bit of fun."
Fathers also talked about this process of interspersing work with play. Paul, who
shared household work with Carol, said:
If I have to work around the house, I tend to be focused on what I’ m
doing. If I have to vacuum or do the dishes, that's just what I'm doing.
... And I like to just go through it and get it done. ... The housework is
sort of spontaneous. I don't always plan ahead. I might just be home
and I might be playing with them and, all of a sudden, I'll think, "Oh, I
got to vacuum." And I’ ll just grab the vacuum and vacuum. And then I
might go back and play with them some more, so it's sort of
spontaneous.
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Another father, Colin, who shared child care and some housework, explained
what might happen when he was involved in housework and his son, Craig, wanted him
to play with him:
I tell him, "No, I'm working. I can't stop and play with you right now."
and he would get upset about that, but I just tell him that there's certain
times, as much as I would like to, I just can't stop and play with you.
Mike, who was from a traditional family, described how he managed to
segregate Jennifer from his housework tasks:
Sometimes you have to break the play time off for me to get something
done, like folding the clothes, or doing the dishes, or something like
that. It's something that has to be done, but then these are all little
things. It's not like I have a big long list and I just do all these things
and it would shut her down. It's just maybe for a half hour or so. ... I'd
maybe set her up with a videotape or something like that and go do it
and then go back. I'd be back there [in the kitchen] and she understands.
... I wouldn't just say, "Hey, get out o f here. I got to go do this." I
make sure she's occupied with something and then take care of it.
Several parents referred to setting up things for their children to do while they
worked, such as watching videotapes or television. They also talked about taking
advantage of times when their children were already engaged in independent play to do
housework. Monique, a mother from a traditional family, explained how this was
frequently the case with her daughter, Bridget:
A lot of times, she'll just be sitting around playing and that's when I take
the opportunity to clean the bar or grab the laundry and start doing that.
... [On the weekends], I'll get up and I'll get my stuff that I want to get
done taken care of in the morning. ...I always have dishes to do, or
want to throw a load of laundry in, or want to cook a breakfast or
something. And she likes to lounge around in the mornings, sometimes
in her jammies and stuff. So that’ s my opportunity where sometimes she
just wants to be on her own in the morning. So that's when I'll putter
around the house and do what I feel needs to get done. ... She'll get up
in the morning and she'll come kick back on the couch or she'll just
cruise around and she's very content in the mornings doing her own
thing. And that's when I can kind of piddle and then later on, then it's
like, "OK, Mommy, let’ s do this." Then I feel like I've accomplished
what I needed to get done and then I can spend time with them.
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Maggie, who was from a non-traditional family, also made sure that her son was
occupied while she was doing housework. Her husband, Colin, shared child care and
some of the housework. Maggie's mother lived with them and also participated in some
of the household work. She discussed how she ensured that her son, Craig, was
segregated from her while she did the housework:
Actually, Mom is a big help because, if I need to do something, then she
usually takes over play with Craig. I'm fortunate in that there's usually
somebody else there if I'm not available to actually be playing. ... I
usually try and arrange the housework to be done when Mom can take
care of him or, for example, when [his aunt and uncle] are over and
somebody else is here. ... I do schedule the housework around his time
with the other people that are available. Either his friends come over or
[his aunt and uncle] or "Daddy, take him. Go do something with him."
... I take advantage of whoever is here.
Maggie's statement resonates with one of the findings presented in Chapter 4.
Cleaning the house and laundry and clothing care are resistant to change in the traditional
allocation of this task to women. All of the fathers from both traditional and non-
traditional families were more likely to take over the care of their children while the
mothers completed the cleaning tasks than they were to participate in the cleaning work
itself. David, a non-traditional father, discussed this difference between him and his
wife:
I can be playing with Kristin on the floor and Katie’Il be cleaning the
house. She'll be doing laundry. She'll be folding clothes and I'm
tickling Kristin. I probably get to do more of that than the other way
around. The other way around, Katie laying on the floor and me folding
clothes, that will happen, but it's more likely that it would be Katie
continuing to do the housework and I take a break and deal with the
children. That's a far more likely scenario.
Divisions of household work which allocated the majority of the housework to
women explain why all of the women and only six of the men in this study used
strategies of segregation to incorporate play with their children into their daily routines.
Four of these six men were from non-traditional families. This finding suggests that
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responsibility for household work increases the likelihood of parents' use of strategies of
segregation to orchestrate their participation in household work and parent-child play.
Even within non-traditional families, the nature of the work that was typically relegated
to the women resulted in their spending a greater amount of time in household work than
the men did. Tasks typically allocated to women, such as meal preparation and clean up
and some cleaning tasks occur on a daily, or almost daily, basis. Outdoor and indoor
maintenance tasks, which are conventionally assigned to men, do not generally occur on
a daily basis, therefore, the fathers had less call to use segregation strategies since they
were less likely to be doing housework in the course of a typical day than were the
mothers. A segregation strategy used by some of the mothers to deal with the dailiness
of the housework was to leave the work that could be left until after the children were in
bed. One mother laughed as she said:
I never go to bed before 12:00 or 1:00. I truly don't see how people can
come home and spend time with their kids, have dinner, have good time,
and do the other things that need to be done in their lives as well, and get
to bed by 10:00. I don't see how anybody can do that.
Eight of the ten families seemed to attach higher importance to the fathers' paid
work than to the mothers' as evidenced by the women's plans to accommodate their paid
work participation to the demands of household work. This increased responsibility for
paid work on the part of the fathers led to six men using strategies o f segregation to
intersperse play with their children among paid work tasks conducted within their homes.
Only three women used segregation strategies for these purposes. Two women spoke of
studying and completing schoolwork while their children were sleeping, however, their
education plans were designed to lead to jobs that could ultimately be accommodated to
their household work responsibilities. One woman talked about the need for the children
to play independently while she completed paperwork for her husband's self-
employment. Her work contributed to her husband's paid work rather than her own.
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Thus, these three women's segregation of paid work tasks from the children's play
differed from the primary breadwinning expectations for their husband's paid work
participation while at home.
One father from a non-traditional family eloquently described his segregation of
paid work and play time with his daughter:
If I've got ten minutes before I have to do something, I've got ten
minutes of standing around, I'll do something in those ten minutes.
We'll have interaction. Okay. Okay, Daddy's got to go now. ... Just
little cracks here and there. I have a lot of that with her. We've got ten
minutes before we sit down to dinner, I've got dinner, and I've got five
minutes after dinner. And then, I've got to go for an appointment and
then I get story time. After her bath, I come back. So that’ s kind of how
I get my time. ... I fit it in around work It’ s cracks of time. ... I try
to make a conscious effort. Let's say I've got to make ten phone calls,
maybe after five phone calls, I'll stop and interact with her. Okay, and
now I've got to go back and do the rest o f my phone calls. So I try to
work it in as I go.
The use of strategies of segregation by parents to intersperse time and play with
their children among their household work and paid work tasks at home resulted in a
routine of work and play occupations that occurred sequentially throughout the day.
Parents who participated in paid work with a conventional Monday through Friday days
with weekends off schedule were almost unanimous in stating that weekday mornings
were the least likely times for play and interaction with their children and that weekday
evenings and weekend days were most likely times. Two mothers who were home
during the weekdays agreed that early mornings were least likely times for play, but that
late mornings and early afternoons were most likely times for them to interact and play
with their children. Fathers who worked shifts or weekends found that their times to
play with their children varied with the shifts that they worked. One father who worked
in real estate sales had more time in the weekday mornings, but was frequently
unavailable on weekend days.
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Parent-child play within the families in this study occurred more frequently than
the data on strategies o f segregation presented above have suggested. In a discussion of
the difficulties inherent in measuring the time involved in mothering work, Ruddick
(1995) stated that mothers frequently engage in their household work while caring for or
supervising their children at the same time. She believed that a frequent dilemma arises
for mothers when they stop their work to play with their children; they are no longer
working and their work is left undone. Their participation in household work and in play
with their children conflicts. The data from this study suggest that parents have
developed ways to deal with this conflict. They were observed to use strategies of
inclusion to create opportunities for parent-child play embedded in household work.
Plav Embedded in Household Work
Kim was across the kitchen by the silverware drawer. She folded two
napkins in half and gave them to Julia. She told her to put them on the
placemats. While Julia was doing this, Kim told her, "Come get the
spoons." Julia repeated to herself, "Get the spoons." She set the napkins
on the table next to the placemats, Christian's on the right and hers on
the left. By the time Julia had finished with the napkins, Kim had two
spoons and two forks out for her. She took them back to the table and
set them on the napkins. She took a minute to make sure that she had a
fork and spoon with each napkin. She tried Christian's napkin and
silverware on the placemat, but then put them back on the table. ... Kim
joined her at the table, picked up Christian's napkin and silverware, and
asked Julia, "How about if we put these on the placemat?" as she did so.
Julia said emphatically, "No! No!" so Kim said, "Okay." and put them
back where Julia had originally placed them. Kim went over by the
kitchen sink and leant against the cupboard. Julia came over to her.
Kim picked her up, pulled her close to her, and gave her a hug. She
leaned back against the cupboard still holding Julia and asked her, "Can
I have a lunch-is-almost-ready kiss?" Julia said no. Kim asked, "Can I
have a we-played-outside kiss?" Julia said no. Kim asked, "Can I have
a we-went-for-a-walk kiss?" Julia said no. Kim asked, "Can I have a
Christian's-watching-a-movie kiss?" Julia said no. Kim continued, "Can
I have a Mommy-loves-you kiss?" Julia said no. Kim asked, "Can I
have a Mommy's-making-lunch kiss?" Again, Julia refused her. Finally,
Kim pulled her close and kissed her anyway.
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Two different strategies of inclusion are illustrated in this passage from my
fieldnotes. Kim was preparing lunch for her 5 year old son, Christian, and her 2 year old
daughter, Julia. Christian was watching a videotape in the living room and Julia was
with her mother in the kitchen. Kim involved Julia in the work o f setting the table for
their lunch. This is an example of scaffolded play within household work. After they
had completed the task o f setting the table and while waiting for their lunch to finish
cooking, Kim, who was still involved in the work of meal preparation, took the
opportunity to participate in a moment of cuddly, affectionate play with her daughter.
This is an example of parental participation in play within household work. All o f the
mothers and fathers in the study combined play with their child and household work
through the use of at least one of these strategies of inclusion. In fact, when asked how
they played or what were their favorite things to do with their children, all o f the mothers
and half of the fathers provided examples o f play embedded in household work. This
process of embedding play within household work resulted in their engagement in
enfolded occupations (Bateson, in press).
Parental Participation in Plav Within Household Work
Parental participation in play within household work was employed as a strategy
by all of the parents. It occurred more often while the parents were engaged in the care
o f their children, but I also observed it during the parents' completion of housework.
Here is an excerpt from my fieldnotes describing George, a father from a non-traditional
family, as he participated in play with his children while engaged in yard work:
As I turned onto their street, I saw Julia and Christian running along the
sidewalk in front of their house. They were in their bathing suits and
George was sprinkling them with the hose as he watered the lawn. I
parked the car across the street from their house. Julia had seen my car
and seemed to recognize me. She stopped running away and watched as
I walked over to their front yard and greeted George. He had turned the
hose back onto the grass while he greeted me. I laughed as I watched the
kids. They had run away from George and the hose during his last
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sprinkle and were now stopped just out of the immediate reach o f the
hose. They were baiting their father by saying, "Neener, neener,
neeener, Daddy! You can't get me." as they started to slowly walk back
within range of the hose. George pretended not to notice them and then
suddenly lifted the hose from the grass to sprinkle them. This action
sent the kids running down the sidewalk again out of the water’ s reach.
This sequence of events was repeated several times. Both George and
the kids were laughing heartily as they did this. I laughed as I watched
them.
I observed or was told about this particular combination o f play and work during
the summer months in four of the five families in the study who lived in homes with
yards. Both traditional and non-traditional mothers and fathers embedded play in work
in this manner. Two families were observed combining play and work inside the house
in a similar fashion. One mother from a traditional family told me, "I can turn on the
music and it can occupy the kids while I vacuum and it’ s fun anyway. They like to dance
and stuff so I kind of enjoy it."
I observed another mother, also from a traditional family, embed this type of
play with her children in her housework. She decided that she was going to vacuum and
turned on the stereo so that the music played loudly while she worked. Throughout this
time, she danced or swayed to the music while vacuuming and keeping a close eye on
her 3 year old and 1 year old daughters. After she finished vacuuming and while still
engaged in cleaning up the house, she initiated play with her 3 year old daughter, Katlyn:
Just as Linda was finishing up her vacuuming, Katlyn found a black
leather belt with a gold buckle. She began to play with it and ended up
tying a knot in it. ... Linda said, "Oh, that's Daddy's belt. Can you take
it upstairs and put it in his closet?" Katlyn walked over and tried to give
the belt to me, leaving it on the stairs when I wouldn't take it. ... Linda
walked over to the stairs and picked up the belt. She said something
like, "You didn't really need to tie Daddy's belt up in a knot." as she
untied it. She snapped the belt in the air towards Katlyn a couple of
times, asking her if Daddy had taken it off to spank her with it. She
tapped Katlyn's bottom with it a time or two and then told her to take it
upstairs and put it away or she was going to get her with it. Katlyn
squealed with anticipation as she grabbed the belt and headed over to the
stairs with it in her hand. ... Linda chased after her, telling her that she
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was going to get her and use the belt on her if she didn't go put it away
now. Katlyn got partway up the stairs,... turned around, and snapped
the fully-extended belt in Linda's direction. Linda told her to be careful
as she reached out to double the belt over so that it wasn't as long.
Katlyn threatened Linda with the belt as if she were going to hit her.
Linda said, "Oh, you're not going to get me with that. I'm going to get
you! I'm going to get you!" She made a small charge up the stairs after
Katlyn, who turned and ran farther up them. Linda continued to tell her
that she'd better get going or she was going to get her. She told her to go
put the belt into Daddy’ s closet. Katlyn ran into the master bedroom,
closing the door behind her. Both Linda and Katlyn had been laughing
throughout this entire play sequence. It was obvious that it was playful
for both of them.
As I watched this play episode, I noted that Linda's play with Katlyn was
directed towards getting her to comply with her request to put the belt away. As such, it
was embedded in Linda's work of cleaning the house. The instrumental use of pretend
play by mothers within the context of household chores and caregiving to proactively
manage their children's behavior and to negotiate problematic interactions has been
documented (Haight, Masiello, Dickson, Huckeby, & Black, 1994). I observed both
mothers and fathers using play embedded in household work with a similar purpose in
mind. Kim, a mother of two children from a non-traditional family, explained:
I think sometimes I'll use play to diffuse a situation. I'm not sure that
that's really appropriate, but that's what happens. Obviously, their
attention spans are the big key to a lot of things, and the longer you are
somewhere, the harder it is to keep them focused. ... [The other day] I
took them out to lunch. ... They had the best lunch, but then, towards
the end, I was waiting for the check and they were finished with their
food and they wanted to get out of there. We took the sugar packets and
we were building things. I mean you just have to make stuff up
sometimes. Otherwise, they would have probably kicked us out of the
restaurant because we were being so obnoxious. ... You make it a game
like that and that seems to work a lot better.
