Abstract
This study analyzes how male childminders in different life stages conduct their work and how they approach masculinities in this profession. We interviewed 16 males from three cities in Taiwan. Data analysis identified different masculinity construction mechanisms for men younger than 50 and those older than 60. These men understand childminding differently: While the younger ones embrace professionalization to create a childminding profession that is different from traditional female work, the older ones refuse to recognize child care as an occupation and strive to blur home/work boundaries to define child care services as a family duty or housework. The research suggests that hegemonic masculinity attributes are being introduced to this female-dominated profession, along with age-related sociocultural norms that provide the context for individuals to reconstruct alternative masculinities.
The experience of caring for a child has the potential to develop men’s emotional, interdependence, and relational values (Elliott, 2016) and also contributes to the construction of alternative masculinities beyond the hegemonic one (Bushmeyer & Lengersdorf, 2016). Child care is a field that allows for change from traditional hegemonic masculinities to more unconventional alternatives. However, most studies of men in child care have focused only on middle-aged men, either caring for their own children as a father or working in child care institutions as teachers (Doucet, 2004; Nentwich et al., 2013). As hegemonic traits of masculinity are mostly found in middle age, studies have pointed to the reaffirmation or transgression of hegemonic masculinity during the process of aligning work and gender identities of men in this life stage.
However, the way to approach masculinities in child care work may change according to the age of male childminders. Krekula (2007) stated that the intersection of gender and age can help in finding new forms of marginalization or neutralize latent forms of marginalization. Following this perspective, this study looks at age and masculinities in childminding and focuses on the ways in which male childminders of different age groups forge their masculinities. We aim to explore how age intervenes in the construction of masculinities when performing home day care in Taiwan.
Taiwanese male childminders who have joined family day care services since the introduction of new child care policies present a suitable case to study this development. To address the low fertility rate in Taiwan, the government implemented child care policies with the goal of alleviating the responsibility of parents and improving services. The governmental initiatives include regulating informal childminding and encouraging more people to choose this occupation. 1 Child care courses, certification exams, and supervision from the government have resulted in the rapid professionalization and institutionalization of family day care services. Under this process of professionalization, men’s participation in the care sector has increased; however, it has also attracted a heterogeneous group of males with different motivations to register as childminders. Some are in the prime of their life but decide to transfer to childminding. Others have joined this work after retirement. Male childminders vary in their age; both middle-aged men and elderly men have joined their female family members in providing home-based child care services (Y. Z. Chen & Liu, 2015).
The life stage in which men join this profession implies divergent motivations and prospects; age norms lead to different cultural and gender expectations for these male childminders based on whether they are older or younger. To provide more insight into the influence of life stage on the understanding and practices of masculinities in home-based child care services, we analyze in-depth interviews with 16 male childminders of two age groups: The first group of men entered the job in their 60s, and the second joined this work before the age of 50. The results show that the two groups approach masculinities in child care work differently: While the younger men embrace professionalization to create a childminding profession that is different from traditional female work, the older ones refuse to recognize child care as an occupation and strive to blur home/work boundaries to define child care services as a family duty or housework.
Age and Masculinities in Child Care
The role of masculinity, which is enacted and reproduced through discourse (Collinson & Hearn, 1994), encapsulates how men express multiple and fluid gender practices. In other words, masculinity involves fluid practices in everyday interaction rather than constructing specific types of masculinity (Bartholomaeus & Tarrant, 2016). This study of male childminders brings two research frames into consideration: the study of age and masculinities and the study of men in child care.
Age plays an important role in changing the attributes of masculinities. Men of different generations share values, and their experiences shape their understanding and practice of masculinities in the same period and social context (Anderson, 2018; B. Chen & Ghaill, 2015). A growing body of literature has addressed age and masculinities as they relate to life stage. For example, Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) emphasized the importance of examining childhood/youth and aging to discover different masculinities and various gender equality practices. Bartholomaeus and Tarrant (2016) found that being beyond middle adulthood allowed men more transgressions of hegemonic masculinity and more caring behavior.
