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29 J. Soc. & Soc. Welfare 29 (2002)
I Raised My Kids on the Bus: Transit Shift Workers' Coping Strategies for Parenting

handle is hein.journals/jrlsasw29 and id is 423 raw text is: I Raised My Kids on the Bus: Transit Shift Workers' Coping Strategies for Parenting BLANCHE GROSSWALD Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey School of Social Work The study investigated coping strategies for parenting of transit shift work- ers, an urban, blue-collar, primarily ethnic minority population. It involved a qualitative, grounded theory approach, using individual interviews with 30 San Francisco bus drivers. The principal aspect of the job impacting transit workers' relationships with their children was the lack of time they had together. Drivers had to be creative to find ways to care for their children. They could not rely exclusively on formal child care because hours at childcare centers did not match their job schedules. Coping strategies for care included taking children on the bus, working shifts complementary to those of spouses, using siblings as surrogate parents, substituting material gifts for time, and separating work from family. Future research cannot group shift work as one composite. Shift- working doctors and nurses experience different working conditions from those of bus drivers that may lead to variations in parental caring. Policy suggestions include child care services and shorter shifts. Introduction: Shift Work, Transit Work and Family Relationships How do male and female city bus drivers who work 10 to 12 hours a day engage with the process of raising children? This pa- per describes a case study of shift-working bus drivers--or transit operators, as they prefer to be called-in dual-income families in the city of San Francisco. It draws on existing literature in the areas of work and family, shift work, transit work, their respective relationships to family, and the new concept of cultures of care, Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, September, 2002, Volume XXIX, Number 3

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