Bill, a father from a traditional family, also discussed how he used play
embedded in household work to manage his child's unruly or overly active behavior
during his wife's pregnancy when her patience was limited by her physical discomfort:
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If I see that there's a situation developing,... I would take him in a car
trip to someplace else, going shopping, grocery shopping or go out and
do something or whatever. Make a reason to go and pull him out of a
situation.
Mothers spontaneously used pretend play to proactively manage their children's
behavior during grocery shopping (Holden, 1983). Dawn, a mother from a traditional
family told me how she participated in types of play other than pretend play with her 2
year old daughter, Jennifer, while grocery shopping:
I try to make the grocery store fun for her. ... I'll push the cart really fast
down the aisle and I jump on it with her. ... You’ve got to make kids'
lives worthwhile and really interesting. I don’ t ever yell at her. We do
have a hard time every once in awhile, like again she wants to leave or
she wants to push the cart herself and she runs into people. We're
working on that. ... She holds bags for me. We throw the apples in it.
We'll sing, "One apple, two apples, three apples." She goes, "Me four."
Four's her big number. So we throw another apple in. Usually she holds
on to the sides [of the cart] and I'll push it. She goes, "Faster, Mommy,
faster!” So we go around the comers really quick. That's all. Just trying
to make the grocery store fun.
Carol and Paul, who shared both the child care and housework, described their
different experiences of grocery shopping with their children. First, Paul told me during
his interview that he usually took his 3 year old son and his 1 year old daughter grocery
shopping with him. Sometimes Carol joined them, but that was the exception rather than
the rule. I asked him if there was any play during their trip to the store. He replied, "No,
because I don't like him to be out of my sight in stores, so I try to not make it drag out
longer than it has to so that he doesn't get really antsy or bored." During her interview,
Carol said:
If we're going to the store, I'll play hide and seek with Greg and stuff and
Daddy’ s really good about checking off the list. If Daddy's there, then I
really feel like I can cut loose ... and I really do try to be playful.
Carol's and Paul's experiences o f play within the work of grocery shopping
differed not only from each other, but also from Dawn's experience with her daughter.
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Paul used a strategy of segregation to separate play with Greg from the work of
shopping. There was no play during his trips to the store. Although Carol participated
in play with Greg while grocery shopping, it was also segregated because she left the
actual work of the shopping to Paul. Dawn's experience at the grocery store, however,
involved play with her daughter that was embedded in the real work of moving through
the store and picking up the items that they were going to buy. Dawn participated in
play with Jennifer while she was actively engaged in a work occupation. Carol's play
with Greg was separate from the work being done by Paul.
A mother from a traditional family with a 6 month old son and a 3 year old
daughter articulated how play with her daughter embedded in the work o f caring for her
son expanded her opportunities to play with her daughter:
We'll be in Richard’ s room playing and he'll be playing with the mobile,
but I'm talking to Bridget or playing with her feet or something, just
little things like that. It's play time to me and it's just time well spent
with them. Even though I'm doing a chore, I'm doing fun things with
them at the same time so she knows I'm not ignoring her. ... I'm trying
to change Richard's diaper or something, but she's in there and I'll have
one of Richard's toys and I'm playing with her at the same time I'm
changing his diaper. I can't sit and play with her like I used to because
of Richard. ... If she's in the bathtub with him at the same time, I'm
rubbing water on her back or I'm blowing bubbles for her while I'm
bathing him or something. You have to just tie it all together somehow
so that she knows that she's just as important as him.
Parental participation in play within child care occupations occurred more
frequently than in housework occupations. Again, both mothers and fathers were
observed to play with their children in the context of caregiving. I observed examples of
play embedded within child care occupations throughout the daily routines o f the
families. 1 will present some o f these data to provide an understanding of how parental
participation in play during child care increased the opportunities and capacities of the
parents to play with their children. Although most parents said that play with their
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children did not occur in the early mornings, I observed Susan, a mother from a
traditional family, introduce play in what seemed to be an attempt to wake up her son,
Michael, during a weekday early morning visit. It was 5:45 a.m. when she woke him up
and brought him out to the living room:
After a few minutes, Susan turned on the TV with the remote control as
she said, "Should we see if there are any cartoons on? Do you think
there will be cartoons on this morning?" She started at Channel 2 and
flipped up through the channels. Michael was watching the TV.
Channel 9 had cartoons, but Susan went right on past to Channel 10.
Michael gasped. She kept changing the channels and said, "Oh, those
aren't cartoons." Michael spoke up, "Cartoons!" She said, "Oh, were
those cartoons?" She laughed as she flipped back to Channel 9. Susan
continued to hold Michael but now she seemed to be making a greater
effort to get him to wake up. ... [After a few minutes], she said, "Look
what Daddy made for you." as she pulled over the Gearopolis structure
on the coffee table. She said, "Look at what it does." She turned a
handle on the structure that made all the gears turn and spin. Michael
perked up and watched as she did this ... but did not make any moves to
play with it himself.
Once Michael had woken up, eaten his breakfast, and gotten dressed, he was
ready to initiate play on his own. But it was approaching the time that they had to leave
the house and Susan had a different agenda:
Michael had not eaten any cereal. He was still watching TV. Susan
said, "You need to eat your cereal." She got a spoonful ready for him to
eat. He said that it was too hot. She replied that it wasn't too hot and
told him to go ahead and taste it. He decided that it was not too hot.
She said, "Here take the bowl. You need to eat. Do I need to turn off
the TV so that you can eat?" He replied quickly, "No." He began to
steadily eat his oatmeal.
And again later as Susan rushed to get out of the house, already behind schedule,
she intervened in his attempts to play:
Michael was reaching for the Gearopolis toy as Susan was finishing with
his shoes and hair. She took it from him just as he was getting ready to
play with it and pushed it further back on the coffee table. She told him
in an almost pleading tone that they needed to go now and that he could
play with it tonight when they got home.
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During this observation, I noted that Susan had participated in play with Michael
within the work o f preparing him for preschool, but each time this play had interfered
with her agenda o f getting him ready for school, she had set limits on it. Susan was
clearly using play to facilitate the accomplishment of her child care work. This early
morning visit underscored the parents' statements that there was little time for play
during workday early mornings. One exception to this general rule occurred within a
non-traditional family in which the husband worked in real estate sales. His early
mornings were less hectic than other parents' mornings because his days started later and
he was usually not required to start work at a specific time. Here is an example of his
participation in play embedded in child care:
As David brushed her hair, Kristin watched Lambchop. Shari Lewis and
a little boy began to sing a song about working for a mean boss who
asked her if she was busy. When she said that she was not, he told her to
push a button all day long. The song had five choruses and progressed
to pushing the button with the right hand, the left hand, the right foot,
the left foot, and the tongue. Both Kristin and David sang along with the
song and did the required actions. David stopped doing her hair long
enough to do this. ... The song became quite silly as eventually they
were moving all their limbs and tongues as if pushing buttons on a
machine. Finally, when her boss asked her if she was busy, she said,
"Yes." as she collapsed, and that was the end of the song. David and
Kristin laughed together at this ending as they stopped their various
gyrations. David returned to fixing Kristin's hair.
Among the families in which both parents participated in paid work, once the
children and parents were ready to leave the house, the next child care occupation was
the commute to and from day care or preschool. Seven parents, six mothers and one
father, mentioned commuting time when I asked about their play with their children.
Four mothers specifically stated that it was one of their favorite things to do with their
children. Although Haight et al. (1994) found that mothers frequently engaged in
pretend play while in the car with their children, the majority of the play embedded in
commuting identified in this study consisted of verbal play or talking with the child,
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listening to music, singing, and playing learning and memory games. Stuart and
Monique, who divided their household work along traditional gender lines, both
described participating in verbal play and singing while taking their daughter, Bridget, to
and from her day care. Susan, a traditional mother, talked about what she enjoyed during
her commute time with Michael:
The time we drive back and forth to school is real nice. I ask him how
his day was and what he did, that kind of stuff. ... Because it's our time.
It's just he and I. Because usually it's me taking him to school. It's just
he and I. And it's when he's relaxed, I'm relaxed. And it's 15 minutes,
we can just listen to music or just talk about things and what we're going
to do that night and stuff like that. It's nice.
Carol, a non-traditional mother, expressed similar sentiments about commuting
with her son, Greg:
Riding in the car with him! Ooooh! It's so much fun. Oh, my gosh. I
love being in the car with him. I think because I'm away from my house.
Okay, ooooh, major revelation. My best play times with him, I think,
are when I'm away out of the house. I have no phone calls. I have no
laundry staring at me. No dusting. In the car when it's just the two of
us, and Paul's even said the same thing, it is so awesome just to hear
what he says about the cars or the people. We talk just so much more in
the car. There's something about it. I guess it's kind o f co2y. Oh, yeah!
So I guess that would be like play time.
After commuting home in the late afternoon or early evening, play embedded in
the child care occupation of feeding the child often occurred. Generally, most parents
did not encourage or participate in play with their children during mealtimes except in
their efforts to get them to eat. Here is an example o f Linda's participation in play during
lunch with her daughter:
Katlyn started to make roaring noises. Linda told her that she was
getting good at that and asked her if she could take a big roaring bite for
her. Linda didn't use the word roar. She made the same roaring sound
that Katlyn had been making. Katlyn picked up her sandwich and roared
as she took a big bite of it. Linda said, "Oh, that was a big one."
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During Linda's interview, when I asked her what this play sequence was about,
she replied:
Katlyn has this thing, when she takes a bite, she likes to go,
"ROOOAAARRR!" Like she's biting, you know? And it's a real thrill if
she can bite far enough to bite my fingers. It's just a roar thing that she
does. ... She's taking a big bite like she's an animal.
Sometimes, I observed a situation in which the parents looked as if they wanted
to suppress their children's play during mealtimes, but did not because it facilitated their
children's eating. During one of my visits, Carol stopped short of telling Greg not to
play while eating his dinner, but reminded him to watch his manners:
Greg picked up a piece o f pasta, stuffed it into his mouth, and chomped
on it with his mouth open. He picked up a second piece of pasta and
held it up to his mouth. It looked as if Carol were getting ready to
caution him about eating with his mouth open when he said, "Watch me
take a monster bite!" He bit the pasta piece in half and chomped on it.
He stuffed the remaining piece in his mouth. Carol smiled as she
reminded him not to eat with his mouth open.
In this next passage from my fieldnotes, Jennifer introduced play in what seemed
to be an effort to avoid eating her lunch. Mike appeared to be an unwilling participant in
her play as he tried to ensure that she ate more of her sandwich. Although their play was
mutual, it was at cross-purposes:
Jennifer became more resistant to eating than she had been before. As
Mike offered her the sandwich, she turned her head away from him.
When he moved so that the sandwich was in front of her mouth again,
she pressed her lips together and giggled through them. She refused to
open her mouth to take a bite. Her refusals to eat seemed to be almost
play or teasing for a short time here. Mike also seemed to play for a
moment by laughing with her as she giggled, but then he became intent
upon getting her to take a bite. He would tell her to open her mouth
wide and she would do so, only to close it just as he tried to put the
sandwich inside it. She giggled each time they did this. During this
play sequence, he affectionately called her "Goofy" a couple times as he
tried to get her to comply with his requests to eat. Mike continued to try
until he was able to get her to take another bite of the sandwich.
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Parents participated in their child's play in a variety of child care occupations. A
particularly playful sequence occurred during Linda's attempts to clip Katlyn's
fingernails. This observation took place before Linda had returned to full-time paid
work. She was at home on a weekday morning and was straightening up the kitchen
when she came across a pair of nail clippers. She decided that it was a good time to clip
Katlyn's nails. Katlyn had been playing in the water at the kitchen sink and was resistant
to having her fingernails clipped. Similarly to Jennifer, she seemed to be using play to
avoid doing what her mother wanted. Katlyn was trying to grab the nail clippings from
her mother. Linda joined in on her play:
This entire set of interactions was full of laughter and giggles on
Katlyn's part as she tried to get the fingernail clippings from Linda.
Linda was participating in Katlyn's play to the extent that she was racing
with her to see who would get custody of the clippings. Once Linda had
finished with Katlyn's left hand, she tried to start cutting the fingernails
on her right hand. Katlyn refused to let her have her hand and kept
pulling it away from her mother while she giggled heartily. Linda
protested loudly and in a playlul manner. Katlyn laughed as she hid her
hand behind her back. Linda poked at Katlyn’ s stomach as she
commented on how giggly she was. She teased her, "Why are you so
giggly? Did you have giggle juice this morning?" Katlyn didn't reply as
she giggled uncontrollably.
In contrast to play embedded in commuting with their children, which seemed to
be relaxed and enjoyable to the parents because of the absence of other demands besides
driving and playing, play embedded in many of the physical caretaking occupations
seemed to have a facilitative purpose. Parental participation in their children's play
seemed to be a way of accomplishing the work inherent in the child care tasks. Dawn
participated in what seemed to be a familiar play sequence with Jennifer to ensure that
her teeth were properly brushed. First, Dawn allowed Jennifer to brush her teeth
independently. Then, as Jennifer resisted her request to brush her teeth, she brought play
into the interaction:
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As Jennifer started to protest, Dawn said, "Yeah, come on. There's bugs
in there. Let Mommy get the bugs out of your mouth. There's a big
moth in there. Let me get it." Jennifer gave her the toothbrush. Dawn
brushed Jennifer's teeth, keeping up a steady chatter as she worked. She
started on her upper teeth as she said, "Is he up here?" She pretended to
be looking for the big moth. Next, she said, "What about down here? Is
the moth down here?" She started to brush her lower teeth. She asked,
"What about your tongue? Stick your tongue out. Is the moth on your
tongue?" Jennifer stuck her tongue out and Dawn brushed it gently
before returning to brush her teeth some more. Now, she said things
like, "Oh yeah, he's going. I'm getting rid of him. I’ m going to get that
moth. Yep, he’ s gone. I got him." She told Jennifer to spit, which she
did. Dawn handed her back the brush, telling her, "Okay, check and see
if we got all the bugs out." Jennifer started scrubbing her teeth. ... After
a minute, Dawn asked, "Okay, got all the bugs out?" When Jennifer
seemed to be satisfied, Dawn told her to rinse out her mouth. ...
Jennifer took a drink of water and then spit into the sink. Dawn said,
"That was good. Did you see them? You got all those bugs out." She
told her to take another mouthful of water and spit again. After Jennifer
finished, she said, "No more bugs. Look." She held her mouth open for
me to look. I concurred that her mouth did not have bugs in it.