Beyond the physical changes of the body that influence the construction of masculinity and the body work that older men use to reduce physical aging (Clarke & Lefkowich, 2018), the practice of drawing boundaries between the public and private spheres after retirement is also a relevant aspect of aging masculinity. In adulthood, masculinities are normatively connected with men’s work environments and paid employment, so forced transition away from these hegemonic identities through retirement results in contradictory and difficult emotions around the home (Smith & Winchester, 1998). The compensation for losing workplace connections involves shifting the boundaries between the public and private spheres (Ormsby et al., 2010), and the boundaries become increasingly blurred (Smith & Winchester, 1998).
Men who work in family day care confront several challenges to their masculinity. The role of primary breadwinner through paid work (Kimmel, 1993) is the basis for construction of men’s identity and an elemental aspect of hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1995). Family day care as work is strongly attached to the reproductive function of women, and household tasks suggest transgression in the gender culture and gender segregation of work; furthermore, family day care contains a different dynamic of social relations than a work organization where masculinity is embedded.
The reconstruction of male child caregivers’ gender identity involves many processes that avoid the gendered connotation of their career by emphasizing, for example, powerful men in the profession, masculinizing the work, and differentiating the work from women’s work (Sargent, 2004). The literature on men in child care recognizes two strategies for work and gender identity combinations: differentiating from female coworkers and masculinizing care work. By using a handshake or a high five to develop a masculine style of body contact, men try to distinguish themselves from their female coworkers (Sargent, 2005). A father who takes parental leave still remains in contact with his colleagues and may take his children to visit his workplace; by doing so, he maintains his connection to work to demonstrate his difference from mothers (Brandth & Kvande, 1998). Men also masculinize care work by adding new interpretations of care, such as promoting children’s outdoor activities, where they emphasize that they can train children to be independent and motivate children to take risks (Doucet, 2004). Also, men construct their professional image through networking and participation in unions or professional associations (Hrzenjak, 2013).
Previous studies have indicated that male caregivers find alternative ways to express their masculinity, which recognizes the value and forms of feminine care and establishes a critical distance from the hegemonic ideals of masculinity (Bushmeyer, 2013; Elliott, 2016). Galbraith (1992) found that men transform masculinity by blending conventions with nonconventional norms but preserve the traditional masculine norms and values such as careerism. Nentwich and colleagues (2013) showed that men working in child care mingle different discourses and practices to construct their masculinity and to legitimize their position in a feminine workplace. This includes both distancing themselves from female coworkers (construction of men’s groups, applying the father symbol, indicating that men are breadwinners) and emphasizing their similarity with women (gender equality, feminized characteristics), as well as creating professionalism (becoming pedagogues). Despite many researchers having studied how men adjust their masculinities, little attention has been paid to how age affects male family child caregivers’ interpretation of their practices.
Furthermore, the cultural norms reflected in the studies of Western industrialized societies do not necessarily present for the construction of masculinities in Taiwan. Although a large-scale and systematic survey of Taiwanese men does not exist (Sandwell, 1996), the few studies on this topic have revealed specific features of masculinities in Taiwan. These features are compatible with men in China and other societies influenced by Confucian culture. The first feature is economic power over women, and the purpose is to be the provider of the family. Being responsible for a wealthy life for family members (parents, wife, and children) is a crucial criterion for being a true man (Liu, 2019). Therefore, economic power, with men in the breadwinner role, in Western culture is predominant. This suggests that the economic superiority of men is also important for marriage. The Taiwanese culture suggests that a husband should have higher, or at least equal, achievement in education and in professional development; also, a man should earn more money than his wife (Cheng, 2014). The marry-up phenomenon for women remains in Taiwan, although young men and women have the same relative achievement and earn their own income.
