A Critical Discourse Analysis of Welfare-to-Work Program Managers’ Expectations and Evaluations of Their Clients’ Mothering

Abstract

Dominant ideologies about poverty in the USA draw on personal responsibility and beliefs that a ‘culture of poverty’ creates and reproduces inequality. As the primary recipients of welfare are single mothers, discourses surrounding welfare are also influenced by dominant ideologies about mothering, namely intensive mothering. Yet, given the centrality of resources to intensive mothering, mothers on welfare are often precluded from enacting this type of parenting. In this paper, I conduct a critical discourse analysis of 69 interviews with Ohio Works First (USA) program managers to examine how welfare program managers talk about and evaluate their clients’ mothering. My findings suggest three themes regarding expectations and evaluations of clients’ mothering: (a) enacting child-centered mothering, (b) breaking out of the ‘culture of poverty’ and (c) (mis)managing childcare.

Keywords

welfare mothering discourse ideology public assistance critical discourse analysis poverty intensive mothering

Introduction

Despite persistently high poverty rates in the USA, the country has historically been reluctant to invest in public assistance programs. Since the 1960s, family programs (assistance programs intended for women) – and their recipients – have been stigmatized and represented in discourse as dependent (McCormack, 2004; Misra et al., 2003), dishonest, irresponsible, lazy, and responsible for many social problems (e.g., violent crime, the decline of families) (Neubeck and Cazenave, 2001; Rousseau, 2009). Since welfare recipients are disproportionately single mothers, these stereotypes further create assumptions about the mothering practices of women on welfare.

Intending to address negative stereotypes concerning welfare recipients, in 1996 President Clinton and a predominantly Republican congress reformed welfare by passing the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). PRWORA ended Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and created Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) (Handler, 2003; Neubeck and Cazenave, 2001). These reform policies drew on neoliberal ideals, wherein the state becomes involved in promoting market values such as personal responsibility and work ethic, by encouraging welfare recipients to enter the work force and attributing inability to do so to personal deficiencies (Soss et al., 2011). This is reflected in the major changes to cash assistance, which include the creation of work requirements, time limits, and family caps (Hays, 2003; Neubeck and Cazenave, 2001).

The work requirements mandate that clients log a certain number of hours per week at a worksite to receive benefits (Handler, 2003). If clients fail to reach these requirements, states reduce their funding through ‘sanctions’ (Handler, 2003). These programs require welfare recipients – who are predominantly poor, single mothers (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2010) – to fulfill a work requirement each week, rather than spend time at home with their children. Thus, these policies play a role in shaping the mothering practices of women on welfare.

Implementing a controversial program in a climate that is hostile to those experiencing poverty is challenging. In this research, I focus on how some of these bureaucrats talk about their experience in implementing the cash assistance program. Welfare bureaucrats encounter many negative media representations of clients and live in a context where capitalism is seen as legitimate. In this paper, I use interview data collected 2010–11 from welfare-to-work program managers in Ohio to analyze how these managers talk about and evaluate the mothering of their clients. Using critical discourse analysis as a methodological tool (Fairclough, 1985, 2010; Van Dijk, 1987, 1993), I find that managers talk about the mothering of welfare clients in terms of expecting them to (a) enact child-centered mothering, (b) break out of the ‘culture of poverty’ and (c) successfully manage childcare. Adding to literatures on mothering, welfare, and discourse, my findings show how welfare-to-work program managers use discourse to reproduce normative (read: middle-class) standards of both mothering and work and thus uphold capitalist and sexist structures.

Literature Review

Mothering Ideology

Motherhood is a socially constructed phenomenon that varies across time and place (Hays, 1996; Arendell, 1999) and is often defined in relation to work (Garey, 1999). While there are a variety of mothering ideologies, current constructions of motherhood in the USA privilege intensive mothering/‘concerted cultivation’ (referred to as intensive mothering from this point forward), which is founded in middle-class values and requires a child-centered and resource-intensive (e.g., time, energy, money) approach to parenting (Arendell, 1999; Hays, 1996; Lareau, 2003). Intensive mothering involves mothers being self-sacrificing, which creates dilemmas about how women can and should balance work and parenting (Garey, 1999; Hays, 1996). Regardless of their involvement in work, women are expected to involve their children in a wide range of activities, which facilitate children’s future success (Lareau, 2003).