Dawn's participation in play embedded in the work of taking care of her daughter
served the purpose of completing the work in a playful manner. Jennifer's initial
resistance was overcome with the introduction o f play. Dawn was successful in gaining
her cooperation and in accomplishing the task at hand.
Bath time was one child care occupation in which the parents1 participation in
play was not as subject to their ulterior motivations as others were. Eight parents, four
fathers and four mothers, talked about bath time with their children as being a fun
experience. Two fathers and one mother identified play embedded in bath time as one of
their favorite things to do with their children. I observed David, a father from a non-
traditional family, bathe his daughter, Kristin, on two separate occasions. Both times he
embedded play in the work involved:
Kristin asked David if he would make her a mustache and a beard. He
said that he would. He took the funny foam soap and squirted it on her
so that it formed a beard and mustache. Kristin asked him to get a
mirror for her so that she could see what she looked like. He finished his
artwork on her face and got up. He told her not to move ... [as] he
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brought her the mirror and set it up for her to look at herself. He said,
"Oh, I think you need some eyebrows." He told her to put her head
back. She warned him not to get it in her eyes. He squirted some
eyebrows on her. ... She continued to look at herself in the mirror.
David said, "Should we put a horn on you? Let's give you a hom." He
squirted a dollop of soap on her head. He said, "Now, you look like a
unicorn." She laughed as she looked at herself in the mirror. After a
few more m inutes,... David told Kristin that it was time to wash her up.
Maggie described the embedded nature of play within her son's physical child
cafe tasks. She provided the case of bath time as an example:
I don't think any of it is really a chore, unless I'm not feeling well. ...
Even just getting him dressed in the morning becomes a game. So I
don't take anything real seriously. It's always, "Let's enjoy what we're
doing." So that's the thing that I'm doing. Even taking care of him. He
loves getting in the bathtub and having Mommy there because Mommy
will take ... the [funny foam] soaps and things. I'll sit there and I'll
make spaghetti all over him. ... Just things to make him have fun or
show him something that he really shouldn't be doing but, "Look, this is
a lot of fun!"
Spontaneous play frequently erupted in the context of child care. One evening
after Greg's bath, Carol's creative play transformed the work of getting him ready for bed
into a playful interaction:
Greg looked in the mirror at his hair and said, "My hair is ruined." ...
Carol and I laughed as she said that it was wet and that was how it got
"ruined." She picked up the hair brush and brushed his hair. After
brushing it for a minute or so, she pulled on both of his earlobes one
after the other and then pushed the ear flaps forward simultaneously in
rhythm with her vocalizations of "Doo! Doo! Duh!" The duh coincided
with her pushing the ear flaps forward so that he looked like Dumbo the
Flying Elephant. Greg giggled loudly. ... Carol held two fingers up
behind his head in a V-shape and wiggled them. Greg was watching
intently in the mirror. Next, she put both hands in the two-fingered V-
shape behind his head and wiggled them like rabbit ears. Then she made
her hands into a circular shape and set them on his head so that they
looked like Mickey Mouse's ears. ... Carol said to Greg, "Should we
make a moose? Let's make a moose." She spread her fingers out so that
they looked like antlers and set them so that they stuck out from his
head. She tried a couple of different versions of antlers and then stuck
with one choice. After Carol held the antler pose for a few seconds, she
pushed his ear flaps forward again and said, "Duh!" She put the antlers
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back on his head again, held them for a second or two, and then pushed
his ears forward again, "Duh!" Greg giggled as Carol and I laughed.
Most of the families in this study had familiar bedtime rituals which often
included reading a story to the children. A couple of families incorporated television or
videotapes into the occupation of settling their children into sleep. Some of the families'
bedtime rituals were elaborate or lengthy; some were not. A few parents waited until the
children were sleepy to put them into their beds and then sang a lullaby before leaving
them to sleep. Some children were allowed to fall asleep in "Mommy's and Daddy's
bed," watching television or videotapes. One child was tucked into his bed with a book
and a read-along cassette tape and player and was left to settle himself into sleep. All of
the children were kissed good night and given some type of night light to allay any fears
of the darkness that they might have. One family's bedtime ritual included "ten kisses"
that were exchanged every night:
I stood at the bottom of the stairs and listened to Paul and Greg as Paul
tucked him into bed. I heard Paul say, "Ten kisses! I, 2, 3,4, 5, 6, 7, 8,
9, 10." with a kiss falling on the ten. Greg giggled and said, "No! No!
No!" Paul counted again, this time kissing Greg on 9 and 10. This
game continued for a couple of minutes. What seemed to be happening
was that Paul was supposed to be giving Greg ten kisses, but instead was
giving him less than that. Greg kept calling him on it and protested that
Paul wasn't doing it correctly. This play degenerated into noisy kisses,
giggling, and raspberries. ... Next, I heard Paul protesting playfully,
"No! No! Not on my mouth! You can't kiss me on my mouth!" Then I
heard a big smacking kiss followed by Paul saying, "Aggh! You kissed
me on my mouth! You can’ t kiss me on my mouth. Only Mommy
kisses me on my mouth! Only Kellie kisses me on my mouth! Boys
can't kiss boys on the mouth!" This new game continued for quite
awhile. Greg sounded as if he were getting more and more excited and
giggly-
In fact, this particular piece of play embedded in the work of putting Greg to bed
raised his arousal level to the point where he was unable to calm down enough to say his
prayers. After several requests and a couple of suggestions that he would return later,
Paul was able to get Greg to listen while he said his prayers for him. He finally tucked
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Greg into bed after he had read him three bedtime stories and spent 15 minutes on the ten
kisses ritual. When Paul left Greg's room, he told him that he would send Mommy
upstairs to kiss him good night. This bedtime ritual was not unusual among the families
in the study in terms of its length, but its content was interesting. Paul's participation in
teasing play about the appropriateness of their kissing each other on the mouth indicates
one method through which gender ideologies and sexual taboos are passed down from
parent to child. Play embedded in household work appears to have many functions.
Scaffolded Plav Within Household Work
Scaffolded play within household work occurred when parents involved their
children in their household work occupations. All of the mothers and eight of the fathers
either demonstrated scaffolded play within household work during my visits to their
homes or talked about it during their interviews. Among these 18 parents, there was
variation in the extent to which they permitted their children to participate in their
household work. I have called this process of allowing children to have the access and
freedom to participate in scaffolded play within household work "occupational
scaffolding." Within the context of parent-child play, parents and children jointly
managed the children's development and learning through their shared participation in
daily household work occupations. Occupational scaffolding bears some resemblance to
Rogoffs term "guided participation" (1990). Guided participation is a global concept
based on Vygotsky's theory of the transition from interpsychological to
intrapsychological functioning and the zone of proximal development and attempts to
explain how children's development occurs through "their active participation in
culturally structured activity with the guidance, support, and challenge o f companions
who vary in skill and status" (Rogoff, Mistry, Goncu, & Mosier, 1993, p. 5).
The basic processes of guided participation are (a) bridging between the
participants' perspectives and interpretations of the situation as indicated by their joint
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engagement in the activity, and (b) mutual structuring of the participants' involvement as
evidenced by their joint contributions to the management of the activity. Guided
participation has been equated with the processes of scaffolding and teaching in the zone
of proximal development (Goodnow & Wharton, 1991). Shared by all these concepts is
the notion that children's learning occurs as parents teach or make demands upon them in
ways that match their cognitive levels. Supports are phased in and out by the parents as
children demonstrate capacities to use them or do without them. Goodnow and Wharton
(1991) studied the use of these processes by parents within social interactions aimed at
involving their children in household work. One of their key findings from four
Australian studies of parental interactions with children aged 8 to 16 years concerned
how the children were approached to do the household work. The responsibility for
initiation of the children's involvement rested with the parents.
This finding supported previous findings by Rogoff et al. (1993) that indicated
that Western and Middle Eastern middle-class parents assumed responsibility for
children's learning through the provision of lessons outside of the context of adult
activities. Within rural Guatemalan and Indian tribal villages, however, children were
noted to take responsibility for their own observation and participation in adult social and
work activities. The authors suggested that age segregation within the two different
groups o f communities may have been an intervening variable and a potential
explanation for the differences between adult versus child responsibility for children's
learning. Data from this study support these findings in that children were frequently
observed to initiate and maintain their own involvement in household work occupations
when their parents did not use strategies of segregation to separate their participation in
household work from their children. Preschool-aged children made what appeared to be
both conscious and independent decisions to participate in their parents' household work.
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Here is an example of a 3 year old boy, Michael, who chose to help his mother with the
laundry:
Susan told Bill that she was going to the laundiy room to get the cart for
the clothes. Michael said, "Wait for me." She asked, "Oh, did you want
to come with Mommy to get the cart?" He said that he did so she waited
for him. I stood up to go with them. When Michael came out o f his
room, we walked down to the laundry room. ... As Susan pulled out a
laundry cart, she said, "Oh, let’ s huny. There's two washers. Come on,
Michael, let's go. Do you want a ride?" He was not interested in riding
on the cart. He walked in front of the cart pulling it as Susan walked
behind it pushing it. ... [When we reached their apartment], Michael ran
back into his bedroom and we could hear him in there talking away to
himself. ... He was busily pulling all his dirty clothes out of his laundry
hamper and piling them up on a chest at the end of his bed. Susan said,
"Oh no, honey, don't do that. We're going to put it in the cart." By this
time, however, he had most of the laundiy out of the hamper. She said,
"Okay, don't worry about it. Here, you carry this." She started to give
him some dirty clothes. He grabbed a whole armload of dirty clothes
and took off at a run down the hall, through the living room, and out the
front door to drop it into the cart. As he ran, he dropped a piece, stopped
to pick it up, dropping more as he did so. Susan and I were laughing as
we watched this. He was so serious and trying to do it so quickly.
Michael made at least five trips back and forth between his bedroom and
the front door carrying his dirty laundry. One time as he ran out, he
repeated to himself, "Let's get going! Let's get going!" I think that he
was repeating what he had heard Susan say when she saw that there were
two empty washing machines. ... She went into the kitchen to measure
laundry soap out into a measuring cup. Michael was outside with the
laundry cart. He began to try to push the cart as he said, "Let's go. I'm
ready." ... Susan called out to Michael, asking him where he was. He
replied from outside, "I'm ready, Mom. Let's go." She went outside and
I followed them. We walked down to the laundiy room. Susan put
quarters into two washing machines, put the laundry soap in, and shut
the lids. She went over to the laundry cart and began to sort the clothes.
Michael was also trying to sort them. He was digging through the
clothes in the cart, looking for his pajamas. Susan informed me that they
were his favorite ones. He was dropping the other clothes all over the
floor. Susan told him to stop or slow down so that he wasn't spilling the
laundiy. He was trying to stuff the clothes in the washer closest to him.
Susan was trying to sort the clothes according to light and dark colors.
She told him to help her by giving her the dark ones. He randomly gave
her both dark and light colors so she decided to give him the light
clothes to put into the washer at the end of the row. She sorted the dark
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clothes into the washer next to her. She found his favorite pajamas for
him and let him put them into the washing machine.
Michael's enthusiasm and interest in participating in the household work of
laundiy and clothing care is self-evident in this exceipt from my fieldnotes. Susan
allowed him access to the dirty laundry and the freedom to participate in the work,
leading to their joint engagement in this occupation. Mutual structuring of their joint
contributions to the work occurred throughout this particular action sequence. Michael's
method of transferring the dirty laundry from his room to the laundry cart outside the
apartment differed from Susan's method, but she structured this aspect of the work to
allow him to complete it in a way that was compatible with his initial efforts. Once they
became involved in the sorting task, Susan reduced the degrees of freedom to facilitate
his successful participation. When she realized that he was not discriminating between
light and dark colored clothing, she scaffolded the task by simplifying what was required
of him. She sorted out the light-colored clothing and gave him the responsibility of
placing them in a different washing machine than the one for the dark-colored clothing.
This interaction between mother and son around the household work occupation of
laundiy and clothing care illustrates the process o f occupational scaffolding that occurs in
scaffolded play within household work.
I observed the process of occupational scaffolding over and over again during
my visits to the homes of the ten families in this study. When parents used strategies of
inclusion to merge time and play with their child with their work, scaffolded play within
household work often occurred. Inclusion of children in household work occupations
expanded the opportunities available for parents to interact, spend time, and play with
them. Susan's husband, Bill, explained how they used a strategy of inclusion to
maximize the time they could spend with Michael:
Michael is just going to get as much time as we can give when it's
available. And what time isn't available to him to do one-on-one will be
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the time for everything else. We'll bring him into whatever else needs to
be done. If I'm working on the car, I'll let him crawl under the car with
me. Yes, I'll make sure there's an extra jack stand under the car and I
will tell him not to grab the hot exhaust pipe. But am I going to stop
him from crawling underneath? Nope.
One consequence of Bill's and Susan's decision to use strategies of inclusion to
integrate their play with Michael and their household work was a myriad of opportunities
for scaffolded play within household work. Linda, a traditional mother who had recently
returned to full-time paid work and was also attending night school three nights a week,
talked about how she fit time and play with her 3 year old daughter into her daily
routines:
Well, before I was working it was much easier because I was with her all
day so there were a lot o f times during the day that I could play with her
and pay attention to her. Now that I'm working and going to school in
the evening, it's harder. After I get home from work while we're
preparing dinner and that, I try to involve her in that and I try to just
spend time with her before I go to school. ... Most o f the time, ... I do
have to be doing other things also. Now, on weekends, of course, it's
different. I try to do things that she likes to do, although even then I do
have to do other things too, like laundiy, housework, but she likes to
help me with those things so it works out okay then too.
During a home visit with this family, I observed that Linda's daughter, Katlyn,
did, indeed, like to help her mother with the household work and that Linda's strategies
of inclusion merged her play with Katlyn with household work:
Linda said that she was going to vacuum. She asked Katlyn if she
wanted to help her. Katlyn enthusiastically said that she wanted to help.
Linda turned to me, saying that Katlyn "loved" to vacuum and that she
wanted to do it the whole time. ... Linda plugged in the vacuum
cleaner and it started up with a roar. It was a canister model with a very
long, flexible hose. Katlyn was able to move the carpet sweeper
attachment back and forth without having the weight o f the canister
pulling on it because the hose was so long. She began to move the
vacuum back and forth over the carpet in the dining area, starting over
by the patio door while Linda stood close behind her carefully
supervising her. It was 11:36 a.m. by my digital watch when Katlyn
started to vacuum. After she had been vacuuming for a minute or so,
Linda asked Katlyn if she wanted her to do it now. Katlyn said no. We
watched her vacuum a little longer. Linda asked her again if she wanted
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her to do it for a bit and again Katlyn turned down her offer of help. ...