The culture that praises family tradition and the extended family also influences the construction of Taiwanese masculinities. According to tradition, the worst part of being unfilial is not producing offspring. Bringing a son into the family to inherit the family tradition and to worship one’s ancestors is a crucial responsibility of men. The worst practice to show an unfilial status to one’s parents for a man is the lack of a son. Being responsible for the patrilineal family legacy constitutes part of Taiwanese masculinity. However, the confrontation of traditional gender culture with the rapid economic development in Taiwan results in a tension between being a hardworking breadwinner and an attentive father for young Taiwanese men (B. Chen & Ghaill, 2015). This family culture also affects aging men; for them, having a son and grandson and living together in a three-generation family model is still a desirable ideal. The strong Confucian values and the intergenerational exchange in the life cycle of the family support the caregiving role of grandparents in Taiwan (Xu & Chi, 2015), and the percentage of older adults providing grandchild care increased from 7.7% in 1993 to 19.4% in 2007 (Tsai et al., 2011). The relevance of extended family and filial practice for the construction of masculinities in Taiwan among different age groups is also reflected in the following analysis of men’s child care practices.
Method
The present study is based on in-depth interviews conducted in 2015–2017 with 16 male childminders in three cities: Taipei (the capital of Taiwan), New Taipei (the suburban area of the capital city), and Hsin-Chu (a provincial city). We collected information on male childminders from the government’s webpage, registered by Family Day Care Centers. 2 The interviews began in Taipei and Hsinchu in 2013–2014 and, in 2017, included those who lived in four districts in New Taipei City (Sanxia, Yingge, Chunghe, and Yonghe) and were registered as childminders. We called all the registered male childminders to ask them to participate in interviews for this research, but not all of them were willing to do so. We interviewed 32 male childminders over 3 years. This seemingly small sample covered 13% of all the registered male childminders in Taipei, 40% in Hsinchu, and 24% in the four districts in New Taipei in the respective year of the interview. 3
The majority of interviewees had higher education backgrounds, with ages ranging between 32 and 62 years old when they began childminding; the average age was around 50. For the purposes of this study, we looked only at the eight oldest and the eight youngest childminders in the analysis. Men starting this profession at an age older than 60 were classified as older childminders, whereas men who started to provide child care service before age 50 were categorized as younger childminders. This choice is based on two reasons. First, to assure that the sample to study shows the effects of age and generational differences, we intentionally left a clear age gap between the two groups for comparison; therefore, several interviewees were left out of the analysis. This assured that the age difference can serve clearly as an explanatory factor for the men’s child care attitudes and practices. Otherwise, it would be difficult to attribute their divergent practices to the effect of a 1- or 2-year age difference. Second, each selected age group needed enough cases for analysis. As there is not enough information and statistics about childminders’ age, setting any age range a priori would have been difficult to match with interview participants. Thus, the selection of these two age groups was based on the age distribution of the 32 interviewed childminders, resulting in eight childminders in the older group and eight in the younger group. 4
The interview was conducted at either the childminder’s home or a café near the home. Due to their care work, they could not be away from the children for a long time. If we interviewed them at their home, the children and their collaborators in the child care service, their spouse or daughters, were inevitably present during the interview. This configuration of men and women, especially both spouses providing child care together, represents a common practice of Taiwanese family day care services (Chen & Liu, 2015). 5
We conducted semistructured interviews with all the interview volunteers. The key points of the interview were the motivation and process to join this profession, their roles in the joint child care work with their wives, their perceptions of this profession, their child care practices, and the problems they face in this work. After the transcription, the interviews were labeled and organized according to those key points (the structure) of the interview. The first reading of the material resulted in several themes for further arrangement: the pathway to join this profession, the sequence of performed tasks during a day, their attitude and thinking about this profession, and the difficulties they face and how they overcome problems. We noticed patterns in the data focusing on their approach to masculinities, created the framework for the analysis, and grouped the interviewees into two age groups. The analysis framework that included interviewees’ attitude toward this job (motivation and conception) and their practices according to the interaction partners (children, parents, and other child care professionals) allow the comparison between the two age groups; we looked for patterns in each age group, determining that the age differences were reflected in their attitudes and practices.
