ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a version of flexibility stigma through analysis of a decade of ethnographic and participative data in which low-wage mothers describe what happens when they put family needs first. One of the hard truths about low-wage family life is that parents who have the least income and the most rigid, irregular work schedules are raising children with higher rates of health problems that call for parental attention. The study respondents who had spouses or partners available to help juggle care avoided some childcare costs and crises and also avoided leaving children in risky care situations. But that did not add up to easy arrangements; spouses in low-wage families describes the complex maze of after school scheduling, transportation, tag-teaming, and minute-to-minute orchestration that substituted for the routine of market-based childcare. Children's special health problems, emotional issues, and special educational needs require more than "ordinary" parental attention and, consequently, work flexibility.