A couple of times, Linda pointed out areas on the carpet that she wanted
Katlyn to get. ... She continued to vacuum all around the table and
actually ended up doing the entire dining area. ... At one point, Katlyn
set the hose down on the floor. Linda picked up the vacuum, asking
Katlyn if she wanted her to do it now. At first, Katlyn didn't respond or
protest, but as Linda started to push the vacuum back and forth, she
came over to take it from her, saying tliat she wanted to do it. Linda said
okay and she gave it back to her. ... At 11:43 a.m., Katlyn set the
vacuum cleaner down again. She had completed the dining room and
had been vacuuming for seven minutes. Linda picked up the vacuum
hose and began to vacuum the carpet at the foot of the stairs and into the
living room.
When one reads the previous excerpt, one might not get the sense that Katlyn
was playing. A straightforward reading of this example would indicate that she was
working hard while vacuuming the floor. During Linda's interview, I asked her if Katlyn
was having fun while she participated in household work occupations and whether she
thought that she was playing when she was engaged in them. She replied:
I think so. I think so. She enjoys doing it. Like you saw her
vacuuming, she didn't want me to do it. She wanted to do it herself so I
know she enjoys it. ... After a little bit, she'll get tired of it. Usually,
she does let me know. She'll drop it and say, "Here, Mom, you do it."
Most of the children whom I observed were highly motivated to participate in
household work occupations with their parents. Even if parents were reluctant to involve
them, they were frequently hard-pressed to refuse their children's attempts to involve
themselves. Monique described how her 3 year old daughter, Bridget, spontaneously
"organized" her and her husband during their work in the kitchen:
The other night I was doing the dishes [and] Stuart bought those roll
cookies. ... So he was making those and I was doing some dishes.
She's like, "Wait a minute, wait a minute." She's a little organizer. She
said, "Mommy'll do the dishes. Daddy'll make the cookies. ... And I'll
help Daddy. No, no, no. I'll do the dishes with Mommy and Daddy
makes the cookies." She's like trying to totally organize us. But after
her and Stuart got doing the [cookies], she says, "OK, now, Daddy, you
watch the cookies bake and I will help Mommy do the dishes."
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Monique and Stuart willingly allowed Bridget the freedom to spend time with
them as they worked in the kitchen and involved her in their work on an on-going basis.
Their use of this strategy of inclusion had two consequences. First, it increased their
time and play with their daughter by embedding play within their work. Second, they
provided occupational scaffolding which extended Bridget's learning and ability to
participate in occupations that will eventually become a part of her future daily life.
Childhood occupations are believed to shape adulthood accomplishments and
achievements, but little is known about how this occurs (Clark et al., 1991; Primeau,
Clark, & Pierce, 1989; Yerxa et al., 1989). Occupational scaffolding may be a process
through which parents foster their children's competence as adults. The following
passage from my fieldnotes demonstrates how Bill provided occupational scaffolding
within a housekeeping task to his 3 year old son after he had spilled a package of noodles
on the floor:
Bill returned with the broom and began to look for the dustpan. Michael
followed Bill over to the opposite side of the kitchen, stepping on and
spreading noodles as he went. He asked to help with the dustpan. Bill
said okay. Bill began to sweep the noodles up. The timer for the pasta
went off at this point. Bill let it go for a minute or so and then put the
broom aside to tend to the pasta. He poured the pasta into a strainer in
the sink, put the pot back on the stove, and got out some butter to put in
the pot for the cheese sauce. Michael, meanwhile, picked up the broom
and began to sweep up the noodles, scattering Bill's already swept-up
pile. As Bill continued with the sauce-making, he cautioned Michael,
"Careful. Go slowly. Go slowly." Michael attempted to better control
the broom with some success and less scattering of the noodles. Bill
took the broom back and swept up the noodles again. The butter began
to sizzle in the pot. Bill reached over and set the pot on a back burner.
Michael hopped over the pile o f noodles to get the dustpan. He squatted
down next to the pile, holding the dustpan. Bill reached over and
showed him how to hold it. He said, "Hold it like this." Bill swept the
noodles into the dustpan. He finished the sweeping, holding the dustpan
himself to get all of the noodles in it. He gave the dustpan to Michael
and told him to throw it in the garbage. Michael walked over and
emptied the pan, watching as the noodles and dirt from the floor fell into
the garbage container.
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Bill used a combination of verbal direction, reduction of the degrees of freedom
required by the task, and modeling o f a correct approach to the task to facilitate his son's
participation in the occupation of sweeping the floor. Both Michael and Bill jointly
engaged in and contributed to the management of this particular task. Bill's use of an
inclusion strategy to incorporate time and play with Michael into the daily routines of
family life led to the occupational scaffolding of sweeping the floor, a household work
task. This passage also provides a clear demonstration of a father engaged in enfolded
occupations; Bill was simultaneously preparing dinner, caring for Michael, and sweeping
the floor. Men are not often thought to enfold occupations in this manner (Bateson, in
press). In fact, Bill was the only father observed to so skillfully combine three
occupations.
Differences between mothers' and fathers' participation in scaffolded play within
household work were evident. As already stated, all of the mothers and eight o f the
fathers were observed to provide occupational scaffolding or talked about doing so
during their interviews. The two fathers who did not participate in scaffolded play
within household work were from traditional and non-traditional families. Occupational
scaffolding, by definition, occurs within household work, thus, fathers' participation in it
will be limited by their participation in the work itself. Most of the fathers’ participation
in scaffolded play within household work with their children occurred in the context o f
work conventionally completed by men. The fathers in this study included their children
in yard work tasks, washing the car, repairing the car, and making household repairs.
One of the first examples o f scaffolded play within household work that I
observed occurred between a father, Brent, and his two children, Riley, a 4 year old boy,
and Laura, a 2 year old girl. Brent was engaged in yard work and caring for the children
in their front yard while his wife, Peggy, was inside, cleaning the house:
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Brent picked up a lawn edger, a tool that trims the grass at the edge of
the lawn and the driveway or sidewalk. It was a long-handled tool with
a silver, spiked wheel at the end of it. He took the lawn edger and ran it
along the grass at the edge of the driveway. Riley immediately asked,
"Can I do it, Daddy? Can I do it?" Brent said to wait a minute and then
he could do the other side. Riley asked again. Brent said, "You can do
the other side. Just a minute. Let me finish this." Brent finished the
edge by the driveway and then gave the lawn edger to Riley to edge
along the curb of the street. Brent got the hedge clippers out and began
to clip the hedges in the yard. ... Riley was using the edger on the grass
at the curb. After a couple o f minutes, Laura got off of her tricycle and
went over to Riley. She wanted to try the lawn edger too. Brent told
Riley to let Laura try it. Riley reluctantly gave up the edger. ... Laura
tried to imitate Riley, but was having difficulty. She was running the
tool over the grass instead of along the edge. After a couple of minutes,
Riley asked Laura to have the lawn edger back. ... Brent was trimming
the hedges. Laura ran over to him and asked him to let her do it. Brent
said, "Okay, but I'll have to help you." He put his hands over hers on the
hedge clippers and helped her cut off parts o f the hedge. He would point
out to her what part they were going to trim, then would direct her hands
over to that spot, and help her clip it. Riley, after watching this, asked
for a chance to trim the hedge too. He told his dad that he didn't need
help. He knew how to do it. Brent just pointed out the parts for him to
trim and Riley cut them off himself. Brent praised him for being able to
do this by himself by saying, "Good job. Nice work.” After a few
minutes, Riley returned to edging the grass along the curb. Laura asked
for another turn at trimming so Brent placed his hands over hers again
and they trimmed the hedge some more.
Similar to the scaffolding process which occurs within other types of play, Brent
adjusted the level o f scaffolding provided to match the abilities of his children. When he
helped Laura trim the hedge, Brent used a combination of verbal directions, hands-on
physical guidance of her hands on the hedge clippers, and physical movement o f her
hands to where he wanted her to clip the hedge. When Riley took his turn at trimming
the hedge, Brent decreased the level o f scaffolding that he provided. He used verbal
direction only to guide Riley's independent use of the hedge clippers. Brent's willingness
to allow the children to have access to the lawn edger and the freedom to use it
independently demonstrates another aspect o f the occupational scaffolding process.
Some parents were more comfortable than others in giving their children the freedom
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within the home to interact with objects that were not toys. This parental characteristic
will be discussed in more detail later on this chapter.
Although I observed instances in which fathers participated in scaffolded play
within household work typically completed by women, they were less frequent than
scaffolded play within male-specific household work occupations. I observed Bill, a
traditional father who shared cooking and meal clean up tasks with his wife, provide
occupational scaffolding within the context of meal preparation, an occupation that is
typically seen as women's work. He seemed to be exceptional in that he was the only
father to do so on a regular basis. Here is an example of how he managed to allow his
son, Michael, to participate in the occupation of cooking:
Bill said, "Come on. Do you want to help me with the cheese?" This
was the very thing that Michael had been wanting to do for the past 15
minutes. Michael climbed down ffom the stool, picked it up, and placed
it back in front of the cupboard next to the stove. Bill opened the
package of cheese, letting Michael look inside. Michael said that he
wanted to do it so Bill put his hand over Michael's hand and guided him
as he poured the cheese powder into the pot. Bill stirred the powder into
the noodles. Michael looked inside the empty cheese package and stuck
his nose into it to smell it, wrinkling up his nose at its smell. When Bill
had finished stirring the noodles, he turned his attention to the chicken in
the microwave. Michael leaned over towards the pot on the stove and
tried to stir the noodles saying, "I stir. I stir." As he grabbed and moved
the mixing spoon, the pot slid off of the burner and was in danger of
falling. Bill reached over and grabbed the pot handle. Michael used his
other hand to hold the handle, in imitation of his father, while he stirred
the noodles. When he was finished, he turned to me and said, "I stirred
it." Bill returned to what he had been doing. Michael picked up the
empty cheese package and upended it over the pot. A little bit o f powder
fell out. He pointed this out to his dad who said that was good. Michael
decided to stir the noodles again. As he reached over to the spoon, Bill
reached over to hold the pot and the sequence o f action was repeated as
Michael stirred the noodles a second time. When he was done, Bill
moved over to the sink area and began to cut up the chicken.
Bill used physical guidance o f Michael's hands to facilitate his involvement in
adding the powdered cheese to the noodles. He also monitored Michael's actions and
modified the physical environment by stabilizing the pot so that Michael could
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successful stir it. Again, Bill's ability to engage in the various aspects of meal
preparation, including cooking macaroni and cheese and heating up left-over chicken in
the microwave oven, to care for his son, and to provide him with the optimal amount of
occupational scaffolding within the occupation o f cooking is noteworthy.
Paul, the only father in the study to share both child care and housework tasks,
highlighted the tendency o f most fathers to participate in scaffolded play within
stereotypically male household work tasks when he talked about the work in which he
involved his 3 year old son:
When I cut the lawn in the back, I'll have him help me hold the dustpan
to sweep up the grass, so I do try to involve him that way. As far as
vacuuming the floor, he's too little to really push the vacuum. And
laundry, not much he can really do there. But when I wash the car, I'll
let him hose the car down. ... [Cooking.] No. He likes to watch, but
there's not really [anything] I can practically have him do.
A type of household work that seemed to be an exception to this tendency was
the occupation of child care, particularly baby care. Four fathers allowed their older
children to participate in the child care of their younger siblings. In three cases, the older
sibling was a girl. In the following example, David provided occupational scaffolding as
Kristin, his 4 year old daughter, fed her baby sister:
David got up ffom the table and went out to the kitchen, leaving the jar
of food and the baby spoon on the table. Kristin climbed up onto his
chair and began to feed Meg. She had given her a spoonful or two
before David came back out to the dining room. As he took the spoon
ffom her and wiped the excess food ffom around Meg's mouth, he said,
"Let's just neaten her up a little." He gave Kristin back the spoon. She
stuck it into the jar just as he came around behind her and lifted her as
she stood on the chair. He moved the chair and placed her on it so that
she was in a more stable position than she had been. A big glob o f food
fell onto the table from the spoon that she was holding. She started to
get down and he told her that she was fine, that he was just trying to put
her in the center of the chair. She started to give Meg another spoonful
of sweet potatoes. David intervened, saying not to give her so much.
He showed her how to put just a little on the spoon, how to put it in
Meg's mouth, and then how to lift the spoon up against her upper lip as
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she took it out of her mouth so that the food was scraped off. David left
her to feed Meg a couple more spoonfuls as he got a cloth to clean up the
table.
In this example, David modified the physical environment to facilitate Kristin's
successful and safe participation in the occupation o f feeding her sister. He adjusted her
position on the chair so that she was standing in a more stable position than she had been
in previously. He also marked critical features of the task by showing her the correct
amount o f food to put on the spoon and how to position and move the spoon in relation
to the baby's mouth to obtain the best results in getting her to eat the food.
According to Shapiro (1994), these examples of scaffolded play within
household work occupations are typical of fathers' play with their children and differ
significantly ffom mothers' play with their children. He stated that mothers
automatically joined their children's play at their level, but that fathers' play with their
children was similar to an apprenticeship. Fathers acted as teachers and stimulated their
children to expand their knowledge and abilities and to learn new skills (Shapiro, 1994).
The findings of the present study refute the rhetoric of these gender differences. Mothers
were equally, if not more likely, than fathers to engage their children in scaffolded play
within household work. In fact, within five families in this study, the mothers were more
likely to participate in scaffolded play within household work with their children than
were the fathers. In one family, the father was more likely to do so than the mother was
and in the remaining four families, there were no differences between the parents in the
likelihood of participation in scaffolded play within household work.
These findings suggest that mothers were more likely to participate in scaffolded
play within household work with their children than fathers were. I have already
demonstrated that fathers tended to involve their children more often in scaffolded play
within household work conventionally completed by men, even when they crossed
gender boundaries to share the rest of the household work with their wives. Most of the
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mothers' participation in scaffolded play within household work also occurred within
their own gender-specialized types of household work. Given the repetitive and daily
nature of the work traditionally completed by women, the mothers were likely to spend
more time engaged in household work on a daily basis than were the fathers. In six out
often families, the mothers had greater responsibility for taking care o f and spending
time with their children than the fathers did. As previously stated, the occurrence of
scaffolded play within household work is reliant upon parental participation in household
work. If fathers have less responsibility in the completion o f the work, then it follows
that their participation in scaffolded play within household work will also be less than
that of mothers.
I am hesitant, however, to state that mothers participate in greater amounts of
scaffolded play within household work than do fathers. Significant differences in the
participation in scaffolded play within household work were evident among the ten
families in this study. The families differed in the extent to which occupational
scaffolding occurred. Four families, all with traditional divisions of household work,
were found to participate in high levels of scaffolded play within household work. Three
families, one with traditional and two with non-traditional divisions of household work,
were found to have moderate levels of occupational scaffolding. The three remaining
families, one with traditional and two with non-traditional divisions of household work,
had low levels o f scaffolded play within household work.