Professionalization and Institutionalization of Child Care Services in Taiwan
The amplification of child care services is the first step in creating a supportive environment for parents to address the low fertility rate in Taiwan. In 1998, the government introduced the child care certification system, which conducts examinations of young child care providers. In 2000, the community child care system (now the Family Day Care Service Centers) was established to assist with the professionalization, intermediation, and supervision of family day care. The community childminder system functions to unite childminders and to provide courses and exchanges between childminders. At the same time, it establishes supervisors who visit homes regularly to assure sanitary and safety conditions. The centers act as agents between parents looking for care services and available childminders in the same community.
To register as a care provider, one must pass an exam to be certified as a childminder or graduate from college with a degree in early child care education or a related major. To provide incentives for family day care providers to register officially, the government implemented a financial subsidy for children younger than 3 years who receive care from a registered childminder. These policies to improve family day care services mean that day care work has experienced two significant transformations.
First, child care courses, certification exams, and supervision from the family day care center have resulted in the rapid professionalization and institutionalization of family day care services. Parents’ preference for a professional childminder who is endorsed by the state through examination and certification has led to many day care providers joining the registration and accepting the control and support system created by the government.
Second, the 2008 governmental appeal to invite and later require service providers to take an exam and join this work led to an increasing number of men providing this service. Traditionally, providing day care has been considered a woman’s duty, and it had a low profile and less prestige than other work because of its gendered features; therefore, men seldom entered this profession. However, after implementation of the government’s child care subsidy in 2008, which required childminders to be certified and members of family day care centers, many men childminders became part of the system.
In summary, two contextual forces have led to the professionalization of home day care: a neoliberal economy responding to parents’ demands and state regulation as part of the government’s social welfare and population policy. Under this process of professionalization, men’s participation in the care sector increased; both middle-aged and older men joined their female family members in providing home-based child care services.
Understanding the Practices of Childminding by Younger and Older Men
In the following section, we present the results of examining the two age groups of childminders. The analysis of ways to approach masculinities in this profession reveals two dimensions. The first one is to comprehend how age influences understanding and management of masculinities in what is traditionally considered a woman’s profession and the second is to understand how age influences men’s interpretation of this job and their practices in care work. The analysis shows that men’s approach to masculinities differs between older and younger childminders: The younger group participates actively in this process of redefining child care work through professionalism whereas the older group refuses to acknowledge childminding as a true job and blurs the boundaries between home and work. This interpretation derives from analysis of (a) the men’s understanding and conceptualization of childminding as a job and (b) their practices as childminders in interaction with children, parents, and colleagues. The findings presented in the following section describe the approach to masculinities in two aspects: the cognitive understanding of childminding as work and the performance and practices of childminding.
Conceptualizing Childminding as a “Job”
Reconceptualizing the childminding profession is one strategy for male childminders to unify their gender and work identities. However, younger and older childminders differ in their understanding of childminding. The former group reconstructs childminding as a business, and the latter refuses to recognize child care as a “real” job or paid employment. These different conceptions of childminding manifest in two aspects: the organizing of the men’s work–family time and their vision about the future of their career.
Work and family time management
The age at which the male childminder enters the profession influences how he evaluates the relationship between work and family. In balancing the private sphere and their work, younger childminders believe their work and their family life should be separate. Because the family child care occurs at home, they follow a schedule to separate the child care work from family time and to assure that childminding has a simulated public character like other occupations outside the home. This feature of translating work outside the home into working time at home allows the men to affirm their belonging to the public sphere—in contrast to women, who belong to the private home space. As Mr. Kao explained, although his own children are young adults, he still needs family time: Childminders should [be based in the] family. Without being in the family, can they be called . . . family day caregivers? I love those children I take care [of] because I am a childminder, but my children also need my love.
The young male childminders seek a strict separation of family and work time. Mr. J explained that he and his wife do their own housework only when the children are not at home or when the children are sleeping because the parents are their bosses, and childminders should not take care of personal responsibilities while working. All the interviewed young childminders indicated that they do not want to work on the weekend, and they charge for extra hours.
