Home is where the work is: Exploring the dynamics of home-working by work-at-home moms and bloggers

• Main Author: Lanzador-Medina, Margreta L.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2019
• Subjects: Work-life balance; Mothers—Employment; Bloggers; Family, Life Course, and Society; Social Media
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/7112
• Institution: De La Salle University

The thesis probes the intersections of public life writing and digital work among women, specifically a group called Work-At-Home Moms (WAHMs), who are engaged in blogging and use the blog for economic gains. Blogging, as a form of public life writing through new media, is a form of self-representation, and in the context of mom-bloggers, a self-representation of domestic life while allowing them to become economically productive through the monetization of blogs. Through blogging, both through self-representation and the act of carving out time and space to work-at-home, mom-bloggers may negotiate, challenge, or reinforce dominant ideologies about mothers and mothering. The workplace of a WAHM blogger is also her home and as such, work, family, and personal boundaries are blurred. As WAHMs, they execute both income-generating activities and maternal duties on a daily basis. Seeking to contribute to the local and global literature on digital labor and women, I drew from 15 interviews with bloggers and WAHMs in order to understand: 1) the labor of motherhood blogging and the process of public life writing of Filipino mothers, 2) the material environment of ‘work-at-home’ mothering, 3) how online and domestic work are simultaneously performed by mothers and how boundary is constructed to perform work in both areas efficiently, and 4) how home/family and work relationships are shaped and reshaped in the context of ‘work-at-home’ blogging. The production component is a website on Filipina mom blogging, capturing the intricate labor of motherhood blogging and the experiences of work-at-home mothering.