Within the four families with high levels of scaffolded play within household
work, three families appeared to have no gender differences in terms of the mothers' and
fathers' participation in such play. Within the remaining family, the mother was found to
be more likely to engage in this type of play than was the father. O f the three families
with moderate levels of scaffolded play within household work, gender differences were
found. In two cases, the mothers were more likely to provide occupational scaffolding
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than were the fathers; in the third case, the father was more likely to do so than the
mother. Within the families with low levels of scaffolded play within household work,
similar gender differences were noted. Within two families, the mother was more likely
to engage in occupational scaffolding than was the father and, in the third family, the
father was more likely to involve his child in his work than the mother was.
These findings led me to look for alternative explanations for the varying levels
of occupational scaffolding between the families. I discovered that the families differed
in the extent to which the parents readily relinquished absolute control over their
household work and transferred some of the responsibility for its completion to their
children. In addition, the amount of access and freedom within their homes to interact
with objects that were not toys also played a role in the differences between the families.
I will use the occupations of baking and cooking to illustrate some of these differences.
Nine of the women and four of the men in this study involved their children in their work
in the kitchen. Of the women, six of them were from families with moderate and high
levels of scaffolded play within household work. The remaining three women were from
families observed to have low levels of occupational scaffolding.
Excerpts from fieidnotes of home visits during which I observed scaffolded play
within the occupation of baking and from interviews in which the mothers talked about
how they included their children in their baking work will highlight the familial
differences. This first example is from a family with high levels of scaffolded play
within household work. Linda and her 3 year old daughter, Katlyn, were baking cookies.
Katlyn was sitting on the countertop next to the mixing bowl into which they were
adding the ingredients:
Linda picked up the bar o f butter and unfolded its wrapper. As she did
so, Katlyn said, "I want to do it. I want to do it." Throughout most of
this process, Katlyn repeated that she wanted to do everything that Linda
did. Once Linda had the butter unwrapped, she handed it to Katlyn,
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telling her to go ahead and drop it into the mixing bowl. She told Katlyn
where to hold onto the edges of the wrapper, including the edge closest
to the bowl so that the butter would flip into the bowl. Linda guided
Katlyn's hands as she did this. Linda picked up the second bar of butter.
Katlyn said that she wanted to open it so Linda said okay and gave it to
her. She told her to open this end first as she pointed to the end of the
bar. Katlyn very carefully unfolded the butter wrapper, but didn't lift up
the last side, leaving it embedded in the butter. As Katlyn started to
open the wrapper on the long side of the bar, Linda told her to open the
- other end first and that she needed to open the ends first. Katlyn
unwrapped the other end, again leaving the last piece on the butter. Now
she went to the long side and lifted the wrapper up there as well. Linda
told her to drop it into the bowl, telling her to hold onto the edge of the
wrapper nearest to the mixer so that it would easily fall into the bowl.
This time, Linda didn't guide Katlyn’ s hands and the butter wobbled
under its own weight as she tipped it towards the bowl. She said,
"Ohh!" as its action surprised her and quickly dumped it into the bowl.
Linda calmly and quietly said, "Very good."
Linda scaffolded Katlyn's participation in this occupation. Together, they jointly
participated in the necessary actions to complete the task. Linda modeled how to unwrap
the butter and then used physical guidance and verbal directions to assist Katlyn in
dropping the butter into the mixing bowl. When Katlyn said that she wanted to unwrap
the second bar o f butter herself, Linda backed off and gave her the freedom to do so. She
relinquished the physical control over the butter and transferred responsibility for the
action to Katlyn. She continued to provide verbal directions as necessary. The second
time that Katlyn participated in this particular task, she did not physically guide her in
the placement of the butter into the mixing bowl and was quick to praise her daughter
when she was successful in completing the task.
Monique, a mother from a family with high levels of scaffolded play within
household work, talked about the process of relinquishing control over her daughter's
actions and its consequences when they were baking cookies together:
It was so funny because you don't think when you do an expression and I
said, "OK, now throw the butter in there." Well, she threw the butter
and I had to laugh at myself because I thought, "Well, I said throw the
butter." And it's something I would say to you, but she took it literally.
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She threw the butter in. ... I wasn’ t supposed to put the butter in with
the flour, or something stupid like that, so when she threw the butter, the
flour went flying. But I just laughed as she laughed because flour went
on both of us and I couldn't get mad, it was my fault because I said
throw it. So I thought, "Well, I've got to really watch when I say
something like that." And she thought it was pretty funny too. And then
when I gave her the next butter, she said, "Want me to throw it again?" I
said, "No, no, we put it in very nicely."
Monique transferred the responsibility for the physical action o f putting the
butter into the mixing bowl to her daughter, Bridget, but retained the responsibility for
her failure to provide adequate scaffolding that would have prevented Bridget's mistake
o f "throwing" the butter.
This next example illustrates the difficulty that parents may encounter in their
attempts to relinquish control over their children's actions and to allow them the freedom
to act on their own. Dawn was from a family with moderate levels of scaffolded play
within household work. She and her 3 year old daughter, Jennifer, were preparing the
ingredients needed to make fudge. Jennifer had closely watched her mother as she had
measured out some brown sugar into a measuring cup:
As Dawn continued to measure out more brown sugar, Jennifer said that
she wanted to do it. She still had the knife in her hand and was trying to
use it in the canister or in the measuring cup or whatever else she could
get it into. Dawn told her that she could pack the sugar down as she
gave her the spoon. Jennifer attempted to use the knife. Dawn told her,
"No, you don't use the knife. You use the spoon. You use the back of
the spoon like this. Here, I’ll show you how." She showed Jennifer how
to push the sugar down into the measuring cup, using the bowl o f the
spoon. Jennifer watched and then took the spoon to try it herself. She
used the spoon the same way that her mother had and pushed on the
already packed sugar in the measuring cup. She did a good job of
accurately imitating what Dawn had just done. Dawn took the
measuring cup back from her, saying that she would put some more in it.
Jennifer repeated that she wanted to do it and she shook her hands
anxiously as if worried that she might not have the chance to do so.
After Dawn had added more sugar, she handed the cup back to Jennifer.
She tried to use the knife again. Dawn said sharply, "No! I told you.
You don't use the knife. You use the spoon." She took the knife away
from her. ... Jennifer used the spoon to pat the sugar down into the cup
while Dawn watched her closely. At one point, when it looked as if the
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sugar was going to spill, Dawn gasped and reached for the cup, but
stopped herself as Jennifer held it more firmly in place. After a minute,
she took the cup from her, saying that it needed just a little more. She
added more brown sugar and started to pack it down herself. Jennifer
whined a little and shook her hands again, visibly upset at having been
denied the opportunity to do it herself. Dawn yelled, "Jennifer!" and
then handed her the measuring cup and spoon, allowing her to do it.
Dawn was a little more controlling in her interactions with her daughter than
were Linda and Monique. She modeled the correct method to pack the brown sugar into
the measuring cup and then relinquished control long enough for Jennifer to try out the
action on her own. In order to jointly manage the task, mother and daughter may need to
alternate control over it to ensure its successful completion. Dawn took back the
leadership role to add more sugar and to take away the troublesome knife. Again, the
control was returned to Jennifer as she patted down the sugar into the cup. When it
appeared as if the sugar might spill, Dawn restrained herself from acting and, thus,
allowed Jennifer the opportunity for self-correction. This example embodies the fine line
that parents must walk between maintaining control and allowing freedom when they
provide occupational scaffolding within household work.
Susan, a mother from a family with high levels of scaffolded play within
household work, explained how she drew a line between what her son could and could
not do while helping her work at the stove in the kitchen:
There's different stages where he can't help. I'm not going to let him stir
something that’ s hot and boiling that could probably splatter on him.
There's also only certain things that he just wants to do. When making
macaroni and cheese, he only wants to put the cheese in. ... There's just
different stages that either I don't want him to help with because it can be
dangerous or there's certain things that he just wants to do one part of it.
Two mothers from families with low levels of scaffolded play within household
work talked about their fears for their children's safety while involved in their work in
the kitchen. They seemed to be less able to walk that fine line between maintaining
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control when necessary for safety reasons and allowing their children the freedom to
participate when it was safe for them to do so. One mother explained:
Every once in a while, she'll want to come in and help. I don't do it a
whole lot when I'm cooking because I'm nervous about the stove and
stuff like that, sharp knives. I try a little bit of that, but mostly just easy
stuff. She will ask to make her own sandwich and can I help her make
her own sandwich. But most of it, I do.
Another mother stated:
I was on a Rice Krispie bar kick and he'd say, "Oooh, can I watch?" and
part o f me was so afraid he was going to go, "Oh, what's that?" Like
bum his hand or something. But I let him watch, "Oh yeah, pull up a
stool." And that was fun. ... Actually, I did let him stir a little bit, but I
was so afraid it was going to be like, oh, he catches on fire. ... I'd been a
little leery of introducing things like, "Here, want to stir the vegetables?"
because I just could see potential big problems but it doesn't have to be
like that.
Safety issues entered into discussions about scaffolded play within household
work more frequently in families with low levels of such play than other families in the
study. These parents tended to talk about the dangers of their children being around and
trying to play with household work equipment and supplies, such as lawn mowers,
hardware and tools, and chemicals in cleaning supplies. Parents from families with
moderate levels o f scaffolded play within household work were more likely than other
families to cite time factors as reasons for why they did not involve their children in their
household work. They often talked about just wanting to get the task done and not
wanting to spend a lot of time doing it, therefore, they discouraged their children from
becoming involved in the task itself. When they talked about how they involved their
children in their household work, parents from families with high levels of scaffolded
play within household work spoke less about safety issues and time factors and more
about increasing the time they spent with their children and including them in the work
of being a family than did the other parents in the study.
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All of the parents, when asked about objects within their homes that their
children were not allowed to play with, included electrical plugs, household cleaners and
other chemicals, stoves and ovens, and knives. Once those items had been listed,
however, all of the parents from the families with high levels of occupational scaffolding
stated that their children had access to most of the remaining objects in their homes, such
as computers, VCRs, televisions, stereo systems and CD players, and cameras, under
vatying levels of supervision. These parents said that there were objects that the children
needed to ask to use, but once they had received permission and were supervised, they
were allowed to do so. One father talked about how he had started teaching his daughter
how to use the VCR before she was able to talk:
Growing up, I wanted her to learn how to [use] the VCR and all that, so
I mean where most people say, "No, don't touch." ... I just showed her
and ... with the video tape, it was so cute. There's like an arrow which
shows you how to do it, and I just showed her that. I was just showing
her and she picked up on that so quick and she started doing it. ... I'm
into making cassette tapes and all that so she'd always want to be there
with me. I just started showing her how to do things so I was never
really scared of her doing [anything wrong]. And even like the video
camera, I remember when she was little, I'd be videotaping her and she'd
always want to know how the lens cap goes on. ... Most people I think
are real scared of their kids touching their electronic equipment and all
that. And I just from day one really started showing her that this is the
right way, this is the wrong way.
Another father specifically stated:
I don't say, "You can't touch my stereo. You can't touch the VCR. You
can't touch the computer." There's nothing that, "That's mine." because
that's definitely not the way I want to raise my kid. ... Unless it's going
to harm her in any way, she can touch anything in the house.
Parents within the families with moderate and low levels of occupational
scaffolding appeared to have more rules about what objects in their homes their children
did and did not have access to than did the parents from families with high levels. A
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mother from a family with low levels of scaffolded play within household work stated
that her daughter was not allowed to play with:
The stereo and Mommy's things or the knickknacks, and stuff like that.
She knows she's not supposed to play with dangerous items. She knows
that there are things that she's not allowed to play with. And she'll play
with them anyway or not. It's a choice that she makes whether she
actually follows that rule or not, but there's lots of things she's not
allowed to play with.
When I asked a father from a family with moderate levels o f occupational
scaffolding whether there were objects within the house that his children weren't allowed
to play with, he replied, "Quite a few. Anything that's not theirs. You try to tell them,
'You don't touch. You don't mess with anything that's not yours.' But anything's
possible if they ask."
Another mother from a family with low levels of scaffolded play within
household work answered the same question in this way:
Oh, yeah. There's always things that he's not allowed to play with, but
there aren't a lot o f "No" items. There's things that, "Those are mine.
Don't hurt them. You can touch them, you can do this, but you don't
play with them. You don't hurt them."
The consequences of these differences between the families in terms of their
children's access to objects that are not toys and the freedom to interact with them were
manifested in the families' varying levels of scaffolded play with household work. The
following passages from my fieldnotes demonstrate the role that access to these objects
and the freedom to interact with them plays in the process of occupational scaffolding.
One father from a family with moderate levels of scaffolded play within household work
was never observed to engage in this type of play. During a home visit with this family,
I observed George, the father, actively discourage his daughter, Julia, from participating
in his household work or even simply watching him as he worked. He had just returned
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home from a shopping trip to a home supply store and was completing a home repair on
the back porch:
Julia was over by George who was still on the back porch. Kim asked
him a question and he responded, "I'm busy right now." He disappeared
from our sight. Kim looked at me and said, as if to explain his behavior,
"He got tools." He had something in his hands, but I could not make out
what it was from where I was sitting. ... He appeared to be working on
something just outside the door. Julia went back to the bedroom and
returned carrying a plastic yellow chair. She started to take it out
through the back door. I heard George say, "Don't bring that chair out
here, Julia. I don't want it out here." She continued to struggle to get it
out the door. He repeated, "Julia, don't bring that chair out here. Don’ t
make me tell you again. I don't want it out here." George made these
statements with a sharp tone of voice. Julia listened this time and
brought the chair back into the house.
In this absence of scaffolded play within household work with her father, I
observed Julia on several different occasions approach and play with objects that were
not toys only to have George tell her not to play with them. One occasion occurred
during George's participation in yard work:
We went back outside. I sat down on the porch steps. While we were in
Christian's room, I was aware of a motor noise coming from outside.
When we got out there, I saw that George had a weed-blower lying on
the grass next to him as he worked. He was at the far end of the yard.
Christian had his four-wheeled jeep working and was showing me how it
moved back and forth on the patio. It was rather slow and didn't look as
if it was working all that well. Kim went over to the pile of flowers and
looked for some that were more to her liking. Julia walked over to the
weed-blower and sat behind it. As I watched Christian play, I heard the
weed-blower come on. I looked up to see that it was Julia who was
playing with it. George told her not to play with it. She turned it on
again. He told her not to make him tell her again. She turned it on again
and then left it alone.
This excerpt, when contrasted to the earlier vignette in which Brent facilitated
his children's use of the lawn edger and hedge clippers during his participation in yard
work, illustrates differences in the access to and freedom to interact with objects that are
not toys allowed by parents from families with high versus moderate levels o f scaffolded
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play within household work. While I do not deny the danger of a young child's play with
a gas-powered garden tool, I believe that it is no greater than the dangers of play with a
lawn edger or hedge clippers. The difference lies in the fathers' readiness to facilitate
their children's safe use of such equipment. Brent willingly included his children in his
work for brief moments of time. George did not do so and, in fact, momentarily looked
up from his work only to reprimand his daughter for her curiosity and interest in the
garden tool.