Comparatively, the older male childminders are more flexible and find it easier to accommodate parents in terms of time arrangements. Mr. Yeh said that the children used to stay at his place more than 10 hr a day because the parents were not always able to pick up their children on time because they also worked overtime. Likewise, Mr. Liao said that some parents picked up their children after 7:00 p.m. Mr. Liao described a case where the parents sometimes asked to delay the pickup time for their child. Mr. Liao always agreed to this request. In addition, Mr. Liao sometimes drove the children home, which is not common in family day care work. He provided this shuttle service to meet the needs of parents who had to go to work. The older childminders were more willing to work overtime than their younger counterparts. For the older interviewees, the children they cared for were not so different from their own children, so the children were part of the men’s daily life. Their existence did not affect the childminder’s family life. Instead, the older male childminders blended the work into their daily family lives and tried to blur the border between family and child care work, rather than separating the work and the family (i.e., the public and the private).
The time management differences of the two age groups can be attributed to the life stage. The younger ones, around 40, have familial duties to take care of their own children and, sometimes, their elderly parents. In contrast, the older group, which is free of those duties, has more time to devote to the children and is not interested in the strict separation of family time and work.
Childminding as profitable business or supportive work
In addition to the differences in how they manage their work time, we found that the younger men are still in the stage of planning their career; thus, they see child care as a business to operate, whereas their older counterparts try to reduce the profit character of child care work and do not see it as a formal occupation, unlike their previous job.
For the younger group, caregiving is likely to be developed as a future business, which helps them perform the current work and reformulate their masculinity. These childminders’ career plans are purposive and tend to be profit-oriented. Some plan to expand their home-based work to an institutional day care center that can accommodate more children and babies. They treat parents as customers and offer additional services or provide a more child-friendly environment: It is right to make [a] profit on this. Everyone should [be devoted to making] money. And I provide more choices for children. The environment and facility would be like a small kindergarten, but I do not make a kindergarten with 20 children in a class, I take care of fewer children. (Mr. Kao)
The younger men plan to own and be responsible for the administration of a day care center in the future but are not obliged to be at the forefront of child care. This perspective stems from the low status of home-based child care work, which is socially considered low-skilled, nonprofessional, low-paying, and, therefore, women’s work. To differentiate themselves from female childminders—who earn income complementary to their husband’s salary—the young men in this profession try to seek opportunities to professionalize and expand the business.
However, the older childminders do not consider child care to be a real job, even if they spend 8 hr per day doing this work. By “real” job, they mean formal work outside the home that corresponds to a responsibility to provide for a whole family. They do not care if the child care work has career potential, regardless of their economic situation. This attitude was demonstrated by Mr. Su, who explained his entry to this work: “Finally, I have extra pocket money to spend. This is practical.” They are less profit-oriented or do not expect the work to be their main source of income and, therefore, do not think of home-based child care service as formal work.
Mr. Su’s peers of a similar age also seemed not to consider their earnings from child care as a major salary. This refusal to accept childminding as a form of work facilitates their ability to escape from the conflict of their gender identity, which is brought about by performing a women’s occupation. Their nonprofit orientation is reflected in their practices. They do not charge for overtime or accept cash money as a gift. For example, at festival times, Mr. Feng rejects cash gifts, which are a conventional gesture from parents to thank childminders. He talked about the extra work he did in a devoted tone, showing that these concessions came from his attentiveness to aid the families: “I think I should not take the money. . . . I gave the gift back if they sent me extra money. Some parents lead a difficult life. It is not necessary to receive more money from them.”
These differences in scheduling work and family time and understanding this work in both age groups may result from the objective conditions of the men’s life stage. The younger group has family members to care for and needs a major income source to support this family; in contrast, the older group has more time, and many of the men have become pensioners following their retirement from other jobs. Economic power as a substantial part of Taiwanese masculinities construction did not disappear with the aging. Both age groups of male childminders contribute to the family income in different ways. However, the traditional family culture leads the social expectation to evolve according to the men’s age. The younger men should be breadwinners and care for family members, whereas the older men, who should already have fulfilled this role, are not only relieved of those filial duties, but they also have the right to receive care from the younger generation. Therefore, for their reconstruction of masculinities in child care work, the younger men try to define child care as profitable or as an occupation with career potential, and the older ones frame their care practices as supportive income for their family.
