Assignment 8

1.     1. According to Hochshild, what is the “Second Shift?”

According to Hochschild the second shift is the role of being a wife and mother. Being a wife and mother is another job. Once you leave work doesn’t mean that when you get home you don’t have work especially when you have children. You have to cater to your children’s need and to household duties. My mother always says that you work harder at home sometimes.

2. Briefly describe the story of Evan and Nancy Holt.
 

Evan and Nancy have been married for several years however; they barely have time for themselves. They both have a job that requires a lot of their time. They have a four year son name Joey. Nancy does majority of the house work as well at attending the needs of her son. In addition, since Evan is so busy with work he barely has time for his son and household duties. Nonetheless, he barely makes time or an effort to spend time with his son. They have poor communication which creates a lot of tension in their relationship.

3. Hochschild argues that families create “myths” about their division of household labor. Describe the family myth created by Nancy and Evan Holt.

A myth that Nancy and Evan created was the “upstairs, downstairs; inside, outside” myth which is that Nancy would be responsible for the inside duties of the house and Evan would be responsible of outside duties of the house. TO Evan and Nancy this myth seem to “work” for them. However, in reality nothing has change because Nancy is still doing majority of the duties and Evan is just doing the “man” duties. I think that they seem to think that these myth works because Nancy feels that now Evan is “doing” something when in reality he is still not doing more or less than what he was doing. They are just sugar coating the situation.

4. According to Hochschild, what is the purpose of family myths?

The purpose of Myths according to Hochschild is to represent something in one way or manner to represent something different that in reality isn’t different.

5. Was this reading surprising to you and why? How do you imagine you will divide family work (including child care) in your own marriage or cohabitation
 

I wasn’t surprised reading this due to the fact that this has happened a lot in my family. Now a day’s women are so independent and know that they don’t need to depend off of no man and they can do everything on their own. But lets face it yes us women are very independent however, there are certain thing that we need a man for we can’t have a child without a man’s help and just as much as they help create the child they should be held responsible for their actions and duties. I hope that we I get married or find my husband that he is understanding and gives me my place of being independent and works with me to continue the romance and shared duties.