Pamela Loprest Turnover

The Problem of Childcare The traditional family of a working father and a stay-at-home mother scenario is fast changing as more and more women are also joining the work force. This means that increasing numbers of employees are working parents who must find ways to cope with the often conflicting time demands of both work and childcare. It is a serious concern for employees and has a direct impact on the businesses. There are two reasons why businesses should also be concerned and are as follows: *

According to Statistics Canada, the amount of two parented full time working families has gone up 17% since the 1980’s. As a result of such an outcome, more employees in larger and smaller based companies are finding it harder to keep up with both risen work loads and home life necessities, which in turn have caused more absentees in the work place. The reason being for this is due to

In Judith Stadtman Tuckers “The Least Worst Choice: Why Mothers Opt out of the Work Place” Judith Stadtman Tucker looks at why hard working, intelligent woman are choosing to leave their high end jobs to stay at home with their children. Judith Stadtman Tucker expresses her option that it is nearly impossible to work 40 hours a week, be available on your off hours as well as raise children. I fully agree with Judith Stadtman Tucker’s point of view that it is absurd to have to be at the mercy of your employer even in your off hours, nor less if you are attempting to create an emotional connection and successfully raise a child. It is no question that even in today’s modern society that it is assumed that woman are the best caregivers for young children. If you are put in a position where you have a child to raise, is it more appropriate to abandon your career or to emotionally abandon your child to a stranger or strangers and allow them to raise it? Judith Stadtman Tuckers argument against mothers having to choose between the joys of parenthood and the freedom of being able to work a career really speaks to me because it makes me consider what I want for my own future and what I would choose.

Americans that work too many long shifts affect the lives of the people around them too. For instance, one statistic from a Family Matters Survey done by The National Partnership for Women & Families in 1998 found that, “70% of working fathers and working mothers report they don’t have enough time for their children”.Another statistic from this survey reported that over 80% of Americans found it diffcult to balance their work life and their personal life. In fact, it is estimated that around 11 million children age 5 and under spend time in a form child care facility every week(Child Care Aware of America). It is also estimated that children whose

The labor force of the United States has changed drastically over the last forty years. According to the Department of Labor, in 2012, 64% of woman with children under the age of six are in the labor force. While only 34% of mothers were working in 1970 (Gullekson, Griffeth, Vancouver, Kovner, & Cohen, 2014). Furthermore, in 1974, 80% of kids under the age 17 were cared for by a parent (Morrissey & Warne, 2011). Given this dramatic increase of mothers in the workforce, there is a considerable amount of time missed by the working parent. On average, American working parents miss nine days of work per year and that number increases to thirteen as the child moves through daycare and into elementary school. Breakdowns in childcare cost businesses three billion dollars annually (Shellenback, 2004). Given these staggering numbers the demand for reliable and affordable childcare has never been bigger.

Well, my parents went to work every day to provide for my brother and I and we had everything we ever needed. We lived in a nice house, had a dog, and I never went without. I was able to dream about the future and the possibilities that were out there for me to seize. With that being said the first topic I would like to discuss with you is the issue of childrearing. If you look at the US over the last 50-100 years within the scope of childrearing you will find a common theme. The “normal” house consists of a father who leaves every day to go to work and provide for the family and a mother who stays home to take care of the children and the house. This has been a standard of living in the US for a very long time. A recent article published by the Pew Research Center states: “While most stay-at-home parents are mothers, fathers represent a growing share of all at-home parents – 16% in 2012, up from 10% in 1989. Roughly a quarter of these stay-at-home fathers (23%) report that they are home mainly because they cannot find a job. Nearly as many (21%) say the main reason they are home is to care for their home or family. This represents a fourfold increase from 1989, when only 5% of stay-at-home fathers said they were home primarily to care for family” (Livingston 2014). This is interesting in many ways. Less than thirty years ago the number of stay at home dads was drastically lower. One might say that the only reason that these dads are staying home is because they cannot find work outside the home. The statistics disprove this theory. While it is true that some have suffered from a shaky economy, many are home because they choose to be. 23 percent say that they are home due to the fact that they cannot find work. 21 percent are home by their own choosing. This is hard to understand for most people. Globally it is accepted that the place of the man should be

On occasion it is essential that both parents in a home take on multiple jobs at minimum wage to take care of their family’s needs. This has an affect on the lives of this unit in a financial and emotional way. When the support systems of both parents are working to survive, the children in the home do without the emotional security. Surprising and offending the most about the low-wage workplace was the extent to which one is required to surrender one’s basic civil rights and-what boils down to the same thing-self-respect. (Ehrenreich 115).

Being a mother is a full time job because as a mother you need to be around your child all the time. Even the father plays a similar role but nothing can ever come close to the nurturing capabilities of a mother towards her child. However, the present trends reflect that most parents are generally engaged in professional jobs where they need to devote a certain amount of time. Irrespective of the professional commitments that parents have, they must also give time to their children and take care of their responsibilities.