While women across social classes face pressure to enact intensive mothering (Buzzanell et al., 2007), white middle-class women have greater privilege and resources that make them the most likely to ‘successfully’ enact its practices (Hays, 1996, Collins, 2006; Johnston and Swanson, 2003). Johnson (2014: 268) describes intensive mothering as ‘an institutionalized form of discrimination against single, poor, and minority mothers that seeks to “other” and shame women who cannot and/or will not mother this way.’ Thus, while intensive mothering is viewed as the ‘right way’ to mother by many (Buzzanell et al., 2007; Hays, 1996), recent scholarship has developed a critical lens, noting that intensive mothering is costly to mothers by creating unrealistic expectations of mothering practices, devaluing women’s own wants and needs, and holding mothers responsible for their children’s outcomes (Arendell, 1999; Johnson, 2014; Taylor, 2011). There are alternative mothering ideologies that contain fewer conflicts with working outside the home and are less exclusive in terms of resources (Collins, 1990; Edin and Kefalas, 2005; Johnson, 2014). For example, some mothers redefine ‘good parenting’ in terms of what is feasible for them to accomplish, which allows these women to feel like agentic parents regardless of their resources (Edin and Kefalas, 2005; Johnson, 2014).

The ‘Culture of Poverty’

Another discourse that frequently surrounds poor, single mothers – especially those receiving welfare benefits – is that of the ‘culture of poverty’ (McCormack, 2004). The history of the culture of poverty literature is laden with ideologies of individualism, personal responsibility, and victim-blame (Moynihan, 1965; Ryan, 1976). Culture of poverty arguments hold that certain values, attitudes, and life styles, or cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1977), are responsible for the creation and reproduction of poverty (Moynihan, 1965; Ryan, 1976). Furthermore, the culture of poverty often assumes that parents pass on capital that is incompatible with labor market success to their children and are therefore responsible for reproducing poverty (Moynihan, 1965). This argument, however, ignores the role of structural forces – such as joblessness, economic crises, and lack of resources – that contribute to inequality.

Lareau (2003), for example, demonstrates how working-class and poor parents invoke a ‘natural growth’ model of parenting, wherein they teach their children behavioral constraint and autonomy in directing their own activities. While these values and behaviors have intrinsic value, they are often perceived as insufficient compared to those taught by middle-class parents, as middle-class values are often more intertwined in institutions such as work and school (Lareau, 2003). Describing poverty as an issue of deficiency of values also suggests that poverty can be ‘fixed’ if people experiencing poverty adopt middle-class values. This is reflected in the 1996 welfare reform, which ‘asserted and enforced a newly reformulated vision of the appropriate values of work and family life’ (Hays, 2003: 4). Being a good mother, then, involves passing middle-class values, attitudes, and lifestyles to one’s children, which is intended to protect their social position in the future (Crittenden, 2001; Lareau, 2003).

Mother Blame

Thoroughly interwoven in dominant ideologies of mothering are messages of mother blame. Mother blame suggests that mothers are solely responsible for their children’s care, behaviors, and outcomes (Arendell, 1999; Ladd-Taylor, 2004; Risley-Curtiss and Heffernan, 2003). This practice ignores fathers, structural issues that affect mothering practices, and additional explanations for children’s outcomes. Mother blame is evident in many institutional expectations. For example, within the family mothers are expected to assume responsibility for caring for children and managing childcare arrangements (Crittenden, 2001; Hays, 1996). Additionally, myths that maternal employment harms children simultaneously blame mothers and discourage them from workforce participation (Bengston et al., 2002). Schools reinforce mother blame by expecting mothers to get involved with children’s projects and education (Arendell, 1999). Social rhetoric about mothers of color further blames mothers for broader social issues, such as high rates of single motherhood, teen pregnancy, and incarceration (Rousseau, 2009). Given the prevalence of this maternal culpability, many women also internalize this blame and hold themselves responsible for many aspects of their children’s lives – even those outside of their control.

While women are expected to embody middle-class mothering ideologies, society does not always provide sufficient support for them – especially socially and economically (Arendell, 1999; Ladd-Taylor, 2004; Risley-Curtiss and Heffernan, 2003; Rousseau, 2009). Specifically, the centrality of resources in enacting middle-class parenting tends to preclude mothers on welfare from enacting this type of parenting (Gross et al., 2014). As such, mothers on welfare are demonized for failing to meet these standards and held responsible for their children’s life circumstances and outcomes (Hays, 2003). To live up to their responsibilities as mothers, working- and lower-class mothers are often expected to work to provide for their children and to serve as role models of how to work (Arendell, 1999; Bloch and Taylor, 2014; Kennelly, 1999; Taylor, 2011).