Performing Child Care Work
Men’s understanding of childminding is reflected in their practices in this work. The younger childminders masculinize this traditional women’s work through professionalization and perform as client-oriented service providers, whereas the older group thinks of child care as a duty between family members and follows the traditional gender division of labor in child care. In their everyday practices of childminding—interacting with children, parents, and peers—the two age groups differ in three ways: (a) how they interpret their role in child care shared with their wife or daughter through interaction with the children, (b) how they communicate with parents, and (c) from whom they ask for support in their work and their relations with colleagues.
Role in childminding: Educator or assistant
The childminders’ tasks differ by age. The older childminders avoid the primary caregiver role and simply assist their wives in child care work. The younger ones, in contrast, do all the required tasks of childminding. The younger childminders consider training children and stimulating babies’ development as the core of their work, whereas older childminders say that their roles are accompanying children, playing with them, and assisting their wives.
The older childminder is likely to act more as a father figure who selectively takes care of the children part-time. This practice corresponds to rejecting childminding as a real job and assuming the role as child caregiver. For example, Mr. Su said his wife is his boss, and he is just an assistant; for Mr. Chang, his identity is that of an apprentice, while his wife is in charge of the child care business. When he and his wife have different opinions, he usually follows his wife’s suggestion: “My wife is the boss and I am the employee, who gets paid once a week.” These men appreciate the routine child care work their wives perform and follow their wives’ instruction. They admit that they fill the assistant role, and this aligns with their not wanting to be seen as performing a feminine occupation; they avoid identifying with childminding work and maintain the gendered division of labor.
When the men described what they do as childminders, the older group talked about routine work traditionally done by women. For example, they described how their wife prepared food and considered this task as crucial for the growth of children: Basically, we are [in] charge of children’s breakfast. But sometimes their mothers fed them milk, but it does not make sense. Children need to eat solid food to grow their muscles. Moreover, formula milk is a bit strange, which is not natural and contains additives. (Mr. Liao)
Their conception of child care service remains the same as before. They do not try to modify or masculinize this work and, instead, see themselves as a helper to their wives, and not as male childminders.
In contrast, the younger childminders try to differentiate themselves from traditional female childminders and consider themselves as pedagogues or educators. Mr. J talked about the childminder’s function for the child’s family: The childminder is the substitute for parents’ care because they need to work . . . Some parents request our help in teaching children how to go to the toilet independently. We would observe whether their body language and relative signs already appear and, once the timing is ripe, we would let them learn.
These observations and knowledge about child development and training children help the younger childminders establish their work identity as educators and reformulate their masculinity.
Younger childminders described how games can help children develop their muscles and cognitive abilities. Mr. Liu said he plays with the children when he bathes them. He guides the children to practice counting numbers and to recognize different colors by setting up a toy fish pool.
This role as educator allows for differentiation from the traditional female childminders. Mr. Lin, one of the younger interviewees, whose mother is also a childminder, helped his mother in child care when he was a child. From his reflection, the ways of taking care of children at that time differ significantly from current methods and environmental requirements. For example, in the past, babies were wrapped from head to toe, but now he knows that babies feel uncomfortable and develop a rash if they wear too much clothing. Mr. Lin said, We learned in the training course the women’s activities for caring for children. But the content of the training course is more subtle. Security is the priority. Take bathing as an example . . . some details need to be paid attention to, including the baby’s situation, temperature, and air conditioner. In the past, older people did not use electronic appliances, such as dehumidifier, air purifier . . .
This younger male childminder distinguishes his work from the traditional childminder by emphasizing modern medical knowledge, which leads him to see himself as more professional than his mother. Now, male childminders are professional child care providers and educators, not just traditional caregivers.
The practices of the two groups reflect their different conception of childminding. The younger group that relies economically on the child care work needs to challenge the social perception of this work and also to compete with other childminders for clients; professionalization and child care–related knowledge help them stand out in the child care service market.
