The Domestic: their "choice" of work and how it affects their families (an anecdote)

This week’s readings and lecture on race and labor reminded me of the many women I know who have dedicated their lives to these types of professions. I don’t think I ever stopped to think about the implications of their job, I simply acknowledged that as Latinas, these women “chose” to pursue a job that is grueling and thankless. After sitting through lecture, I began to think about friends that I had while I was a teen, who had mothers that worked for well off families in the west side of town: Santa Monica, West LA, Pacific Palisades, etc. One of my friends, let’s call her Jennifer, is my age, her undocumented Mexican mother and four children (including Jennifer) live in a small crowded apartment in South LA. Her mother, Martha was (and still is) a housekeeper/babysitter for three families. I remember hanging out with Jennifer and never seeing her mother home, the only times I did see her, I remember her being incredibly fatigued, so much so that she never cooked or even had the energy to care for her youngest child (now 7 years old). The chores fell on my friend Jennifer, she was the eldest daughter and was responsible for cooking, cleaning, and taking care of her younger siblings.

I now realize just how much stress working as a housekeeper/babysitter puts on a family. Jennifer constantly complained about her mother’s work and criticized her for caring and raising other people’s families but neglecting her own. At the time I did not understood the difficulties of her family’s situation. And I think back to lecture when Xiaoxin asked for people to share their experience of being raised by a nanny. While many white students mentioned that they did indeed appreciate and even love their nannies, are any of those students aware of how much the families of the nannies struggled on their own without their mother’s attention?

While Jennifer was a student at a community college, she found herself in need of a job, one that would be flexible and pay well. After trying retail stores and restaurants, she eventually turned to her mother and asked if she knew of any families in need of a housekeeper or a babysitter. Her mother put her in contact with a family and my friend began working.  Jennifer got so involved in working, just like her mother did, that about 2 years ago she decided to drop out of college and work as a full-time nanny. I was completely disappointed in her and I couldn’t understand why she would have taken such a decision. It seems to me that the pay must have appeared decent enough to help her mother support their family and her priorities must have changed also. I don’t judge her anymore, I realize that the society we live in makes it quite difficult for a young woman of color to see herself successful, the opportunities are limited for many of us, so much so that the only option seems to be to give up our original dreams and follow in our mothers’ footsteps and work as domestics.