In this paper, I use critical discourse analysis to examine how welfare-to-work program managers in Ohio talk about the mothering of their clients. Program managers draw on intensive mothering, the ‘culture of poverty’, and mother blame to express (contradictory) expectations and evaluations of clients’ mothering practices. Thus, these literatures come together to position women experiencing poverty in a broader social context and inform conceptions of how these women ‘should’ mother. As a dominant and pervasive ideology, intensive mothering acts as the standard against which the mothering of all women is measured. Further, program managers draw on the culture of poverty and mother blame to account for clients’ poverty and to hold clients personally responsible for the successes and failures of their children.

Methods

Data

The data I use in my analysis are secondary data collected 2010–11 consisting of 69 qualitative telephone interviews with Ohio Works First (OWF) program managers from 69 of the 88 counties in Ohio (USA). The P.I. collecting the data, Tiffany Taylor, worked with undergraduate and graduate research assistants to conduct telephone interviews (one per county) and asked program managers 48 questions designed to understand cash assistance service provision (e.g., program goals and effectiveness, clients’ performances and successes, and causes of poverty). The questions were primarily open-ended (e.g. ‘what are some of the challenges in helping people become self-sufficient?’) and several questions involved follow-up probes. The interviews range from less than an hour to over two hours, with an average length of an hour. All of the interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed, and identifiers were removed to ensure confidentiality.

OWF is the cash assistance program in Ohio and includes state-wide policies that differ from the federal cash assistance policies described above. Specifically, Ohio has 36 month time limits (compared to five-year federal time limits), provides additional assistance if clients have children while enrolled (no family caps), and removes the entire family’s assistance for the first occurrence of non-compliance (full-family sanctions) (Soss et al., 2001). The program managers in the sample were predominantly white (95%) women (75%) with a post-secondary degree (11% high school, 12.5% some college, 21% associate’s degree, 40% bachelor’s degree, and 15% graduate degree). The managers spanned both rural and urban areas in Ohio. As much of Ohio is rural, the interviewers made sure that the counties containing the three metropolitan areas were represented.

Program managers have a range of responsibilities in implementing the Ohio Works First program, including supervising caseworkers, managing the work experience program, verifying completion of program requirements, and making arrangements for supplemental services. The program managers operate in a bureaucratic structure, in which they are often subject to depersonalized, isolating, and highly constrained regulations (Ferguson, 1984; Swift, 1995). Despite these constraints, program managers exercise some discretion within the program in terms of establishing organizational goals and climate. Specifically, program managers help prioritize the often contradictory federal, state, and county goals. Through their influence on the organizational climate and their roles as supervisors, program managers have a direct influence on the caseworkers who implement policy on the frontlines. While managers themselves often have fewer interactions with clients, the managers’ prejudices and beliefs are still likely influencing clients via the workplace culture, goals, and their influence on caseworkers. This makes program managers a unique and important group to study.

Coding and Analysis

For this analysis, I used Atlas.ti, a qualitative analysis software program, to first open code, and then focus code the data. I split my coding into three phases. The first phase of coding took place when I was coding semantic moves for another project, which examined how program managers used discursive strategies to contrast clients to one another, to non-clients, and to themselves (Turgeon, 2014). Throughout the coding and analysis process, it became apparent that these discursive strategies were also prominent in how program managers constructed the mothering of their clients. To code the data, I systematically read the interview transcripts and used theoretical coding (Charmaz, 2006) and critical discourse analysis (Van Dijk, 1993; Fairclough, 1985, 2010).

Critical discourse analysis holds that discourse is saturated with ideology and can thus play a role in reproducing inequality (Van Dijk, 1993). As such, discourse merits a critical analysis that seeks to illuminate the assumptions and values embedded within it. Since welfare, poverty, and mothering are all diffuse with national ideology (e.g., neoliberalism and intensive mothering), critical discourse analysis is a methodological tool well-suited to this analysis. Furthermore, considering the reproduction of inequality via discourse is especially relevant given the power relations between program managers and the mothers on welfare who depend on the system.

During the coding process, I examined how program managers used discursive strategies in their speech. Specifically, I coded semantic moves, which are strategies used in discourse to manage meaning (Van Dijk, 1987). I based the operationalization of semantic moves on van Dijk’s (1987) work on semantic moves in the context of racism. I adapt semantic moves from this perspective to look at how welfare-to-work program managers use discourse to manage their prejudiced talk about mothers on welfare.

