Who cares anyway? negotiating domestic labour in families with teenage kids

This thesis is about domestic labour and families. It presents findings from a qualitative study based on in-depth interviews with the mother, father, and two or three teenage children in ten families. In the thesis each family is represented in the form of stories, in which accounts given by each family member are considered in relation to accounts given by other members of the same family. Although the stories that arise from different families are very different from each other, evident in them are common patterns that illustrate ways in which commonly accepted ideas are called on to explain and legitimate different practices around domestic labour. Findings from the study exemplify how the methods we use in studying domestic labour influence what we find. I argue that studies asking fixed-choice questions get the 'cover story'. Studies that ask open-ended questions enable us to get beneath this. Using data from multiple perspectives allows us to see how dominant stories come to be established in a family, and other stories submerged. Participants’ accounts of domestic labour assumed a hierarchy in the way work is valued. This holds that men and kids are entitled to put their work or schooling or leisure ahead of domestic obligations, while women are not. Women can pursue a career, study, or leisure only to the extent that these activities do not interfere with their obligation to do domestic work. In this sample, families that experience no conflict over domestic labour are those in which the woman does not dispute the hierarchy of work. Families where conflict is simmering under the surface are those in which the woman tries to assert an entitlement to put other priorities ahead of an obligation to do domestic work, and other family members resist. Families with overt conflict over domestic labour are those in which the hierarchy of work is upset. My findings shed light on light on several unresolved questions in the literature around domestic labour, including that posed by Uhlmann (2004): who cares anyway? They suggest that for most people living in two-parent families with teenage children, domestic labour is not an issue. In these families, 'most people' are men and children. For women who live with men and kids, domestic labour is a problem for those who attempt to dispute the hierarchy of work. Domestic labour becomes a problem for men and kids only when a woman refuses to do it.