Shadow Times

In this article we explore temporal and spatial frameworks for analysing the experience of combining caring for children with participation in paid work. We highlight the pressure to undertake paid employment routinely, which places particular strains upon people who are most likely to have to combine caring and working. The authors assert that mothers continue to have the main responsibility for the organization, if not the conduct, of caring work (Sevenhuijsen, 1998). Traditional assumptions about the seeming relationship between femininity and caring remain relatively intact, despite major shifts in family formation, women’s participation in the labour market and debates about the changing role of men (Cancian and Oliker, 1999; Lister, 1997). Drawing upon the work of Adam (2000) on timescapes we develop the notion of caringscapes as a means by which the processes of combining caring and working may be theorized and also incorporated into UK government policy related to caring (whether directly or indirectly). We draw attention to the inadequacy of public policy that does not incorporate an awareness of the demands of the everyday across the lifecourse, of which a spatial-temporal component should be fundamental. The authors propose a caringscape perspective as a basis for both future research and policy developments and conclude that an enhanced recognition of the fluidity and praxis of caring and gender is necessary to support the evolving roles of parents, especially mothers who combine caring and working.