Relation to the parents: Communication strategies
Communication with parents is an integral part of child care work. Neither group of childminders is responsible for communicating with parents on everyday issues such as children’s diet, health, and development, as their female counterparts take on this responsibility. However, the male childminders are involved when their child care philosophy and methods differ from those of the parents, and the discrepancy has to be resolved.
Younger and older male childminders’ communication strategies with parents differed according to their attitudes toward the parents. The two groups adopt different ways to build their relations: The younger group sees parents as clients, and the older group sees them as part of their family.
When no consensus on child care approaches exists, the younger generation prefers to persuade the parents with professional knowledge. Mr. Liu told us that he tries to teach the children’s parents to adjust the child’s daily schedule—a frequent discussion between parent and childminder. He tells the parents that if they cannot follow the same schedule and rules, it is difficult for children to build routines, which might disturb their day care work.
For younger childminders, the government’s initiative to professionalize childminding helped them respond to parents’ demands. By extending their social network to other medical professionals and officials, learning skills from their experienced peers, and becoming informed about the newest developments of social welfare policies through training courses, younger childminders are empowered in handling their work when their opinions differ from those of the parents.
At the same time, younger childminders treat parents and children as customers. They try to enhance their facilities, improve their environment, and play consultant roles for parents. They create many ways to communicate with parents using social media such as Line Messengers, which is the most popular communication app in Taiwan, to meet parents’ needs. They also create Facebook accounts for each child to share photos with parents.
The older childminders interact with parents and children as if they were part of the family. They are tolerant of parents’ requests and willing to engage in activities with the parents and children in their private time. Mr. Chu even organizes weekend travel for children and parents because he believes that bonds between parents and childminders are good for children, whereas younger childminders refuse to take children out because, for example, they do not want to take the risk of a child being injured.
One way to deny childminding as a job is for the men to consider these children in the same way they consider their own (grand)children. For example, Mr. Feng, one of the older childminders, noted that he even prepares dinner for the children’s parents because those parents do not usually cook. This extra service is not included in the contract, and he does not charge for preparing the food. These results show how the childminders interact and communicate with parents according to their personal conception about the role of the childminder.
Seeking support and networking
The younger and older childminders also choose different professionals as their support and knowledge sources. The analysis shows that the younger group tends to seek connections with doctors, lawyers, social workers, or other child care–related professionals; the older group builds a support network with other peer childminders. These different networking strategies are related to the men’s understanding of childminding as a profession. While young childminders seek alliances with other professionals to support them as an emerging professional and to prepare themselves to compete with other childminders, the older group does not seek to build a professional identity in childminding, and so they have closer, more informal, and friendlier relations with their peers.
When talking about their care work, some younger childminders stress the professional childminder’s role in protecting children. This reflects the government’s effort to professionalize child care work and emphasizes the caregiver’s role in the children’s health and development. Younger childminders see their role in the child care services system as helping doctors, educators, and social workers with children’s development. As Mr. Feng noted, working as a professional childminder carries the responsibility to discover potential disease in the child and to observe abnormal behaviors. Some of the childminders also have strong motivations to gain medical knowledge in specific areas so that they can take care of special cases—children with autism, for instance.
The positive attitude toward new knowledge in child care work, such as medical and judicial information, leads childminders to seek support from other professionals. Many of the younger childminders mentioned cooperation with doctors and social workers. They believe that making friends in other professions helps them improve the quality of their child care and their ability to assist parents. Indeed, Mr. Lin believes that cooperation with doctors is beneficial for children: When parents had some questions, we suggested they ask this pediatrician’s advice. The parents would tell the pediatrician our name so that [the] pediatrician can know the situation more clearly because we probably can provide some information. It works like a system. The relationship helps us to take better care of children.