The semantic moves included in this analysis are contrasting, explanation and example, and generalization. While van Dijk (1987) describes several more semantic moves, I focused on these three because they were the most prominent in the data and the most central to the ways in which program managers constructed their clients’ mothering. Contrasting refers to a social actor highlighting the positive attributes of one group (usually a group to which the actor themselves belongs) and the negative attributes of another group. I combined two of van Dijk’s (1987) semantic moves (explanation and example) into a single semantic move since there is considerable overlap in how social actors use explanations and examples. Explanations and examples involve offering supporting evidence when speaking positively about oneself, or when speaking negatively about others. Finally, generalizations are statements involving assumptions made about a group based on the characteristics, attitudes, or behavior of some group members.

In the second phase of coding, I flagged speech pertaining to family, parenting, upbringing, etc. with the code ‘Family’ to capture all quotations related to family. To do this, I systematically read through the data, capturing speech related to family and memoing about emerging themes in how program managers spoke about clients’ mothering. From these memos, I created a coding scheme, which initially involved four themes (later combined into three) pertaining to how program managers construct the mothering of their clients: (a) desire to improve for children, (b) the importance of being able to afford children, (c) the ‘culture of poverty’, and (d) mothers (mis)managing childcare.

In the third phase of coding, I used axial coding (Charmaz, 2006) to delineate these four themes in the data, while simultaneously transferring the semantic move codes into this output. In this part of the coding, I implemented critical discourse analysis by breaking down the semantic moves (Van Dijk, 1987) that program managers use when talking about clients as mothers to show how the managers construct the mothering of their clients. Throughout this analysis, I expanded the memos, incorporating discursive strategies into the themes pertaining to clients’ mothering. Ultimately, I found that the themes pertaining to ‘desiring to improve for children’ and ‘the importance of being able to afford children’ contained significant overlap and decided to combine them into the single theme of ‘child-centered mothering’.

Findings

I find three themes in how program managers use discursive strategies to talk about their clients’ mothering. The themes are (a) child-centered mothering, (b) the ‘culture of poverty’ and (c) mothers (mis)managing childcare. To draw attention to the semantic moves that program managers use, I italicize them in my quote analyses.

Child-Centered Parenting

The first theme in program managers’ construction of their clients’ motherhood is an expectation for them to enact the child-centered practices of intensive mothering. While middle-class expectations of child-centered mothering may involve mothers abstaining from the workplace, working-class and poor mothers are often expected to work as a way of providing for their children. Child-centered discourse involved program managers expecting mothers to be able to afford a certain standard of life for children, to improve their life circumstances on behalf of their children, and to invest significant time and resources in their children. For mothers on welfare, a child-centered model of parenting relies heavily on obtaining economic resources to provide for both the children’s needs and wants.

Program managers often evaluated the mothering of their clients through the lens of child-centered mothering. In the following quote, a program manager provides an example of a typical OWF client and contrasts the mothering of clients to that of non-client mothers by drawing on ‘common sense’:

… they’re already in a bad a situation but they’re having another child. We see that a lot. It’s heartbreaking. It’s almost like you know you would think common sense would tell you this is not that, you know, you don’t need another child. You can’t afford the ones that you have and which limits, and again it goes back generational. Those young children don’t have a chance for that parent to be able to afford to send them to school, college. (white woman; county 13)

This program manager contrasts mothers on welfare and mothers not on welfare in regards to having children when they ‘can’t afford the ones that [they] have.’ The program manager also suggests that ‘affording children’ means more than just providing for the child’s needs, such as ‘afford[ing] to send them to school, college.’ Thus, mothers are expected to strive to afford a certain standard of living for their children, including a college education. The program manager also advises that mothers should not have more children if they are cannot afford to do things like send the children they have to college.

As impoverished mothers, child-centered mothering often involves expectations about work as well. Program managers would draw on expectations of poor mothers parenting via work in evaluating their clients’ motherhood. A program manager talks about how having a work ethic indicates that mothers are willing to do what it takes to provide for their children. He says:

Well, you know, if they have a work ethic and they want to get out there and some people aren’t willing to take lower paying jobs. But if they have a good work ethic and they’re willing to take whatever job comes their way to help provide for their family, then they’ll take it. A lot – a lot of the clients don’t have that. A lot of participants don’t have that work ethic or that work attitude. (Hispanic man; county 69)

This program manager contrasts clients who ‘have a work ethic and … want to get out there’ and those who ‘aren’t willing to take lower paying jobs’ regarding doing what it takes ‘to help provide for their family.’ The program manager then explains that mothers must be ‘willing to take whatever job comes their way,’ thus obliging mothers to, somewhat paradoxically, engage in paid work to fulfill a child-centered model of mothering. The program manager further generalizes that ‘a lot of participants don’t have that work ethic or that work attitude’ to do what it takes to provide for their families. Yet, the suggestion that mothers should take low-paying jobs to provide for their families defies the reality that low-paying jobs do not pay enough to support a family.

