Dynamic family networks and child care arrangements over time: An ethnographic perspective

Using ethnographic data from the Welfare, Children and Families: A Three-City Study, we explored how kinship networks influence the strategies women employ to secure care for children in 212 African American, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic White low-income families. Specifically, we addressed the following questions: 1. How do low-income mothers utilize family and friends to secure child care? 2. How do changes in the lives of kinworkers – and the shifting quality of their relationships with mothers - shape child care arrangements? 3. Which strategies do mothers utilize over time to maintain children's health and well being? We found that these mothers utilized their kin networks for primary and secondary care, and other assistance including advice about child care subsidies and quality child care centers. However, child care arrangements with kinworkers were often unpredictable because of their informal nature. Changes in the lives of these kinworkers, (relocation, career changes, marriage or child birth, illness, and even death) sometimes led to shifts in care arrangements for these mothers. Finally, we discovered three strategies that these mothers used to stabilize care arrangements for their children over time. These mothers tended to exchange care with other members of their kinship network. Also, they requested assistance only during the child's earliest years, which lessened the burden on their kinworkers. Mothers linked care to family life by encouraging family members to invest in care giving as part of their familial obligations.