Introduction

This chapter looks at relations between mothers and their households in the context of the many pressures on parents in contemporary Poland. There are pressures from the Roman Catholic Church for women to go back to a pre-soviet traditional motherhood. There are pressures from the demands of children in the context of the withdrawal or reduction of state support for women's employment in the areas of pre-schools, paid childcare leave and children's holidays in particular. There are also pressures arising from unemployment and poverty that make paid work difficult but necessary for many mothers. What is happening inside households in terms of caring practices and in terms of working and caring mentalities? Is women's unemployment, together with the Roman Catholic Church, bringing back male breadwinner families? Or are the needs of families bringing men into caring for their children?

If the transition has meant a radical upheaval in the economic and political institutions of CEE countries, it has also brought a radical transformation in households. The loss of security means not only a rising risk of poverty but also more room for decision in the place of tradition (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002). Decisions about family size have led to one of the most radical changes, namely the reduction in childbearing, leading to a reduction of around a third in the preschool population of the region: the average fall in the population of young children in the region is of 31% (UNICEF, 2002, p 18). In Poland – despite the Roman Catholic Church – this means a decline in the total fertility rate from 2.05 to 1.30 between 1989 and 2000 (UNICEF, 2002, p 107). By 2003 the total fertility rate was 1.249, and lower in towns (1.107) than in the country (1.421) (Central Statistical Office, 2004a, pp 53-7) (see also Chapter Two, Figure 2.4). The room for negotiation in households around issues of money, care and time must surely have enlarged as the certainties of socialism – secure work and secure state services – slipped away.

All over Europe, birth rates have declined to the point where there is concern about developing welfare structures that will support children (Esping-Andersen et al, 2002).