Program managers would also make child-centered mothering about more than just meeting children’s basic needs. Many program managers said that mothers should want more for their children and desire that their children live a certain type of life. A program manager said:

… they’re satisfied with what they got, they don’t have the want of I want better clothes, I want a better car, I want my kids to have education, I want my kids to have better. They’re, they’re just, they’re, they’re okay with what they’ve got. And I’m not sure if that’s right or wrong. You know, we, we always strive to make it better for our kids, and make sure our children are educated, get a good job, but they, some of these people live the way they want to live and like I say, I’m sure that’s wrong, but that little bit of OWF they get doesn’t really a lot of times make or break them. (white woman; county 55)

In this quote, the program manager makes generalizations about how clients are ‘satisfied with what they’ve got’ and contrasts this with non-clients in terms of ‘striv[ing] to make it better for our kids, and make sure our children are educated, get a good job’. Yet, there is also evidence that the program manager is trying to make sense of these differences in ideas about mothering without imposing judgment, since she says ‘I’m not sure if that’s right or wrong.’ While the program manager struggles to reconcile ideas about mothering practices, she fails to acknowledge that even if the mother did want more for her child, it may not be economically attainable. The program manager also imposes a certain ideology of mothering on clients that involves middle-class expectations of what mothering should look like. Specifically, the program manager prescribes consumption (something welfare clients are often morally criticized for) as a means of being a ‘good mother’ by suggesting that wanting ‘better clothes’ and ‘a better car’ are part of wanting more on behalf of one’s children.

The ‘Culture of Poverty’

The second theme I find in the data pertains to the ‘culture of poverty’. Many program managers talked about how clients’ mothering affects children’s opportunities and outcomes. This stems from the belief that certain mothering styles facilitate the development of valued cultural capital (Lareau, 2003) necessary to improve children’s life chances, while other mothering styles fail to accomplish this and instead indoctrinate children into a culture of poverty. In discussing the culture of poverty, program managers offered examples of mothers on welfare transmitting valued and devalued cultural capital to their children, generalizations about how welfare clients parent, and contrasts between ‘generational’ and ‘non-generational’ ways of mothering.

Program managers often expressed concern about mothers on public assistance failing to provide their children with the appropriate values, attitudes, and lifestyles to succeed. One program manager spoke to this sentiment, saying:

I don’t know how parents explain to children – when they make their children go to school that parents don’t go to work. Um, I think when parents don’t work we have children that don’t want to go to school. And then that becomes a problem. I just think that parents that don’t work outside the home that are able, should. (white man; county 7)

In this quote, the program manager implicitly contrasts clients who work and clients who do not work in terms of their children ‘want[ing] to go to school’. The program manager uses an example of how children might react if their ‘parents don’t work’ – by not wanting to go to school – to show how parents’ behavior can influence their children. This quote stresses the importance of parents making sure that they pass the appropriate cultural capital to their children by modeling valued behaviors and attitudes, such as a work ethic. Further, by explaining the consequence of parents not ‘go[ing] to work’, the program manager ignores the unpaid labor and energy involved in mothering and other forms of domestic work. Furthermore, even if mothers desire work outside of the home, work is not always readily available. These data were collected in 2010, in a time of economic recession during which unemployment rates rose (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012) and job opportunities were especially scarce.

In some cases, program managers described the transmission of poverty from mother to child as active and intentional. These instances involved mothers on welfare doing things such as teaching their children about applying for public assistance. In the following quote, a male program manager who declined to identify his race said:

I had a client that came in and said I want to … she act like this was how she was showing the ropes. On how to, uh, how to make it in life. She was showing her pregnant daughter what to do, come on down here like, like this is a job, coming in to apply. (man, declined to identify race; county 18)

In this quote, the program manager generalizes that welfare clients teach their children to apply for assistance and perceive welfare ‘like … a job’ or a way to ‘make it in life’. In doing so, he implies that mothers on welfare actively socialize their children into the culture of poverty. The program manager also gives an example of a mother teaching her daughter how to apply for public assistance by ‘showing [her] the ropes’ and ‘showing her pregnant daughter what to do’. This example suggests that mothers on assistance actively encourage their children to apply. Consequently, children are not only deprived of the cultural capital they need to succeed, but they are also taught a lifestyle that serves to reproduce their social position.

