Blog 3

1) There has always constantly been carework in my family both between my mom and my dad, but mostly by my mom because my dad has always worked full time. Until I was about seven or eight and my brother five or six, my mom was a stay at home mom. She cooked, cleaned, took care of us when we were sick, drove us to school, drove us to lots of after school activities, participated in the PTA and was always constantly doing things at our school and in our classroom. My dad always worked, but he would also participate in after school activities and he would always take us to do things outside of the house. He would try to cook sometimes, he helps my mom clean the bathrooms and he does all of the outside chores. My mom takes care of my grandparents, they live on their own, but she takes them to doctor appointments, helps manage their bank accounts and keeps all her brothers and sisters in line, and she is only the middle child of five children. I personally help my parents with household chores and help when family members are sick or in the hospital. I am also always there for any of my friends or family who ever need anything.
2) I think what they are doing in the UK is wonderful. They recognize that almost everybody, whether male or female, is going to have to help someone who can’t help themselves because of some sort of health issue, such as sickness or disability, or age, at some point in their lives. To be able to recognize something like that is important because you are more open to helping those people out. Supporting carers’ at work is very smart. Employers realize that without supporting these people they are missing out on these clever, bright people who are unable to contribute to the workplace because they have someone they need to take care of. A majority of the time too, employers realize that they are getting even better work product from those people they are letting work from home or leave work early, then they would if they didn’t give them flexible work schedules. There idea of flexible work schedules is smart. The loyalty and commitment from employees is better as well. It is very nice to see that some employers recognize that it’s important to maintain a good staff and they can do that by giving employees flexible schedules and in the end everybody wins.

Society needs to reconstruct there notions of the home as women’s work by realizing that more women are getting jobs and the household work needs to be reevaluated and spread amongst all members of the household.