Cameron Lynne MacDonald: Shadow Mothers: Nannies, Au Pairs, and the Micropolitics of Mothering

Excerpt

In Shadow Mothers: Nannies, Au Pairs, and the Micropolitics of Mothering, Cameron Lynne MacDonald elucidates the difficulties surrounding the interrelationships of mothers and their nannies and au pairs in the first shift in parenting or rather, the initial stage of childhood. During the mid- to late-1990s, MacDonald conducted interviews throughout the Boston area of 30 working mothers and 50 caregivers. She focused on three subsets of childcare workers: (1) American-born nannies; (2) au pairs; and (3) immigrant caregivers. Since fathers become more involved in the second shift of parenting, MacDonald focused solely on mothers. She confined her set of working mothers to those who were employed at least 30 h per week outside the home and had at least one child younger than school age. In order to see what factors matter most to mothers in selecting childcare workers, she tried to find mothers who were financially able to select any type of childcare. The resulting pool of interviews depicted a narrow set of well-to-do working mothers and their carefully selected childcare workers. …