Many program managers described poverty as a learned behavior, and some further expressed concern that it was too late for the current generation of clients to accrue the necessary cultural capital. Consequently, they suggested that efforts to alleviate poverty should focus on the next generation by teaching children the attitudes, skills, and behaviors they need to rise out of poverty. One program manager wrote an email to the researchers after the interview, saying:

If we could start with the children, in the schools, encouraging them to stay in school, stay out of trouble, make good choices, give them good role models/mentors, and encourage them to set goals, perhaps this system could become what it was intended to be – assistance during a bad patch in someone’s life instead of what it’s become, 36 checks that make things a little easier. (white woman; county 74)

In this quote, the program manager explains that assistance might be more effective if it ‘start[ed] with the children’ and aimed to ‘encourage … them to stay in school, stay out of trouble, give them good role models/mentors, and encourage them to set goals’. According to the program manager, teaching children specific cultural capital and giving them role models to exemplify these attributes would help them avoid falling into the culture of poverty. It minimizes poverty to a set of unlearned skills and poor role models, rather than considering structural barriers that perpetuate poverty such as the economy (Harvey and Reed, 1996), controlled access to education and jobs (Fischer et al., 2008), polarization of the labor market (Piore, 2008), segregation and neighborhood conditions (Massey and Denton, 1993), and ideologies (Charles, 2008). Further, the program manager ignores the ways in which middle- and upper-class individuals often safeguard cultural capital to preserve the existing social order (Domhoff, 2010).

Mother Blame: Mothers (Mis)managing Childcare

The third theme that I found concerns the importance of mothers being able to manage childcare arrangements. These sentiments reflect the androcentric nature of the workplace, which places heavy demands on time and devalues parenting (Acker, 1990). Here program managers mentioned the ways in which the welfare program makes accommodations to help mothers manage childcare through things like providing daycare or transportation to daycare. Program managers used semantic moves to contrast mothers’ ability and willingness to manage their children’s childcare, generalize about why mothers may or may not be able to manage their children, and offer examples and explanations to illustrate mothers succeeding or failing to manage childcare arrangements.

While many program managers mentioned that the county-specific welfare program (or an outside agency that mothers can be referred to) offer childcare services, their talk also involved describing how mothers were often reluctant to leave their children with these childcare providers. In the following quote, a white, female program manager suggests an alternative in the welfare program intended to help mothers manage their children.

Um, it would be, there’d be a daycare that these people would trust their children with so that they can go to job, go to a job and not have to worry if something was wrong with their child or about leaving their child. Uh, that’s one of the complaints we usually get a lot of. They don’t want to leave their kids with anyone. (white woman; county 9)

In this quote, the program manager explains how central having a trustworthy daycare provider is in order for mothers to ‘go to a job and not have to worry if something was wrong with their child’. The program manager also generalizes that mothers receiving public assistance ‘don’t want to leave their kids with anyone’. Thus, it appears that while the program manager can empathize with mothers’ concerns about childcare providers, there is still tension between the program providing childcare and mothers resisting these efforts to help them manage childcare arrangements. By generalizing about mothers’ reluctance to leave their children with anyone, the program manager draws on mother blame to imply that mothers are at least partially at fault for not securing childcare and consequently being unable to make it to their job.

In addition to offering childcare, in some counties, program managers have leeway in deciding whether to sanction (take benefits away from) a client when they fail to fulfill the program’s requirements. Thus, some program managers emphasized their leniency and accommodation of childcare interruptions. One program manager said:

We had one that she didn’t go for two weeks. You know, we were thinking about sanctioning for next month, but she was new, new to the area, so we told her, hey, listen, we understand that you, you’re not familiar with our, our area, you have a little child, you know, who wasn’t very old, you know, was crying a lot, she was upset. You know, start Monday, get there Monday, do your hours, and you know, we will not sanction you. You know she did? We never had another issue with that little girl. (white woman; county 48)

In this quote, the program manager uses an example of how the program manager took into account that the mother was ‘not familiar with [the] area’ and ‘ha[d] a little child, you know, who wasn’t very old, you know, was crying a lot’ and decided to accommodate the interruption in childcare. This example illustrates how program managers may empathize with mothers and assist them in managing childcare arrangements through leniency. Yet, the program manager in this quote also suggests that this accommodation represents an exception because the mother ‘was new, new to the area’. As such, the manager implies that there are circumstances in which it would be justified to sanction/penalize poor mothers for their children’s health issues and being unable to secure childcare in the face of these issues.

