SOC Post And Responses 2

Anna Flanders 

Discussion Board :: Week 7

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Life at home is described as “The second shift” in the video. When parents get home from a full time job, they can’t just relax because they have kids to take care of. This means making sure they’re doing homework, getting them fed, spending time with them, getting them ready for the next day, and dealing with the general emotional strains kids can be on parents. The video tells us that the burden of the second shift almost exclusively falls on mothers, and often their employers and husbands both have unrealistic expectations. 

 

The PEW research study showed that 46% of parents both had full time jobs in 2015, which is quite the shift from the 1970’s when 46% of fathers were working full time and mothers were unemployed. In terms of the division of chores and responsibilities in the household, both mothers and fathers share these equally. However, the mother tends to do more when it comes to managing children’s activities or taking care of children when they’re sick. When both parents work full time, they tend to say that neither career takes precedence, but 50% say that the father makes more money. In addition to this, when both parents are working full time, about 50% of fathers say that they don’t spend enough time with their kids. 

 

In my family, my dad works full-time, while my mom stays home even though she’s a nurse and could make more money. But my parents decided to have 10 kids and homeschool us, so my mom had a huge responsibility in the home. She is just now going back to school to get her BSN and starting to work again because there are only three kids left at home. I definitely can say that most of the responsibility and chores in the home fell on my mom and that my dad didn’t share in it equally most of the time.   

 

The impact of the second shift on the life-work balance of families seems to cause much stress. 

Often what I see is tiredness, and parents constantly being rushed and when they come home after a long day, the last thing they want to do is more work. There is not as much work-life balance with an 8-5 work schedule and most of the time it seems that time with kids, and work-life balance disappears. Work takes precedence over personal lives. 

 

Current trends in the economy show that while women tend to work just as much as men, they often get paid less even though they make up almost half of the workforce. Another trend is that, as mentioned earlier, mothers tend to have more responsibility in the home as opposed to men even though they both work full time.

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Estrella Starn 

Week 7 Discussion

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The short video titled “The Second Shift” was about the continuation of basically work after work. Having a family means that after your normal paid gig, you come home and you still have work to do. That would be the second shift. And either there is a partner to help out or there is not. Sometimes even with a partner she explains that some others feel they put in more work than the other partner. The researcher goes on to explain how she used that information to try to help create solutions for the stress of the second shift.

In the report about the statistics of how American parents balance work and family, the main point was the shift in the increase of having more than one person assisting in the earning and sometimes the woman becoming the higher grossing income provider. You see an increase in shared responsibility, but it appears that the mother still takes the lead when it comes to concerns of the child. I picture this a nurture role that could be organic for a mother. And although the report reflects an increase in salaries being comparable. The men still come out on top as higher income earner.

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