Women in the developing world who are paid to bear other people’s children test the emotional limits of the international service economy.
Arlie Hochschild
Arlie Hochschild’s most recent books are The Commercialization of Intimate Life and (co-edited with Barbara Ehrenreich) Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy.
Posted inFeatures
The Chauffeur’s Dilemma
Let’s consider our political moment through a story. Suppose a chauffeur drives a sleek limousine through the streets of New York, a millionaire in the backseat. Through the window, the millionaire spots a homeless woman and her two children huddling in the cold, sharing a loaf of bread. He orders the chauffeur to stop the […]
Posted inFeatures
Taking Care
In her new book Power Politics, the novelist Arundhati Roy observes the way that the government of India with one hand causes distress and with the other directs people’s anger about it elsewhere. Do harm; then scapegoat. She calls it a “pincer action.” Does it sound familiar? In the United States, we have been subjected […]
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The Nanny Chain
Vicky Diaz, a 34-year-old mother of five, was a college-educated schoolteacher and travel agent in the Philippines before migrating to the United States to work as a housekeeper for a wealthy Beverly Hills family and as a nanny for their two-year-old son. Her children, Vicky explained to Rhacel Parrenas, were saddened by my departure. Even […]
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
The Fractured Family
Some observers are celebrating post-modern families as a positive break from the traditional form. Others are calling for a restoration. Are those our only choices?