The Welfare State Verses the Caring State, The Price of Motherhood Chapter 10

Although unpaid childcare is the ultimate social safety net, caregivers themselves are expected to perform without a net. Unpaid workers, including those who pay for dependent family members are excluded from the welfare system. As Nancy Folbre has written, “While motherhood is idealized as the most fulfilling work a woman can perform, public policy continues to define it as though it were not really work at all.” The welfare state has thus played a major role in the feminization of poverty, or what Folbre calls, “the pauperization of motherhood,” (p. 188).

I found this story the most alarming. A twenty-nine-year old wife of a stockbroker, lived what she would call a “Leave it to Beaver” existence north of San Francisco with three children all under the age of six. She was playing a good role in a perfect script—until her husband became manic-depressive, lost his job, and effectively deserted his family. Overnight, the stay-at-home-mom became a single mother with no college degree and no visible means of support (p. 187).

The web of paper work, mandatory “how to find employment” workshops, and lack of available good childcare are just a few of the problems facing the single-welfare mother. I myself have been lucky in the respect that I am moderately affluent, understand the system, and most importantly—what questions to ask. Trying to imagine a mother who has no education, who is not assertive, and doesn't speak English trying to get assistance is heartbreaking.

The former welfare mother spoken about above, is Lynn Woolsey, now a Democratic member of Congress from Petaluma, California. Every year with Conservative Republican Henry Hyde, she cosponsors legislation that would create a federal system of child support collection. With most child support experts, she believes that is the country had one national collection system, and all Americans had to pay their child support as routinely as they pay their federal income taxes, as many as 800,000 mothers and children would no longer need any public assistance. Every year this proposal is shot down (p. 188).


Women like Lynn Woolsey would have been self-supporting if it wasn't for trying to meet her family obligations. If she had given into the temptation of running away from it all; if she decided to travel light, carry no baggage, and never look back when she heard the sound of broken glass; if she had just behaved, in short, like so many men, she wouldn't have become that dread, demonized figure, the welfare mom (p. 191).

No insurance policy is in place against the loss of a primary parent. The children of a stay-at-home mother who dies or becomes disabled receives no benefits. Even though someone will surely have to spend an enormous amount of money to pay for the services him or herself, care giving is not insured. The loss of the breadwinner on the other hand, initiates social security benefits. The system treats widows and children of the men who die like princes, and the families of the men who divorce or leave them like paupers. Yet as scholars have observed, “nothing distinguishes the two types of women and children except for their prior relationship to men,” (p, 196).

If a man abandons his family, or there is a divorce, his wife and children have no protection under Social Security. If they are desperate they might be able to secure some form of temporary welfare, but the children will be much worse off than if their father were dead (p. 196).


The lessons a woman can learn from this is don't get married, and if you do get married never get divorced, don't have children, and most importantly never, I mean never, put yourself in a position where you depend solely on a man for financial support. What a sad state we live in. We want to value family, and adhere to a “traditional model,” just not bad enough to want to invest in protecting them.