When program managers did make accommodations, they were often juxtaposed with the conditions and latitude available in ‘real jobs’, which tend to be less flexible in accommodating child-related absences. A program manager, when asked about the effectiveness of the program, responded:

I’d say it’s not effective. Probably because it’s not realistic, I mean, you know, these things like the one client we have has 80 some hours that she’s suppose to do, or 30 some hours that she’s suppose to work each week and she’s worked two days out of the month because she’s taken her child to the doctor, she’s had all of these excuses. And if, you’re in the real world an employer can’t handle that. They can’t deal with that, you’re going to lose your job. But, because she’s OWF she provides us the doctor’s slips and we have to grant her good cause. And I don’t think that’s teaching them anything. You know, they’re gonna go get a job and think they can do the same thing and it’s not going to work. (white woman; county 31)

This program manager contrasts OWF and ‘real world’ jobs in terms of accommodating childcare. The program manager also gives an example of a mother who has ‘worked two days out of the month because she’s taken her child to the doctor, she’s had all of these excuses’ to illustrate this difference in accommodation between OWF and ‘real world’ jobs. In order for mothers to succeed in ‘real world’ jobs, they need to manage childcare for their children more effectively. The program manager also generalizes that the mother uses taking her child to the doctor as an ‘excuse’. This implies that mothers on welfare may be using difficulties in managing their children (or even children’s health issues, in this case) as a way to escape participation in the work requirements of the program. The program manager concludes that the program would be more effective if it was less accommodating to mirror ‘real world’ jobs. This resonates with public debate, which has questioned the validity of the welfare clients’ work through welfare programs since the transition to a work-oriented program (i.e., Krinsky, 1998)

Discussion

In expecting mothers on welfare to simultaneously enact child-centered mothering, transmit valued cultural capital, and negotiate childcare arrangements, program managers not only expect a lot from mothers with limited financial resources, but also expect contradictory things. These contradictions involve competing demands of mothering and work. First, the ‘child-centered mothering’ theme itself is contradictory. The middle-class standard of child-centered mothering (Hays, 1996; Lareau, 2003) mandates that mothers have a major physical presence in their children’s lives. Although program managers advocated for mothering motivated by children’s wants and needs, the means of reaching this goal varied from those of middle-class parents (similar to Taylor, 2011). Specifically, program managers expected mothers on welfare to work outside of the home to make money to meet their children’s needs. Yet, since low-wage work and cash assistance work requirements mandate work intrusion in family life, work outside of the home often involves mothers spending significant time away from their children. Furthermore, the jobs that these mothers secure often do not provide sufficient income to provide for their children to a degree that meets intensive mothering standards (Edin and Lein, 1996; Hays, 1996; Lareau, 2003).

A second contradiction that I find concerns conflicting messages about the purpose of working outside the home. The themes involving ‘child-centered mothering’ and ‘transmitting valued cultural capital’ draw on intensive mothering logic to justify working outside the home and delegating childcare by suggesting that these practices benefit children. Yet, the theme concerning ‘negotiating childcare’ prescribes working outside the home as a means to meet work participation goals. In this discourse about negotiating childcare, program managers present children as one of many barriers that mothers need to manage to be successful clients. The program managers prioritize work goals that are constructed around men’s lives and thus make few accommodations for primary caregiving (Acker, 1990). Furthermore, in discussing managing childcare programs managers sometimes criticized mothers for doing things that would be in their children’s best interest – such as being reluctant to leave children at just any daycare center or taking children to the doctor – if the managers felt that it would detract from mothers’ work participation. As such, ‘managing childcare’ appears to emphasize neoliberal work values and goals (Soss et al., 2011) over improving families’ lives.

