The Poverty of Life-Affirming Work: Motherwork, Education, and Social Change (Contributions in Women's Studies) PDF
Preview The Poverty of Life-Affirming Work: Motherwork, Education, and Social Change (Contributions in Women's Studies)
The Poverty of — ~ Life-Affirming Work Recent Titles in Contributions in Women's Studies The Artist as Outsider in the Novels of Toni Morrison and Virginia Woolf Lisa Williams (Out)Classed Women: Contemporary Chicana Writers on Inequitable Gendered Power Relations Phillipa Kafka "Saddling La Gringa": Gatekeeping in Literature by Contemporary Latina Writers Phillipa Kajka Representing the Marginal Woman in Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature: Personalism, Feminism, and Polyphony Svetlana Slavskaya Grenier From the Field to the Legislature: A History of Women in the Virgin Islands Eugenia O 'Neal Women and Domestic Experience in Victorian Political Fiction Susan Johnston African American Women and Social Action: The Clubwomen and Volunteerism from Jim Crow to the New Deal, 1896-1936 Floris Barnett Cash The Dress of Women: A Critical Introduction to the Symbolism and Sociology of Clothing Charlotte Perkins Oilman, Michael R. Hill, and Mary Jo Deegan Frances Trollope and the Novel of Social Change Brenda Ayres, editor Women Among the Inklings: Gender, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams Candice Fredrick and Sam McBride The Female Body: Perspectives of Latin American Artists Raysa E. Amador Gomez-Quintero and Mireya Perez Bustillo Women of Color: Defining the Issues, Hearing the Voices Diane Long Hoeveler and Janet K. Boles, editors The Poverty of Life -Affirming Work Motherwork, Education, and Social Change Mechthild U. Hart Contributions in Women's Studies, Number 194 GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hart, Mechthild U. (Mechthild Ursula), 1948- The poverty of life-affirming work : motherwork, education, and social change / Mechthild U. Hart. p. cm.—(Contributions in women's studies, ISSN 0147-104X ; no. 194) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-313-31776-3 (alk. paper) 1. Poor women—United States—Social conditions. 2. Single mothers—United States—Social conditions. 3. Welfare recipients—United States—Social conditions. 4. Public welfare—Government policy—United States. I. Title. II. Series. HV699.H345 2002 362.83'0973—dc21 2001045123 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2002 by Mechthild U. Hart All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2001045123 ISBN: 0-313-31776-3 ISSN: 0147-104X First published in 2002 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America @r The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 32 Copyright Acknowledgment The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to use the following: Mechthild Hart, "The Experience of Living and Learning in Different Worlds," Studies in Con tinuing Education, 20/2 (1998), pp. 187-200. Permission granted by Taylor & Francis Ltd., 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE, England. To Dante Hart, the messenger from a brighter future This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 1 The War Against Subsistence 23 2 "I Ache when I Think of My Children": Raising Children in Chicago's Public Housing 39 3 Welfare Mothers: Invisible Work Becoming Visible—and Invisible Again 77 4 Literacy and Motherwork 105 5 Teaching and Learning as a Political Ally 123 6 Creating and Sustaining Life and Community 157 Conclusions 191 References 203 Index 225 This page intentionally left blank Preface In 1948, when I was born, Germany was still a heap of rubble. I slowly learned about the war as I was growing older. Although I saw ruins and houses damaged by bombshells from the window of the train my mother took us on every month to visit her mother in Ntirnberg, it took many years to begin to understand what happened. I heard stories about how my grandmother sought shelter with her daughters when the bombs were falling; I heard my father exchange war stories with old cronies. But this was all part of growing up. Only in high school did I begin to piece together the history of the war. It was a young German teacher who finally broke the taboo on even mentioning the concentration camp horrors. Our teacher gave us books to read on the medi cal experiments performed on Jews by German doctors, and we listened to Hit ler's speeches. This started years of questioning my parents on their part in these horrors, years of struggling with the knowledge that my mother somehow did not know and that my father was a member of the Nazi party. At the same time, both my parents, especially my father, instilled an unshak able faith in the importance of education in me. My mother's aspiration of be coming a pediatrician was dashed when her older sister took her out of school during the war and sent her to a farm where she had to learn housekeeping. My father's hopes to study literature were squelched because his family could not afford the cost of a university education. In 1987 I moved to Chicago. Although I had heard and read about racism, mainly in connection with colonialism and imperialism, before moving to Chi cago I had not had an opportunity to be confronted with its direct consequences. While I saw some of these consequences, I was engulfed by my professional work at a university, and I was also "shielded" from racism. As is typical for
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