Everyday people struggle with setting correct work hours. When schedules are constantly changing and employers are calling other workers in, it can be stressful and difficult for the employees. Trying to balance work and other priorities such as children, require a set work schedule. When schedules are disorganized, it makes it difficult for employees that rely on child care. Employees that are also parents have to attend some school events such as parent-teacher conferences or children's doctor appointments (Vallas, R., & Boteach, M., 2014). When these employees know that there is going to be planned events such as these, they need to report to their employer so they can have time off to attend to their personal needs. While balancing work and family on a strict schedule it will help the employee and their coworkers. Having a set schedule helps reduce poverty because it creates strict schedules for the employee so they are still getting paid. Following schedules also alleviates poverty because if a person were to have two jobs, the jobs will not clash because the schedules are set. Therefore this creates a strict schedule so the people can work and get paid so they aren’t facing

Children cases that are affected by the increasing expense of housing are more important than past. Nonetheless, a family salary level is an aggregate pay got by all relatives of age 15 or more seasoned living in a similar family. More so, families whose kids are affected most by the cost of rising lodging costs are the little pay families. "Low-pay families are fundamentally working households with a wage that is not as much as double the government neediness level or the common laborers level." (Accuff & Kate, 2016). Low-salary families have a tendency to have little employment identified with advantages like therapeutic services. At one time, for example, my parents were not monetarily steady, and we needed to move from our home Hyde Park neighborhood to Woodlawn neighborhood, My younger sibling, Junior, needed to change school to another area school. He lost every one of his companions, educators and lost concentration at his new school. Accordingly, he chose to drop academics if just the new school was the school focus to go.

Arlie Russell Hochschild presents an interesting phenomenon in her work The Time Bind. She explains that “The more attracted we are to the world of work, the more its deadlines, its cycles, its pauses and interruptions shape our lives and the more family time is forced to accommodate to the pressures of work.” The attempt to balance personal and professional lives is a growing challenge for today’s working parents, who are seeing a change in the amount of time they spend at work and home, all of which depends on “the nature of a person’s job, company, and life at home.” In her book, Hochschild presents a case study of employees working at Amerco, a Fortune 500 firm that “had been identified as one of the ten most ‘family-friendly’ companies in America by the Families and Work Institute, by Working Mother magazine, and by the authors of Companies that Care.” In an attempt to keep from spending money to hire workers every time a parent left his or her position, Amerco began offering “options for part-time work, job sharing, and flextime,” only to find that many employees do not take advantage for their opportunities,

In the US, about 11% of employees work very long hours. However, findings show that more men work very long hours, 16% compared with 7% for women. Employees devote 60% of their day on average or 14.3 hours for personal care (eating, sleeping, etc.) and leisure (socializing with friends and family, hobbies, games, computer and television use, etc.). It has been suggested by OECD that US could overcome this dilemma by helping working families by implementing measures to reduce poverty. This can particularly done by enhancing its benefits and services for children in early years for both education and care services, and legislating law for parental leave.US is the only OECD country without a national paid parental leave policy. Whereas, some

Superdads are men who makes huge changes to their work lives and put more focus on their roles as a father (Kaufman 2013). By putting the roles as father it includes changing positions, changing careers, quitting jobs, taking on shift work, adopt flexible work schedules, starting their own business and working from home (Kaufman 2013). There are superdads and single superdads being notice in this paper. Superdads put their children well-being before themselves. They make the work schedule around their children so they can be able to spend more time with their children. Everything they do it is for what is best for their kids. Superdads have the help from the wife/mother. The father may make his work schedule base on his wife

Government assistance isn’t easy to come by. Many hardworking single parents earn "too much" to qualify for government benefits but earn too little to make ends meet. Many single mothers have come to the realization that the only way to survive and take care of their children is to stay at home and live off government assistance. Being provided food assistance, medical assistance, housing assistance and utility assistance may not be a mother’s first choice; but it is becoming clear for many mothers that it is the only

It is reported that the average working parent in America misses five to nine days a week due to issues with child care (Impact Brief One). Unfortunately it is difficult to find affordable childcare that fits all of a families needs. One of the biggest stressors and conflicts at home for families comes from trying to finance the necessary childcare. Bianchi explains that for the majority of the working class in the United States, family income is too high to earn government subsidized care, yet not high enough to afford high quality care. For example, full time center care for an infant in a center ranges from $4,863 to $16,430(Parents and the High Cost of Child Care 2013 Report). In addition, working mothers also face the issue of the family gap. Studies suggest that having a child decreases wages at ranges of 10% to 15% (Simonsen & Skipper). The wage gap between men and women has decreased over the past few decades, but the wage gap between women with children and women without keeps growing. A reason working mothers experience this family gap is because the United States has not changed it’s family policies regarding maternity leave and childcare. The countries that have developed policies for maternity leave and childcare have been more successful at closing the gender gap as well as the family gap (Waldfogel, 1998). This creates paying for childcare an even bigger burden and issue to solve.