Finally, the actions that program managers suggest welfare clients take to meet the expectations that they (program managers) have for clients are not always realistic. This is evident across the themes that I find. First, program managers suggest that mothers on welfare work outside of the home to provide for one’s children. Yet, poor women tend to work low-wage jobs that do not necessarily provide a living wage, and some do not even cover the cost of childcare (Edin and Lein, 1996). Second, program managers suggest that mothers on welfare work outside the home to transmit cultural capital to children. While children may increasingly come to embrace neoliberal ideals, research suggests that the cultural capital children learn from parents working at low-wage jobs prepares them for similar low-wage work rather than helping them achieve upward mobility (Kohn, 1969; Lareau, 2003). And third, program managers mandate that clients delegate childcare so clients can work outside the home. While delegating childcare may be a realistic stepping stone for mothers to work outside of the home, it is often difficult to do and it is not the only obstacle to working outside the home that mothers face (Crittenden, 2001; Nelson, 2005). Delegating childcare requires the ability to locate and afford childcare, transportation to and from childcare sites, navigating informal support networks, and establishing back-up plans (Crittenden, 2001; Nelson, 2005).

Conclusion

In conclusion, welfare program managers expect mothers on welfare to enact child-centered parenting, while effectively managing childcare so they can work outside of the home and be role models of a ‘good work ethic’ for their children. Thus, women experiencing poverty are left to prioritize contradictory messages regarding their mothering practices. This analysis contributes to existing literatures of mothering, welfare and poverty, and discourse by using critical discourse analysis to deconstruct interviews of welfare-to-work program managers. By studying welfare program managers rather than mothers on welfare themselves, I analyze the discourse of a group that is more connected to the mainstream/national ideologies. My findings show how program managers reproduce dominant sexist and capitalist ideology by devaluing the mothering practices of their clients.

Critical discourse analysis further illuminates how program managers use discursive strategies (contrasts, examples, and generalizations) to evaluate their clients’ mothering in an ideologically-driven way by comparing the parenting of mothers on welfare to middle-class mothering standards. In doing so, program managers draw on ‘classtalk’ (Turgeon et al., 2014) to justify the existing ideologies and welfare policies that maintain class inequality and uphold capitalism. Specifically, their discourse reinforces sexist and capitalist structures through an inflexible focus on clients meeting work participation goals – which are clearly valued over mothering practices – that also exploit clients’ labor by providing unlivable wages in exchange for their work. Overall, program managers seem to expect single mothers experiencing poverty to fulfil the patriarchal capitalist model by being both an intensive parent and working outside of the home. When mothers fail to reach this steep expectation, managers uphold sexist capitalist ideology by blaming mothers for reproducing poverty. This is significant for welfare implementation because program managers shape organizational goals and directly influence caseworkers who implement policy on the frontlines. Thus, managers’ prejudices indirectly influence clients via workplace culture, goals, and their influence on caseworkers.

Yet, ultimately, the program managers are not solely to blame for the outcomes of women experiencing poverty. Rather, negative stereotypes of mothers on welfare and exclusive definitions of mothering are more indicative of structural problems. On the whole, the United States provides a hostile environment for mothers experiencing poverty, who face a no-win predicament in balancing family and work and are held personally responsible for subjecting their children to a life of poverty. These women are not only blamed for being poor, but this blame is compounded through their ‘failed mothering’ practices. Scholars should not only address the victim-blaming of individuals experiencing poverty, but these efforts should further address how their status as mothers heightens the blame they experience and the stigma they face. These stigma matter because they shape both public discourse, which has historically criminalized and pathologized mothers experiencing poverty (Flavin, 2009; Rousseau, 2009), and the decision-making processes of welfare personnel (Watkins-Hayes, 2009).

This work also has implications for teaching in the social sciences. By highlighting how managers blame clients for experiencing poverty and not meeting hegemonic ideals of mothering, it is clear managers do not always connect the narratives of clients to the structural problems that (re)produce poverty and constrain clients’ mothering practices. By teaching about both the structural conditions that create poverty as well as specific implications (i.e., constraints on mothering practices), educators can help make social workers and welfare personnel more sensitive to the structural inequality shaping many aspects of clients’ everyday lives. This kind of education has the potential to impact decisions managers – and other welfare personnel – make concerning clients. Furthermore, equipping students with this knowledge is a step toward improving national discourse and overcoming negative ideologies about clients.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the colleagues that provided insightful feedback throughout the stages of this paper: Clare Stacey, Kathy Feltey, Katrina Bloch, Austin Johnson, Will LeSuer, Brennan Miller, Corey Stevens, Janette Dill, and especially Tiffany Taylor.

Funding

This research was aided by the American Sociological Association’s Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline Award supported by the American Sociological Association and the National Science Foundation.

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