Cared-for Children as a Blind Spot in Care Work Scholarship?

• Authors: SOURALOVÁ Adéla
• Year of publication: 2015
• Type: Appeared in Conference without Proceedings
• Description: In her influential article on “The ‘Nanny Question’ in Feminism” Joan Tronto (2002) emphasizes three differing perspectives through which we can approach caregiving work: the perspectives of the families (mothers), the children, and the nannies. There are many research projects that focus on the perspective of employers and employees, and their relationship. However, the research on delegated care work has not paid much attention to the perspective of cared-for children: either of children currently being looked after by nannies, or of adults with the past experience of being raised by nannies. This could be due to ethical issues concerning research on children, as well as to the current paradigm, which assumes that children are passive objects in the social structure, and that their perspective can only be mediated by adults. During the last three decades (a period coincidentally marked by a boom in the literature on domestic/care work), a new approach to children in social science research has been developing in which the children are starting to be taken seriously as social actors with their own particular viewpoint and agency (for example legislation on children’s rights, including child care). Within the new sociology of childhood paradigm children are able to construct their own identities, select the influences of socialization, and create their own perspectives on social phenomena, processes, and institutions (Prout and Allison 1997). In this paper, I draw upon my qualitative research on Vietnamese immigrant families that hire Czech nannies in the Czech Republic. I argue that a focus on the perspective of children is necessary for understanding the character of caregiving, as well as the relationships knitted between children and nannies, and children and parents. In the paper I will answer following questions: What does delegated caregiving mean for the cared-for themselves? How do they make sense of the delegation of caregiving? How do they conceive of the relationship between themselves and the person who takes care of them? How do they see the difference between the role of nanny and the role of the mother or other relatives? When answering these questions, I call for the necessity to incorporate cared-for children into research on paid childcare. I will argue that this is not just to add and stir in another perspective to the already-established recipe dealing with the perspectives of employers and employees, but rather to re-think the grounds of research on care work, and formulate a new research agenda.