Mother savers: caregiving in a neoliberal state

Abstract

Contemporary grandparenting enables working mothers’ continued participation in the workforce. Drawing on the lived experiences of grandparents in the neoliberal state of Singapore, this paper posits that grandparental caregiving lends instrumental support to working mothers in executing onerous concerted cultivation in grandchildren’s childhoods. This paper also argues that intensity in grandparenting is performed on a continuum, and does not necessarily follow the dichotomous pattern of regular-reserved army. The need to respond to the capriciousness of caregiving renders grandparents’ time flexible and amenable when working mothers are bound by the inflexibility of wage work. With limited autonomy, grandparents experience ambivalence as they negotiate with conflicting sentiments being both caregiving grandparents and ageing older adults. This paper recasts grandparents as doubly disadvantaged when they come to bear cumulative inequality from having to do laborious care work with declining health.