Halving it All

Fancine Duetsch interviewed dual-earner couples who had children ranging in age from babies to teenagers. Then stratifying the group into parents that equally shared their parenting responsibilities, groups that did not share parenting responsibilities, and lastly a group who alternated their responsibility. Her study was to see not only how people split their task but why? In chapter five she focuses on how the alternating shift couples divide parenting and their logic behind it.

Who are the alternative shift couples?
The alternate shift is predominately held by working class families. Alternative shift fathers' occupational positions were in fields such as; health care, fire fighters, delivery men. While their partners worked as nurses, secretaries, retail clerks and other service based jobs.

How Do Couples Alternate Shifts?
Usually one parent takes on an early work-shift while the other parents stays home and maintains the home, watch and feed the kids, and do all of the daily errand. Then when the afternoon working shift hits, they switch positions. The other partner cooks dinner, baths the kids, and put them to bed. The whole day the children are accounted for by at least one parent.

Though both parents are working inside and outside the home, it is rarely a completely egalitarian system. The fathers tend to work more hours outside the home while the mother spends more time in the house. In some cases, working class fathers only agree to care for the children and leave the house maintenance and cooking to the wife. The middle class family has a more 50 -50 relationship when it comes to raising the children, but because alternate shifters are with their children more than middle-class families, working-class fathers spend twice as much time with their children than middle class fathers.

Why do they do it?
Money is always a reason for why families are do the alternate shift. 80 percent of the couples mentioned money as playing a role for how they parent their kids. The alternate shifters had the lowest income out of the other group interviewed. Though they talked about money being an issue, their reasoning differed. Some people thought childcare was too costly. Since they did not have a lot of money, paying for childcare seemed impractical. Others parents felt it was their responsibility to raise their kids, not strangers. They heard so many stories about incidences occurring in day-cares that they do not want to risk their children lives.

The bad day-care experiences could be attributed to the fact that many of the day-care they can afford are low quality, which could lead to bad service. Also the better childcare institutions hold the values of the middle-class, which are not always in tune with that of the working class. Alternative shifter would rather dedicate their time providing for their child and raising them with their morals instead of someone else giving them a different set of values. Though this style of parenting hindered the actual time the parents had with each other, shifters felt it was necessary.

Maintaining an identity

Despite the actual dual inside and outside the home work from both sexes, men and women still hold their titles as breadwinners and caregivers. Fathers still feel it is their responsibility to work. Though they appreciated the new gifts of having meaningful relationships with their children, men in the study admitted to feeling more responsibility to work harder and provide for their family after have children. Men who did not work, felt useless even though they were raising their children. Women re-enforced the breadwinner theory by making it known that the father's job was the most important job in the household. The husband would usually work the more hours despite if they wife was paid at a higher rate.

Women in shifter relationships are still regarded to the primary parent, no matter how much the father does. They are still expected to do all house duties, men are still seen as additional help. These responsibilities in the home leaves the women in a tough position as a mother and a worker. Women like the idea of being their for their family but also really enjoyed working outside the home. One participant felt that having a job made her feel like whole person. Although their husbands wished they did not work, most women ideally preferred a part-time job.

Traditional Ideologies with Non-traditional Lives
To conclude, the alternative shifter is the most egalitarian type parenting presented in the study, but they still follow the ideology of domesticity. In order to keep their traditional views they link on to aspects of ideal positions in their ideology. Men hold on to their outside work, making it their most important activity, while mothers consider themselves the primary caregiver. Though they are not trying to end gender, they are opening gender barriers to respond to the realities of today's society.

Questions
Are the divorce rates higher for these shifters? The lack of time parents spend with each other must effect their relationship. Also, how much interaction does the child has with their parents together? I can not image a child learning how to have a healthy intimate relationship from their parents if he does not see them.