By comparison, the older caregivers are less interested in medical advice, and their attitudes toward doctors are less favorable. When Mr. Yeh talked about the difficulties of achieving consensus with parents on how to provide care, he noted that some parents do not question the accuracy of information on the internet and want childminders to follow information from the internet or other professionals. He also faces difficulty in following a doctor’s suggestion: For example, some children were not fond of eating. They had constipation problems sometimes, so the doctor suggested that they eat vegetables or potatoes. But from our view, small children have difficulties in chewing. The food they eat now is mashed, which is easy to swallow, and avoids the risk of choking.
The older male childminders believe their work is like running a home, so they rely only on themselves and their spouse or daughter. This attitude leads them to consider the work as attached to family and not part of the child care market. Thus, older childminders have a collaborative attitude with their peers, and they seek support among them. Mr. J noted that gatherings with other childminders offer opportunities to discuss skills, such as how to communicate with parents, which is a difficult part of being a childminder. He tries to find answers in discussing child care practices. These childminders acknowledge the value of cognitive and emotional support from other childminders.
In contrast, the younger ones do not consider the possible emotional and social connections with other childminders; rather, they emphasize competition and do not think that their peers can assist in meeting their practical needs. Mr. Hsu was asked about the social activities organized by the government for childminders. He referred to the latent competition between childminders in his area: “But honestly, even when we are in the same circle [geographic location] and live in the same building, if I have to be absent tomorrow, are they willing to take the temporary childcare for me?”
The different conceptions and understandings of child care work lead younger and older male childminders to have divergent attitudes toward their peers and other professionals involved in child care. While the younger ones consider childminding as a business and are competitive with and suspicious of other childminders, the older ones find that child care is a supportive activity and the other peer professionals are possibly friends in their social circle.
Conclusion
To analyze how age mediates the understanding and practices of masculinities in the childminding profession, we study two age groups of male childminders in Taiwan. Both the older and younger groups, in their effort to participate in childminding, change the traditional gender division of labor. However, the analysis of their conceptions of this profession and their everyday practices in child care reveals that both younger and older childminders reconstruct their masculinities within this traditional women’s work in distinctive ways according to the gendered norms in each life stage.
The two groups understand childminding differently: While the younger childminders embrace professionalization to create a childminding profession that is different from traditional female work, the older ones refuse to recognize child care as an occupation and strive to blur the boundaries between home and work to define child care services as a family duty or housework. Based on these different conceptions, the older childminders refuse to identify this work as their profession, but the younger ones develop more professional strategies, such as social networking and applying medical and judicial knowledge to gain the trust of parents, with the goal of expanding this home-based work into a larger scale child care business.
The results of this study confirm the relevance of the distinction between public and private spaces for construction of masculinities (Hopkins & Noble, 2009). However, we also suggest another mechanism of public and private separation beyond space: The male childminders push this home-based women’s work to adhere to a traditionally inflexible work schedule, which allows the younger group to draw a boundary between home and work and the older group to blur that same boundary and conceptualize child care service as a private familial task.
This study fills a gap in the literature of masculinity studies by researching male childminders in a Confucian culture. The Taiwanese culture prizes a large family as a sign of good fortune. Helping to raise grandchildren is a responsibility of but also a delight for the grandparents. Older male childminders are accustomed to seeing children and their parents as members of their family, and their relationships last even after the children grow up. This background facilitates their construction of domestic masculinity in child care work.
The traditional family culture allows the older men to appear to be less immersed in performing child care work. Both age groups of male childminders use different strategies to approach masculinity in their child care work. The different strategies challenge the gender stereotypes and help each group negotiate the pull toward marginalization by dominant discourses about men and childminding. However, due to one strategy relying on the cultural familial value and the other one being grounded in the economic thinking of the breadwinner role, the effects on the construction of alternative masculinities are different. The older group is composed of men who devote their emotions to the children and sometimes also to the children’s parents and construct relationships with others through personal attachment; this allows for the men’s development of relational value (Elliott, 2016). The younger group, in turn, facilitates the recognition of child care as a legitimate profession for men; for them, child care practice can be an integral part of masculinity as well as a means to gain economic power.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article: This work was supported by the Taiwanese Ministry of Science and Technology [MOST 107-2410-H-305-039].
