“Yet, many working women-including Latina women-hold the cultural prescription of solo mothering in the home as an ideal.[…] . It is not only White, middle-class ideology but also strong Latina/o traditions, cultural practices, and ideals-Catholicism, and the Virgin Madonna figure-that cast employment as oppositional to mothering.”
This theory of Latina women, but also all women, of having to come home for a second shift is reality. This theory is a new phenomenon that was caused by the industrial revolution where a surplus of jobs were created, but also being that things have gotten so expensive due to inflation, it forces both parents to go into the work field. One thing that has yet to change is the fact that when a man comes back from work they aren’t expected to vacuum the floors, clean the dishes, prepare dinner, or put the kids to bed, but the women are. Women may have had an additional responsibility added onto their list of tasks, a job, but that didn’t make their “womanly duties” disappear. For the women whom are mentioned in the quote, it’s apparent that sometimes men aren’t even in the picture so they are forced to be both the mother and father to their children. Latina women are often raised in an environment of which teaches them to cater to the men in their family, whether they see their own mother’s catering to their fathers, or grandmothers serving their grandfathers, this paints the picture that this is the right way, and the only way to treat a man, to serve him.