George's lack of participation in scaffolded play within household work
highlights another difference between families with high levels of occupational
scaffolding and families with moderate or low levels. All of the families with moderate
or low levels of this type of play demonstrated gender differences between the parents.
Of these six families, four mothers were more likely to provide occupational scaffolding
than the fathers were and two fathers were more likely to do so than the mothers. The
parents from three of the four families with high levels of scaffolded play within
household work exhibited no differences in terms of their provision of occupational
scaffolding. The mother from the fourth family provided extremely high levels of
occupational scaffolding within the context of her sole responsibility for the majority of
the household work. Thus, it appeared as if her participation in scaffolded play within
household work overwhelmed her husband's participation in it. Clearly, higher levels of
scaffolded play within household work are more likely to be found within families in
which both parents participated in it than in families in which only one parent
participated in such play.
The Experience of Plav Embedded in Household Work
A discussion of play embedded in household work, including both parental
participation in play within household work and scaffolded play within household work,
would not be complete without consideration of the participants' experiences of
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engagement in these occupations. Once I had discovered and begun to analyze the
phenomenon of play embedded in household work, I included direct questions about the
meanings of this type of play in my interviews with the remaining 12 parents in the
study. My questions required them to reflect on whether they were playing or working
and whether or not they were having fun while they were involved in these types of
interactions with their children. I took a collaborative stance in asking these questions
and assumed that they were able to reflect intelligently upon the meaning of their
experiences (Stewart, 1990). I also asked the parents about their children's experiences
of play during scaffolded play within household work. I realized that, by asking the
parents to think about their children's experience, I was collecting "second-hand" data,
but to ask the children directly about their experiences would have resulted in a study
very different from the one in which I was already engaged.
When I asked the parents if their children were playing when they were involved
in scaffolded play within household work, most of them said that they thought that they
were playing in terms of trying to make the things that they were doing fun. Several
parents said that their children made anything they did into a "game." When talking
about their children's play while involved in household work, many parents stated that it
was different from other forms of children's play. I asked one mother if that type of
interaction was play for her daughter. She replied:
Yeah, I think it is. I don't think it's like a chore or anything. I think it's
just a fun time and it's play time. ... Because if she's bored with it or
something, she's like, "Mommy, I'm done now. I don't want to do this
anymore." ... I think some of it's just like an awe for her. An awe, you
know, it's just something so new, it's interesting. And she'll be
interested in it for awhile and, like I said, "I'm done, Mommy. I want to
go play." Maybe that's one form of play, but now she wants to get to the
real play stuff, like the babies or something. ... It's a different form of
play that she wants to go to, but I would definitely consider it play time.
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Another mother stated that for young children like her 5 year old son and 2 year
old daughter:
Chores are fun. I give Julia a bottle of Windex and a piece of paper
towel and she'll play. She will have fun with that in front of the mirror.
She'll also get the mirror clean, but she has no idea what she's doing. ...
Folding clothes. I mean that's not fun [to me], but to them it's playing.
Because they don't have to do it. It's because none of that stuff has to get
done as far as they're concerned.
Many parents qualified their answers, however, by adding that they also thought
that the children were trying to help them complete their work. Some parents said that
other reasons for the children's participation included wanting to be with their parents
and wanting to be involved and a part of the family. One mother, while talking about her
daughter’ s involvement in household work, said, "Maybe she's playing house a little bit,
but I think she's wanting to help, more than actual play."
A father qualified what he said about his daughter’ s play when she participated in
household work. He stated, "I don't know if it's like play-play, but it’s more like being
involved." When I asked what "play-play" was, he said that was what she was doing as
we spoke. We could hear her in the playroom singing quietly to herself. Referring to his
daughter’ s actions in the other room, he continued, "I mean she's just playing. But I
think the other one's just being more involved in the family and just kind of being a part
of it. In response to my question of whether she was having fun while engaged in
household work, he answered, "Yeah. I think if she wasn't having fun, she wouldn't want
to do it. So, yeah, I think it's more, I don't know, maybe fun, but just being involved and
doing stuff, feeling like she’s helping out."
One mother stated that she saw her son's involvement in household work as his:
wanting to be with either Bill or I in what we're doing and also I don't
know if he sees it as a learning thing, but I don't think he sees it as play.
... I think he sees it as something that he wants to help with and that it's
fun. Because he'll help me make the bed sometimes. He'll want to help.
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He'll want to vacuum. He loves to vacuum. ... Maybe he sees it as
play. I never thought about it that way so I don't know.
As I encountered the parents' difficulty in describing their children's experiences
when engaged in scaffolded play within household work, I added two questions to the
end of their interviews. First, I asked them to define play and, second, tell me what
things their children did that might not be play. Almost all of the parents included the
concepts of enjoyment and fun in their definitions of play. One mother defined play in
this manner:
Play is having fun. Just something that doesn’ t require thinking. Doesn't
require responsibility so much. Just going off for the day and going to
Disneyland. Being a kid for the day and not have to worry about
anything. Don't have to wony about the dishes that are at home or the
laundry that needs to be done. Just go and have fun. Not think about
your day-to-day responsibilities. Be 5 again.
A father said:
What is play? I think your ability to enjoy the moment would be play.
Just the ability to enjoy the moment, whether that be the book you're
reading or the television show you're watching or the interaction that
you're having with your child or your lover. I think that the ability to
appreciate the moment, that would be play. I think we stop playing, we
get so serious. ... We get so caught up in what we're doing that we
forget the play. We forget to have fun.
Several parents found that they had difficulty defining play and often playfully
complained that I had asked a hard question and done them a disservice by leaving it to
the end of the interview. One mother’s answer typified the confusion that the parents
encountered in defining play:
Play is anything, to me, it's anything that you do with your, well,
anything that you do that, um. I guess that, [pause], well, it's a good
thing. [Laughter.] It's a good thing. You should do it. It's, um, what is
play? Fun. Um, things that you do that bring joy and comfort and fun
and learning and laughter. I guess that's it. ... I think that's it for me,
[it] is things that you do with people or by yourself that bring joy and
comfort and fun. Laughter.
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The parents' answers to my question of what things their children did that were
not play frequently included references to their affect. Several parents spoke o f times
when their children were angry, frustrated, tired, sad, or stubborn as times when they
were not playing. When they were serious about what they were doing, such as trying to
manipulate their parents into doing something they wanted or testing them to see if they
could get a reaction from them, parents said that the children were not playing. Half of
the parents thought that their children played most, if not, all of the time. One father
stated that he thought his children's days and, in fact, their lives were based around play.
His wife said that, especially for children at the preschool age, "almost every activity is
playing." Another mother, after immediately answering that there were things her
daughter did that were not play, eventually concluded, "She plays all the time. That is
her life goal. Her life's work."
One father responded to my question by saying:
I don't think she does anything that's not play because I think she's just
trying to have fun on [sic] everything she,does. Whatever she thinks fun
is and when she's sleeping, before she's sleeping, with the family hugs
and stuff like that, that's fun to her and reading books before she goes to
bed. I think everything she does is play. And everyday I ask her, "What
did you do at [the baby-sitter’s] house?" "Play." I think in her mind,
everything is just fun.
A mother puzzled over the same question:
I don't know. It seems like she turns just about everything into a game.
I mean getting dressed is a game. Just about everything she does is a
game to her. ... It seems like everything she does, she wants to make it
more fun. And, I don't know, I guess that's true of all kids. They all
want to turn things into games and I don't know if that’ s how they learn
or if that's just what they do. I don’ t know. [Laughter.] It's hard to say.
I don't know. And I don’ t know where it begins to not be a game. I
haven't seen that yet with Katlyn. Everything seems to be a game.
Cracking eggs is a game. That's a great game. [Laughter.] ... Washing
dishes is a fun game, too, because she can get all wet and have bubbles
there. I mean things that I don't consider a game, she considers a game.
So I don't know where that line is going to be where it's not going to be a
game anymore.
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These parents' responses corresponded with other parents' beliefs about their
children's play. A study of parental opinions and attitudes about children's play found
that parents considered 32 out of 40 children's activities to be some form o f play (van der
Kooij & Slaats-van den Hurk; 1991). Some of the activities classified as play included
eating, riding in the car, shopping, taking a bath, dusting furniture, and washing dishes.
The mother quoted in the passage above stated that some occupations that were
play for her daughter were not play for her. She raised an issue that was discussed by
many o f the parents in their responses to my question of whether they were experiencing
play when they engaged in play embedded in household work. All of the parents to
whom I asked this question stated that they were working; two fathers stated definitively
that they were working and not playing. Nevertheless, many of the remaining parents
stated that they were also having fun while they worked. Considering that having fun
was, to them, a defining characteristic o f play, the parents seemed to be saying that there
was an element of play in their household work when they interacted with their children,
either through participation in their children's play or through involvement of their
children in their work.
One mother, in response to my question of whether she was working when she
embedded play with her child into household work, said, "No, I'm not. No, I'm just
trying to get things done." When I asked her whether it was fun for her, she replied:
Oh, it's fun, yeah. I mean it's not not-fim. It's stuff that I know needs to
get done and I have two ways about going about doing things. ... It's
like, "No, you can't help me make breakfast this morning. We’ re late.
We need to go out someplace. This is how it's going to be." versus the
times when it's like, "Oh, yeah, come on. Crack the eggs. D o ‘ .his." ...
That's play and that's more fun.
Four mothers responded to my questions about playing and having fun while
engaged in play embedded in household work by specifically stating that they were both
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working and playing. One mother from a family with high levels of scaffolded play
within household work explained:
[I'm] not necessarily [playing] in what I'm doing, but towards her, yeah,
I might be playing with her. Just fooling with her. If we're vacuuming, I
might have the music on and be dancing with her or something and
vacuuming. But I'm also working, getting chores done or whatever.
Somewhat it is play, but more chores, work-type things.
When I asked her if she were having fun, she answered, "Yeah, especially if I'm
doing it with her, it’s more fun than just doing it, than just doing housework, drudgery.
This mother juxtaposed the feelings of fun and drudgery when describing her experience
while engaged in play embedded household work. Another mother, who was from a
family with low levels of scaffolded play within household work, provided only one
instance in which she engaged in such play with her son. Her experience differed
significantly from the mother cited in the passage above:
I was in and out of playing because half of me was like, "Oh, isn't this
fun?" and the other half was like, "Don't let him bum himself." "He's
going to poke his eye out." So kind of 50/50. ... We really were
[having fun], but there was still that half of me that worried.
The mothers who described their experience of play embedded in household
work as both work and play discussed how the experience could vary. One mother
explained it best when she said:
Usually it's just a practical way to get things done. ... It's one of my
ways to do my daily routine. I wouldn't really classify, well, yeah, I
would, because the whole routine is work, but it's kind of play-work.
Sometimes we turn on the stereo and just dance and then, it's play. It's
both for me. It's both. It depends. ... Sometimes I'm having fim,
sometimes I'm tired and I just want to get the work done. Like I said, it's
both. It just depends on my mood and how I'm doing, but it's a good
way to get things done and still have everybody have fun.
When I pressed her to try to explain on what basis she would describe her
experience as either more play and less work or less play and more work, she thought for
a few seconds and then laughed as she asked:
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Well, have you ever had a 50-50 bar? I just wouldn't know how to say it
was one or the other. ... Because it changes from day to day what
exactly we're doing, when it's happening, and I guess, more often than
not, it would be play. But it's still more like a 50-50 bar. It's like both.
It's like work with an attitude. ... I don't know. That's the only way I
can describe it. It's like work with an attitude. It's my way to get things
done in a fun way. So, yeah, I'm working. No, vacuuming the house
isn't exactly what I want to do right now or doing dishes or cleaning, but
I'm getting it done and we're all enjoying it at the same time.
The participants' experiences o f play embedded in household work appeared to
contain an element o f play which blended both work and play experiences. The parents
described their children's experiences as a mix of play, helpful behavior, and their
wanting to be involved in the work of being a family. They described their own
experience of play embedded in household work as work that was fun or as a blending of
work and play.
Summary
This chapter presented the findings on the orchestration of work and play within
families. First, two types of strategies used by parents to orchestrate their participation
in household work and parent-child play were identified. They included (a) strategies of
segregation, and (b) strategies of inclusion. When parents used strategies of segregation,
they were observed to segregate themselves from their children's play or to segregate
their children from them while they were engaged in household work occupations. The
use of strategies o f segregation resulted in parent-child play within the context of daily
routines. Strategies of inclusion were observed when parents participated in play with
their children while they were also completing household work or when parents allowed
their children to participate in the household work occupations with them. Play
embedded in household work resulted from parents' use of strategies o f inclusion. Two
types of play embedded in household work were observed: (a) parental participation in
play within household work, and (b) scaffolded play within household work.
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i
Gender differences in parent-child play within the context of daily routines were
noted. More mothers than fathers used strategies of segregation to incorporate play with
their children into their daily routines of household work within their families, whereas
more fathers than mothers used those strategies to intersperse play with their children
with their paid work participation while at home. I suggested that divisions of work
within families which placed most of the responsibility for the daily household work
upon women and most of the responsibility for paid work upon men explained these
findings. No gender differences were found in parental participation in play within
household work. The same rationale provided for the gender differences in parent-child
play within the context of daily routines could also be applied to explain the observed
gender differences in scaffolded play within household work, but it would not account
for the differences between the families in terms o f their participation in this type of
parent-child play. Other factors seemed to play a part in these inter-family differences.
Two alternative explanations were presented. The families were found to differ
in the extent to which the parents readily relinquished absolute control over their
household work and transferred some of the responsibility for its completion to their
children and in the extent to which they allowed their children access to and freedom to
interact with objects within their homes that were not toys. These findings have
significant implications for further study of occupational scaffolding as a process through
which participation in childhood occupations fosters competence in adulthood. Finally,
the experience of play embedded in household work was explored. The parents
described their experiences as containing an element of play that seemed to blend their
feelings of being at work and play.
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CHAPTER 7
Summary and Conclusions
Introduction
Central concerns of occupational science include the nature of occupations and
the process through which they are orchestrated into daily routines (Clark et al., 1991;
Primeau, Clark, & Pierce, 1989; Yerxa et al., 1989). Within families, the occupations of
parents include participation in household work and parent-child play. The purpose of
this study was to describe the play of mothers and fathers with their preschool-aged
children as it occurred within the context o f the daily occupations o f families with
traditional and non-traditional divisions of household work. The research questions
answered by this study were:
1. What is the nature of parent-child play within families?
2. Are traditional and non-traditional divisions of household work related to the
nature of parent-child play within families? If so, how?
3. How is parent-child play orchestrated within the daily occupations of families
with traditional and non-traditional divisions of household work?
This chapter will summarize the study’ s findings by answering its research
questions. The findings will be presented and discussed in order to demonstrate how
each question was answered. A discussion of the relevance o f the findings for future
research and theoretical development will conclude the chapter.
