ABSTRACT
Exploring domestic service from the perspective of the workers' children provides insights into the hidden costs of maintaining the white, middle-class, patriarchal ideal of the American family; revealing the domino effects of domestic service on the workers' children. Before describing specific working conditions that affect private household workers' families, this chapter discusses arrangements workers made for their own child care and household labor. It argues that the work became genderized and racialized through everyday interactions between employer and employee. An analysis of the structure of the work pointed to ways in which women employers shift the burdens of sexism onto women employees. However, the cost of maintaining the privileges of a middle-class, patriarchal lifestyle is paid not only by private household workers. The women's families also pay a price. The chapter explores the impact of domestic service on the workers' families.
