I did attach all the power point reading materials including author Stephanie Coontz,  author Ann Crittenden, author Brigid Schulte, author Stone and Lovejoy and author Sharon Hays. 

 

Prompt:  Based on course readings, what underlying ideology or perspective might contribute to the scant public resources to support family life?  How do the consequences (or penalties) attached to caretaking work differ for middle-class mothers compared to working-class/poor mothers?  What are the larger social consequences stemming from the denigration of caretaking work for society as a whole?

The following are the guide lines to write introduction, body, and conclusion: 

 

I would begin this essay by thinking about how different scholars explain the relative absence of family-friendly social policies in the United States.  For example, Stephanie Coontz and Sharon Hays both propose our self-reliant philosophy ("ethos of individualism") have blinded us to the need for stronger social policies to support families.  Ann Crittenden contends that our view of children as "private responsibilities" rather than "public goods" lessens our the sensitivity to the social benefits of children, and thus reduces our willingness to help other families with caretaking work.  Brigid Schulte explains our failure to create flexible, family-friendly work environments—despite evidence that such work environments can be more productive-- as the consequence of deeply embedded (and gendered) ideologies about the "ideal worker."   Do you find any of these perspectives particularly compelling?  If so, I would sketch out a brief description of this viewpoint and its underlying logic.

 

For the body of the essay, think about the challenges facing middle-class mothers in the labor market as depicted by Brigid Schulte (Overwhelmed), Ann Crittenden (The Price of Motherhood), and Stone and Lovejoy.  For example, what are some of the employment issues that challenge middle-class parents?  What strategies do middle-class families use to cope with the challenges to raising children?  What role do private resources play in helping middle class families cope with the difficulties of raising children? What costs might stay at home mothers pay to take care of their children?   

Then consider the work of Sharon Hays (Flat Broke With Children), Kathryn Edin ($2.00 a Day) and other scholars who present some of they challenges facing low-income mothers.  They argue that some social policies intended to help poor mothers can make life worse.  What are some of the employment issues that challenge working-class and poor families?  If a parent cannot support her (his) children, what public assistance benefits are available? Do programs like TANF actually help poor families?  Unlike middle-class families, poor and working-class families usually do not have the private resources necessary to give their kids the kind of education and experience they will need to become successful adults.  Therefore, they are more dependent on public resources (e.g., good schools, public recreation programs, subsidized child care) when raising their kids.  What happens to these kids when public resources are inadequate?  

Once you have a good understanding of the "evidence" that suggests American society does relatively little to support families, go back to your initial paragraph that presented your overarching argument as to why the US has enacted relatively few family-friendly social policies.  How might you tailor and refine this argument in light of your body paragraphs?

In addition to a clear, dynamic, unifying argument backed by relevant evidence, a scholarly paper also makes references to the readings.  References should be made to class readings rather than to power point lectures.  When you use scholarly terms, (e.g., "human capital", "children as public goods", "commodification of domestic labor", "ethos of individualism vs. ethos of care", free riders, etc.) make sure you define them with first mention.

Once you have settled on a central argument and have selected good evidence to support and develop you argument, you may want to check your essay for

coherence—is your data relevant to your central argument?

logic—are your chosen pieces of evidence the best support for your central argument?

plausible statements of cause and effect--are you making strong causal connections between your pieces of data and central argument?  If you are describing consequences, are you clear about the cause?

transitions— when you change subjects, are you smoothing the way for the change of topic by using transitional sentences that clarify the link between the new topic/piece of data and the basic argument?

have you explained how your subtopics relate to each other or to the basic theme?

One technique for checking your organizational flow and logic is to write a "reverse outline" after you have completed a draft of your essay.  For example, if you were asked to make an outline of your essay once it was written, what would it look like?  An even simpler way to check your organizational coherence is to note the topic of each paragraph in the margins of the paper.  Is each paragraph relevant to your argument, (i.e., are you staying on topic)?  Are you clearly stating the importance of this information to your central theme?

CITATIONS

Works Cited page not necessary

It is not necessary to attach a Work Cited page to this essay unless you refer to material not assigned in the course readings.   We do expect, however, that your essay include a good number of in-text references to the authors whom we have read in the class.  We should be seeing many phrases like "According to Crittenden (2001) . . . " or  "As Coontz (1997) argues . . . " or "Hays (2003) demonstrates . . . ."

Publication Date (rather than full article or book title)

It is not necessary to give the full title of a book—just the author's name and date of publication (as in the examples above) lets the reader know the source of the material you are using.

Key Idea and Data Citation

If you are citing a key idea from one of the books, make sure you cite the author and year of publication in parentheses

Example:  Having been a mother is one of the major risks factors for poverty in old age (Crittenden

    2001).

You should cite the page number if you refer to very specific information in the text (e.g., statistical data is often cited with page numbers).  

Example (in the following sentence, I have paraphrased rather than directly quoted Hays, yet because I refer to specific information, I cite the page number along with the Hays' name and date of publication):

While child support enforcement appears like a good idea on paper, it does not consider the fact

that poor fathers do not have the resources to pay this support.  In 1996, the net loss of the child

support enforcement program cost taxpayers $745 million (Hays 2003:77).

Quotes from Texts

If you use direct quotes in your text (it is a good idea to have 1-3 concise and well-chosen quotes in each essay), include page number.

Quotes of 4 lines or less

Quotations in the text (where the quote is four lines or less) begin and end with quotation marks.

Example one:  If author's name is in the text, the beginning and end of the quote is enclosed in quotation marks.  The page number(s) is placed at the end of the quote—outside the closing quotation mark and preceding the period.

Hays (2003) found that childcare subsidies were "far more expensive than (inadequately) supporting their mothers to care for them 24 hours a day, seven days a week" (p. 72).

Example two:  If the author's name is not in the text, enclose the last name, date of publication and page number in parentheses at the end of the sentence.

Other scholars have suggested that punitive policies toward children born to mothers on public

assistance do little to prevent unplanned births despite lawmakers' faith that "family caps" will

make welfare mothers "think twice before having more children" (Hays 2003:68)

Block quotes of 4 lines or more

Use the same style of citation for block quotes (author's name publication date:page number) but because block quotations (for quotes longer than four lines) are set off in a separate, indented paragraph, they are not enclosed in quotation marks.  

Material from the course reader

Cite the name of the actual author the date of publication.  The authors and dates of publication are shown in the table of contents in the reader.  If using a direct quote, use the original page number from which the quote was taken if possible (scholarly articles in the readers have original page numbers, newspaper articles downloaded from the web do not.  If using a newspaper article, just use the author's name and date, e.g.,  (Pear: 2006).   I don't want to see a citation like (Pear in Kelsey reader) or (Kelsey reader) in your essay.  

Lecture notes

Because Prof. Kelsey is usually citing course readings in her power points, most of your references (even if you are drawing information from the class power points), should be to the scholar under discussion. We prefer that you references be to the original scholarly sources, not to the power points.