Research Questions
The Nature o f Parent-Child Play
What is the nature of parent-child play within families? This research question
addressed the primary construct of occupational science, that is, occupation (Carlson &
Dunlea, 1995). The specific case o f parent-child play occupations within families was
chosen to elucidate the nature o f occupation. Additional questions arose when I began to
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consider the nature of parent-child play within families. For example, what does parent-
child play within families look like? What types of parent-child play occur within
families? Do parents encourage specific types of child's play within the home? If so,
what are they? Do mothers and fathers differ in the types of play that they encourage?
The study's findings provided some answers to these questions.
Several different types of parent-child play were observed in the course of this
study. Play previously described in the literature, such as rough and tumble play, active
play, sedentary play, and imaginary play were easily identified and documented. In
addition, I noted the presence of scaffolded play. Although scaffolded play was not
specifically identified as such in the literature, it was described as occurring within the
context of parent-child interactions involving parental scaffolding or tutoring. The
majority of both mothers and fathers participated in all o f these types of play. The
findings on parent-child play within families were presented and discussed in Chapter 5.
Parents were resourceful in the ways in which they increased their opportunities
to engage in play with their children. A significant finding of this study was that parents
embedded play with their children into their participation in household work. I identified
and described two types of previously undocumented parent-child play: (a) parental
participation in play within household work, and (b) scaffolded play within household
work. Once again, the majority o f both mothers and fathers were found to participate in
these types of play. Chapter 6 presented the findings on play embedded in household
work.
Relationship of Divisions of Household Work to Parent-Child Plav
Are traditional and non-traditional divisions of household work related to the
nature o f parent-child play? If so, how? This research question was designed to further
explicate the occupational nature of parent-child play and to examine the influence o f the
social construction of divisions of household work according to gender upon the
255
occupation of parent-child play. To what extent, if any, does responsibility for
household work within families affect parental participation in play with their children?
Are differences between the play of mothers and fathers artifacts of socially-constructed
gender-based divisions of household work? What happens to the play o f parents when
household work is shared equally between mothers and fathers? These questions fell
under the rubric of the second research question.
Prior to answering them, I had to identify and describe the divisions of
household work within the families in the study. Chapter 4 presented the data on each of
the ten families' divisions of paid work and household work. I used the concepts of
gender ideology and gender strategies (Hochschild, 1989) to gain an understanding of
each family’ s gender practices, that is, the concrete, physical acts of work required to
maintain the household and family. Using data from the Household Work
Questionnaire, the participant observations, and the intensive interviews, I demonstrated
how the surface and deep gender ideologies of husbands and wives interacted at both the
intra-individual and inter-individual levels to create gender practices specific to their
families. Reliance upon statements of beliefs and values about gender expectations for
participation in household work without observations of specific behaviors or vice versa
may have led to a lopsided view of a family's division of work.
In the case o f this study's findings, the combination of data on gender ideologies
and gender practices resulted in a more complete understanding o f the divisions of
household work within the families than would have been obtained from information on
beliefs or practices alone. The findings of this study on work in families have
implications for occupational science. In seeking to understand human occupational
behavior, occupational scientists must not only ask about beliefs and values, but also
observe actual participation in occupations. It is only by linking and comparing what is
said with what is done, that a well-rounded picture of occupational behavior emerges.
256
I completed a gender analysis of the types of parent-child play previously
described in the literature, that is, rough and tumble play, active play, sedentary play,
imaginary play, and scaffolded play. This study's findings generally replicated those
reported in the literature. Most of the studies indicated that fathers were more likely than
mothers to participate in rough and tumble play and that mothers were more likely than
fathers to engage in sedentary and imaginary play with their children (Carson, Burks, &
Parke, 1993). This study found similar gender differences within families with both
traditional and non-traditional divisions of household work, suggesting that socially-
constructed, gender-based divisions of household work were not related to these types of
parent-child play. Within the families in this study, however, negative instances were
observed in which these differences were not supported or were, in fact, reversed.
Also significant was the finding that gender similarities occurred in these types
of parent-child play. Parents of both sexes were more likely to engage in a wide range of
play activities than they were to limit themselves to gender-specialized types of play. In
the case of scaffolded play, the majority of studies have focused on maternal scaffolding,
but the few studies to investigate paternal scaffolding have not indicated any parental
gender differences (Parke, 1981; Pratt et al., 1988; Sigel, 1982). No differences between
mothers' and fathers' participation in this type of play were noted in this study. This
finding suggests that scaffolded play with children was unrelated to either gender per se
or to divisions of household work based upon gender.
Orchestration of Work and Plav Within Families
How is parent-child play orchestrated within the daily occupations of families
with traditional and non-traditional divisions of household work? This research question
addressed occupational science’ s focus upon the process involved in the orchestration of
daily occupations, that is, how human beings make decisions about what they will and
will not do each day and how they sequence these choices in time throughout the day
257
(Clark et al., 1991; Primeau et al., 1989; Yerxa et al., 1989). Related questions arose
within the context of this study. Where does parent-child play fit into the daily routines
of housework and child care? How do parents coordinate their child’ s play with their
own occupations, particularly their participation in household work? Bateson's assertion
that women engage in enfolded occupations more than men (in press) leads one to
question whether the ability to enfold occupations is related to responsibility for
household work. Would men also enfold their occupations if they shared equally in the
completion of household work?
Turning to the question of how parent-child play is orchestrated within the daily
occupations of families, I discovered that parents used two strategies to include time and
play with their children in their daily lives. They were a) strategies of segregation, and
b) strategies of inclusion. Strategies of segregation were used when parents segregated
themselves from their children's play or when they segregated their children from them
while they participated in household work. The use of strategies of segregation resulted
in parent-child play within the context of daily routines. When parents used strategies of
inclusion, they were observed either to participate in play with their children while they
completed household work or to allow their children to participate in the household work
with them. Parents’ use of strategies of inclusion resulted in play embedded in household
work. Two types of play embedded in household work were identified a) parental
participation in play within household work, and b) scaffolded play within household
work. Each of these types of parent-child play and their relationships to traditional and
non-traditional divisions of household work will be discussed in turn.
Play within the context of daily routines was a consequence of the parents'
practice of interspersing play with their children among their household work
occupations. More mothers than fathers interspersed play with their children with their
participation in household work. Even though fewer fathers used strategies of
258
segregation while engaged in household work, all of the fathers from the non-traditional
families were among those who did so. These two findings suggest that this particular
method of orchestrating play and work was related to the division of household work.
Mothers who carried the majority of responsibility for household work and those fathers
who shared household work with their wives were more likely to use strategies of
segregation to incorporate parent-child play into their daily routines. In addition, more
fathers than mothers interspersed play with their children with their participation in paid
work while at home. This finding indicates that fathers, with their greater responsibility
for paid work, were more likely to use segregation strategies to intersperse play with
their children with paid work participation at home. In the case of parent-child play
within the context of daily routines, the socially-constructed, gender-based division of
household work was related to how play and work were orchestrated within the families.
When parents embedded play with their children within household work, they
were engaged in enfolded occupations. In the case of parental participation in play
within household work, the parents were playing with their children while they were
simultaneously involved in household work. The work, whether it was a housework or
child care task, was being accomplished at the same time that they were supervising,
interacting, and playing with their children. There were no observed gender differences
in parental participation in play within household work. Parent-child play occurred more
frequently within child care occupations than within housework occupations. Since all
of the parents provided some child care to their children, there were opportunities for
both mothers and fathers to engage in this type of play.
Scaffolded play within household work occurred when parents involved their
children in their household work occupations. This process of allowing children to have
the freedom to participate in scaffolded play within household work was termed
'occupational scaffolding'. Given the embedded nature of scaffolded play in household
259
work, parents were naturally enfolding their occupations while engaging in this type o f
play. Mothers and fathers differed in their participation in it. All of the mothers and
eight of the fathers engaged in scaffolded play within household work with their
children. The two fathers who did not do so were from traditional and non-traditional
families. By definition, scaffolded play within household work takes place within the
context of participation in household work, so clearly its occurrence will be limited by
the amount of household work in which the parents participated. Within the families
with traditional divisions of household work, the mothers had more opportunities to
engage in this type of parent-child play simply by virtue of their greater responsibility for
completing the work than the fathers.
Moreover, both mothers and fathers tended to engage in scaffolded play within
their gender-specialized household work occupations. Mothers were more likely to
participate in scaffolded play within cooking, cleaning, and other typically female tasks
and fathers were more likely to participate in scaffolded play within yard work and car
maintenance tasks. The household work typically allocated to men is more discretionary
in terms of when it needs to be done than is the work traditionally allocated to women
(Shelton, 1992). The household work tasks traditionally completed by women, such as
meal preparation and clean up and some cleaning tasks, need to be completed on a daily
basis. Consequently, the repetitive and daily nature of the work traditionally done by
women and the fact that the parents tended to engage in scaffolded play within their
gender-specialized household work occupations provided greater opportunities for
mothers to engage in scaffolded play with their children than fathers. To some extent,
then, in the case of scaffolded play within household work, the socially-constructed,
gender-based division o f household work was related to how parents orchestrated work
and play occupations within their families.
260
The division of household work did not, however, account for all of the observed
differences between the families in terms o f their participation in scaffolded play within
household work. The families were noted to differ in the extent to which the parents
readily relinquished absolute control over their household work and transferred some of
the responsibility for its completion to their children. Additionally, they differed in the
extent to which the parents allowed their children access to and freedom to interact with
objects that were not toys. These findings are believed to have significant implications
for further study o f occupational scaffolding as a process through which participation in
childhood occupations may foster adult competence. When talking about their
participation in scaffolded play within household work, the parents reported an element
of play that blended their experience of work and play. This finding is another area for
future study which holds the promise of rich insights into the nature of occupations and
their orchestration within daily life.
Directions for the Future
Many o f this study's findings provide fertile ground for future research and
theoretical development, but two areas are o f particular interest to me. They are (a) the
process o f occupational scaffolding, and (b) the deconstruction of work and play within
adult occupations. I will discuss the implications of the findings in these areas and
provide an overview of the paths that further research and conceptualization could take.
First, I will discuss occupational scaffolding and its ability to explicate aspects o f a
question central to occupational science. Then, I will demonstrate how the parents'
descriptions of the blending of work and play experiences within play embedded in
household work have implications for theoretical development beyond the particular case
of household work and parent-child play.
In Chapter 6 ,1 described occupational scaffolding as a process which occurred
within the context o f parent-child play, specifically scaffolded play within household
261
work. Occupational scaffolding is a vehicle for parents and children to jointly manage
children's development and learning through their shared participation in daily household
work occupations. With data from this study, I illustrated how occupational scaffolding
shared some of the characteristics of the scaffolding process as described in the literature
(Wood et al., 1976). I also demonstrated that occupational scaffolding was likely to
occur more often under some conditions than others. The families within the study were
shown to differ in the extent to which the parents set up the conditions conducive to
occupational scaffolding within their play with their children.
One of the conditions identified as being conducive to the process of
occupational scaffolding was the parents' willingness to allow their children to have
access to and the freedom to interact with objects that were not toys. In the course of
analyzing the data collected in this study, I noted that there were times in which parents
were neither actively interacting in nor directly scaffolding their children's play, but were
still facilitating their engagement in pretend play by allowing them to interact with
objects that were not toys. In one case, a father allowed his four year old son and two
year old daughter to play with some tools in his tool box. They crawled under the car
parked in the front driveway and pretended to be "fixing" it. Beyond placing a block o f
wood behind the car’ s front tire to ensure that the car was safely parked and remained
immobile, the father did not participate in his children's play. In another case, a mother,
while preparing dinner, allowed her son to play with a plastic glass, water, grated
parmesan cheese, and the microwave as he "pretended" to make something to eat. Her
participation in his play was minimal.
Nevertheless, I believe that both of these parents were involved in the process of
occupational scaffolding. Their willingness to allow their children to play with objects
that were not toys, but were objects used in the course of participation in adult
occupations extended their children's ability to learn about those same occupations. The
262
parents' use of the natural environment to facilitate their children's participation in
occupations reminds me of an occupational therapist's use of the environment to promote
a patient's therapeutic involvement in occupation. Given that childhood occupations are
thought to shape adulthood accomplishments (Clark et al., 1991; Primeau et al., 1989;
Yerxa et al., 1989), this process of occupational scaffolding within children's play may
hold the key to how parents foster their children's competence as adults. Moreover,
occupational scaffolding may provide insight into the clinical reasoning process of
occupational therapists working with their patients. Further research designed to
examine occupational scaffolding as it naturally occurs within parent-child play at home
and in occupational therapy practice is needed to develop the potential it holds to further
our understanding of the nature of humans as occupational beings.
The potential to help unravel a knot within the conceptual thinking of
occupational scientists and the wider social science discourse is contained within the
findings of this study. Scholars have been trying for years to define the concepts of work
and play (Primeau, 1995; Primeau, in press). The parents in this study described play
embedded in household work as a blending of work and play experiences. This finding
is not new; researchers have previously discussed the combined experience of work and
play in household work (Berk & Berk, 1979; DeVault, 1991; Primeau, in press; Shaw,
1988). Occupational therapists have traditionally based their clinical practices upon the
assumption of a healthy balance of work, rest, and play, but it remains an assumption in
light of the lack of a detailed understanding of what constitutes work, play, and their
healthy balance (Clark et al., 1991; Primeau, 1995). Using the parents' experience of the
blending of work and play in scaffolded play within household work as a springboard,
future research could deconstruct the notion of work and play as separate experiences
within the lives of adults. Deconstruction of this dichotomy is critical to occupational
263
science's understanding of how engagement in a daily round o f occupations contributes
to an individual's health and life satisfaction (Clark et al., 1991; Primeau, 1995).
In summary, this study began by focusing on issues central to occupational
science, that is, the nature of occupations and the process through which they are
orchestrated in daily life. These issues were explored within the special case of
occupations within families, particularly parent-child play and household work.
Questions about the nature of parent-child play and its orchestration within the daily
occupations of families were answered. The study ended by pointing the way to examine
other issues o f equal import to occupational science, such as the process through which
childhood occupations shape and foster adult competence and the contribution of
engagement in a daily round of occupations to health and life satisfaction.
264
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276
APPENDIX A
Letter o f Introduction
Telephone Contact Sheet
Consent Form
LETTER OF INTRODUCTION
CHILD'S PLAY WITHIN THE FAMILY
Dear Parents:
My name is Loree Primeau and I am a graduate student at the University of Southern
California (USC). Your family has been selected to take part in a study of children's play
in the family. We are interested in how preschool children play at home. We are
particularly interested in how parents fit their child's play into their busy daily schedules
o f home, work and family responsibilities. This study consists of talking and visiting
with parents and their children as they go about their daily business at home.
This study is important because most of our understanding of child's play comes from
studies done in university research laboratories. There is very little information on how
children play at home in their natural environment. You, as parents, are experts in this
area and hold the key to our understanding how children's play in the family fits into
daily family life. We hope that this study will help people who participate in it and
people who may read about it to better understand child's play.
