The Poverty of Life-Affirming Work: Motherwork, Education, and Social Change (Contributions in Women's Studies)

248 Pages·2001·14.32 MB·English

by  Mechthild Hart

The Poverty of —
~ Life-Affirming
Work
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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
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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
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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