Your participation in this study is entirely voluntary. This study has been reviewed
and approved by a committee of university professors to ensure that it meets scientific
and ethical standards. You may choose to withdraw from the study or to stop the
interviews or visits at any time.
The findings from this study may be published and used to develop public policies
related to the planning, funding, and provision o f programs in the areas of family
services, public health and child care. Your participation in this study is strictly
anonymous and confidential. Your name will not appear anywhere in the study results.
All information collected will be kept in a locked file cabinet in the offices of The
Department of Occupational Therapy, University of Southern California, Clinical
Sciences Annex, Health Sciences Campus, Los Angeles, CA.
If you are willing to help us out in this study, please sign this form and return it to
your child's preschool teacher. I can be reached at (310) 374-9692 to answer any
questions you may have and to discuss your inclusion in this study. Thank you very
much.
Sincerely,
Loree Primeau, MA, OTR
I give my permission to be contacted for inclusion in the above study.
Parent's Signature: Parent's Signature:
We can be reached at (phone number):
during these hours: _______________
278
TELEPHONE CONTACT SHEET
DATE:
NAME:
TELEPHONE NUMBERS: HOME: WORK:
1. How old is your child? Boy/Girl
2. Any other children?
How old?
3. Where do you live?
4. What do you do?
5. What does your partner do?
6. What is your education level?
7. What is your partner's education level?
8. What is your race/ethnicity?
9. What is your partner’ s race/ethnicity?
NOTES:
279
CONSENT FORM
CHILD'S PLAY WITHIN THE FAMILY
Loree Primeau, MA, OTR
(310) 374-9692
My name is Loree Primeau and I am a graduate student at the University of Southern
California. Your family has been selected to take part in a study of children's play in the
family. We are interested in how preschool children play at home. We are particularly
interested in how parents fit their child's play into their busy daily schedules of home,
work and family responsibilities. This study consists of talking and visiting with parents
and their children as they go about their daily business at home.
This study is important because most of our understanding of child's play comes from
studies done in university research laboratories. There is very little information on how
children play at home in their natural environment. You, as parents, are experts in this
area and hold the key to our understanding how children’ s play in the family fits into
daily family life. We hope that this study will help people who participate in it and
people who may read about it to better understand child's play.
Your participation in this study is entirely voluntary. This study has been reviewed
and approved by a committee of university professors to ensure that it meets scientific
and ethical standards. The risks involved in this study may include some discomfort in
being observed at home or in answering some interview questions. These risks are
believed to be minimal. Your refusal to participate in this study will nol involve penalty
or loss of benefits to which you are entitled. You may choose to withdraw from the
study or to stop the interviews or visits at any time.
The findings from this study may be published and used to develop public policies
related to the planning, funding, and provision of programs in the areas of family
services, public health and child care. Any information that is obtained in connection
with this study and that can be identified with you or your family will remain
confidential. Your name will not appear anywhere in the study results. All information
collected will be kept in a locked file cabinet in the offices of The Department of
Occupational Therapy, University of Southern California, Clinical Sciences Annex,
Health Sciences Campus, Los Angeles, CA.
If you have any questions relating to this study now or later, please feel free to ask
them at any time. I can be reached at (310) 374-9692. You will be given a copy of this
form to keep.
280
Your signature indicates that you have decided to participate having read the
information provided above.
Parent's Signature Parent's Signature
Date Date
S ignature of W itness Date
I certify that I have reviewed the contents of this form with the person(s) signing above
who, in my opinion, understood the explanation.
Investigator Date
281
APPENDIX B
Household Work Questionnaire
Household Work Questionnaire Coding Categories
Household Work Questionnaire - Individual
Please circle: Woman/Man
This questionnaire is designed to determine how household work is divided between you
and your spouse. Please provide a percentage indicative of the proportion o f the time
(100%) that you spend performing the various tasks. Round-off your estimated
percentage figure to the nearest ten, ie., 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, etc. Please complete this
questionnaire by yourself without discussion with your spouse.
What percentage of the time do you:
1. prepare and cook food?
2. set the table?
3. clean up after the meal (clear the table, put food away)?
4. do the dishes?
5. dust and oil the furniture?
6. vacuum or sweep the floors?
7. scrub the floors?
8. clean the windows?
9. clean the oven?
10. clean the stove?
11. clean the refrigerator?
12. clean the kitchen sink and countertops?
13. clean the bathroom sink and countertops?
14. scrub the tub and shower stall?
15. clean the toilet?
16. sweep the driveway and sidewalk?
17. take out the garbage?
18. put the garbage out for pick-up?
19. do the laundry?
20. put the clean clothes away?
283
21. iron clothing?
22. mend clothing?
23. make the beds?
24. straighten up the living room, family room, or den?
25. pack and unpack suitcases before and after a trip?
26. maintain and repair appliances?
27. pay the bills?
28. maintain household accounts?
29. feed the pets?
30. take care of pets (change litter box, play with pets)?
31. take pets to groomer and veterinarian?
32. cut the grass?
33. garden?
34. do yard maintenance and repair (paint the fence, clean the barbeque)?
35. trim shrubs or trees?
36. conduct household correspondence and write holiday cards (Christmas, Hanukah)?
37. repair the car?
38. take the car in for maintenance or repairs?
39. do minor redecorations or repairs (hang pictures, put up shelves)?
40. do major redecorations or repairs (carpentry work, paint or wallpaper walls)?
41. wake child?
42. dress child?
43. feed child?
44. get child ready for school/daycare?
45. take child to school/daycare?
46. pick child up from school/daycare?
284
47. bathe child?
48. diaper child?
49. put child down for nap?
50. put child to bed?
51. supervise child's indoor play?
52. supervise child's outdoor play?
53. discipline child?
54. arrange for babysitter?
55. take child to doctor, hairdresser, other appointments?
56. read to child?
57. play with child?
58. take child for walks or outings?
59. make the grocery list?
60. do the grocery shopping?
61. do general and clothing shopping?
62. go to the bank?
63. go to the post office?
64. get gas for the car?
65. answer the phone?
66. make phone calls for household care and maintenance?
67. make medical and dental appointments?
68. sort the mail?
69. prepare for guests?
70. water and maintain plants?
71. buy and wrap birthday, Christmas, and Hanukah gifts?
Types o f Activities
Cooking and Meal
Clean Up
Cleaning
Laundry and
Clothing Care
Outdoor Maintenance
Indoor Maintenance
Child Care
Shopping and Errands
Managerial Tasks
Car Maintenance
Household Work Questionnaire
Coding Categories
Items
1-4
5-15, 17, 18
23,24
19-22, 25
16, 32-35
26, 29-31,39, 40, 70
41-58
59-63
27, 28, 36, 65-69,71
37, 38, 64
APPENDIX C
Interview Guides
INTERVIEW GUIDE
Interviews #1-2
1. Tell me about your child and how she/he plays?
What does she/he do?
Kinds of activities?
Types of toys?
Physical/mental/imaginaiy?
Quiet/loud?
Indoors/outdoors?
Use of space/play areas?
By self/others?
2. What do you and your child do together?
Kinds o f activities?
Types of toys?
Physical/mental/imaginaiy?
Quiet/loud?
Indoors/outdoors?
Home/community?
3. How do you play with your child?
Who initiates play?
Who leads the play?
Who decides when to switch games/types of play?
Who decides when play is over?
4. What are your favorite things to do with child?
5. What things do you feel you "should" do with child?
6. Are there things that you try to encourage your child to do while playing?
7. How do you fit time/play with your child into your day?
8. Does your outside work/housework schedule affect your time/play with child?
9. Do you schedule time/piay with child around outside work/housework or do you
schedule outside work/housework around time/play with child?
10. What times are you most likely to play with your child?
What times are you least likely to play with your child?
11. During what activities are you most frequently available to play with your child?
During what activities are you least available?
12. Are there times when your child is more ready to play than you are?
Times when you are more ready to play than your child is?
13. Any conflicts between work schedules and time/play with child?
What are they?
288
Do you plan time in your day/week to spend with your child?
What things do you plan to do?
Do you and your partner play with your child in similar/different ways?
What things/activities are the same?
What things/activities are different?
Does your child play similarly/differently with you and your partner?
What is the same?
What is different?
Who is your child most likely to approach for play? You or your partner?
Does it differ according to play activities?
Does your involvement in housework/child care affect your
time/play/availability with your child? In what ways?
Does your partner's involvement in housework/child care affect his/her
play/time/availability with your child? In what ways?
What types of things do you like to do for fun?
By self/others?
Adults/child?
Do you plan to do them regularly? How often?
Do you play? Are you playful?
INTERVIEW GUIDE
Interviews #3-8
1. Tell me about your child and how she/he plays?
What does she/he do?
Kinds o f activities?
Types o f toys?
Physical/menta I/imaginary?
Quiet/loud?
Indoors/outdoors?
Use of space/play areas?
By self/others?
2. What do you and your child do together?
Kinds o f activities?
Types o f toys?
Physical/mental/imaginaiy?
Quiet/loud?
Indoors/outdoors?
Home/community?
3. How do you play with your child?
Who initiates play?
Who leads the play?
Who decides when to switch games/types of play?
Who decides when play is over?
4. Are there things/objects within your home with which your child is not allowed
to play?
5. Are there places inside/outside your home where your child is not allowed to
play?
6. What are your favorite things to do with child?
7. What things do you feel you "should" do with child?
8. Are there things that you try to encourage your child to do while playing?
9. How do you think your child learns practical skills like household chores?
(cooking, cleaning, laundry)
10. How do you teach your child the things you think they need to know?
11. Do you consciously try to teach these things/skills?
12. How do you fit time/play with your child into your day?
13. Does your outside work/housework schedule affect your time/play with child?
14. Do you schedule time/play with child around outside work/housework or do you
schedule outside work/housework around time/play with child?
290
What times are you most likely to play with your child?
What times are you least likely to play with your child?
During what activities are you most frequently available to play with your child?
During what activities are you least available?
Are there times when your child is more ready to play than you are?
Times when you are more ready to play than your child is?
Any conflicts between work schedules and time/play with child?
What are they?
Do you plan time in your day/week to spend with your child?
What things do you plan to do?
Do you and your partner play with your child in similar/different ways?
What things/activities are the same?
What things/activities are different?
Does your child play similarly/differently with you and your partner?
What is the same?
What is different?
Who is your child most likely to approach for play? You or your partner?
Does it differ according to play activities?
How do you and your partner divide the housework and childcare?
Are you satisfied with these arrangements?
Does your involvement in housework/child care affect your
time/play/availability with your child? In what ways?
Does your partner's involvement in housework/child care affect his/her
play/time/availability with your child? In what ways?
What types of things do you like to do for fUn?
By self/others?
Adults/child/family?
Do you plan to do them regularly? How often?
Do you play? Are you playful?
What is play?
How do you define play?
What things does your child do that you think are play?
What things does your child do that you think are not play?
INTERVIEW GUIDE
Interviews #9-20
1. Tell me about your child and how she/he plays?
What does she/he do?
Kinds of activities?
Types of toys?
Physical/mental/imaginaiy?
Quiet/loud?
Indoors/outdoors?
Use of space/play areas?
By self/others?
2. What do you and your child do together?
Kinds o f activities?
Types of toys?
Physical/mental/imaginary?
Quiet/loud?
Indoors/outdoors?
Home/community?
3. How do you play with your child?
Who initiates play?
Who leads the play?
Who decides when to switch games/types o f play?
Who decides when play is over?
4. Are there things/objects within your home with which your child is not allowed
to play?
5. Are there places inside/outside your home where your child is not allowed to
play?
6. What are your favorite things to do with child?
7. What things do you feel you "should" do with child?
8. Are there things that you try to encourage your child to do while playing?
9. How do you think your child learns practical skills like household chores?
(cooking, cleaning, laundry)
Is this play?
Is your child playing?
Are you playing?
Is your child having fun?
Are you having fun?
10. How do you teach your child the things you think they need to know?
11. Do you consciously try to teach these things/skills?
292
12. How do you fit time/play with your child into your day?
13. Does your outside work/housework schedule affect your time/play with child?
In what ways?
What are the conflicts?
14. Do you schedule time/play with child around outside work/housework or do you
schedule outside work/housework around time/play with child?
15. What times are you most likely to play with your child?
16. What times are you least likely to play with your child?
17. During what activities are you most frequently available to play with your child?
18. During what activities are you least available?
19. Are there times when your child is more ready to play than you are?
Times when you are more ready to play than your child is?
20. Do you plan time in your day/week to spend with your child?
What things do you plan to do?
21. Do you and your partner play with your child in similar/different ways?
What things/activities are the same?
What things/activities are different?
22. Does your child play similarly/differently with you and your partner?
What is the same?
What is different?
23. Who is your child most likely to approach for play? You or your partner?
Does it differ according to play activities?
24. Why do you/don't you work outside of the home?
Is this your choice?
What does your partner think/feel about you working/not working
outside of the home?
25. Why does/does not your partner work outside of the home?
Is this his or her choice?
What do you think/feel about your partner's working/not working outside
of the home?
26. How do you and your partner divide the housework and childcare?
Are you satisfied with these arrangements?
27. Does your involvement in housework/child care affect your
time/play/availability with your child? In what ways?
293
28. Does your partner's involvement in housework/child care affect his/her
play/time/availability with your child? In what ways?
29. What types of things do you like to do for fun?
By self/others?
Adults/child/family?
30. Do you plan to do them regularly? How often?
31. Do you play? Are you playful?
32. What is play?
How do you define play?
33. What things does your child do that you think are not play?
294
APPENDIX D
Mean Percentage of Participation in Household Work:
Family #3~Maggie and Colin
Appendix P. Mean Percentage of Participation in Household Work:
Family #3--Maggie and Colin
Types of Activities Maggie
(%)
Colin
(%)
Total
(%)
Cooking and Meal Clean Up
d-4)a
17b 83 100
Cleaning
(5-15. 17,18, 23,24)
81 19 100
Laundry and Clothing Care
(19-22, 25)
62 38 100
Outdoor Maintenance
(16. 32-35)
2 98 100
Indoor Maintenance
(26, 29-31,39, 40, 70)
31 69 100
Child Care
(41-58)
51 49 100
Shopping and Errands
(59-63)
76 24 100
Managerial Tasks
(27, 28, 36. 65-69, 71)
53 47 100
Car Maintenance
(37, 38. 64)
45 55 100
aNumbers refer to questionnaire item numbers.
^Grandmother’ s mean percentages of participation have been removed. Figures
are mean percentages of the reduced totals.
296
Abstract (if available)
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Primeau, Loree Ann
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Core Title
Orchestration Of Work And Play Within Families
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Doctor of Philosophy
Degree Program
Occupational Science
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OAI-PMH Harvest,sociology, individual and family studies,women's studies
Language
English
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Parham, Linda Diane (
committee chair
), Frank, Gelya (
committee member
), Clark, Florence A. (
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), Thorne, Barrie (
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