"Why can't mommie take care of me?"

As a little child, I hardly ever became ill. I loved going to doctor visits because they always told me how healthy I am. I lived in California at the time. It was warm all year round.

Minnesota......on the other hand........can be a super cold place.

If you searched through my genealogy, you will find out how we are from the warm tropics. I remember my father telling me stories of the times he hunted for birds in the jungles of Laos. There were no roads but narrow dirt paths to follow through the jungles of Laos. My family immigrated to the US in 1976, and later I was born in 1991 in California. It was nice and warm like in Laos. When we moved to Minnesota in the summer of 2002, it was warm, indeed.

And then, winter came along.

I enjoyed the beauty of snow, but endured the annual flu for 4 years in a row. From 4th grade all the way to 7th grade, I had the flue whenever it was winter. I guess my body wasn't made for the -10 degree weather. I'm supposed to be in the tropics 24/7. But I remain here in Minnesota.

I remembered how, during those times of illness in elementary school and middle school, I would have to miss my winter band concerts. The state of Minnesota began to question whether I was a juvenile delinquent. I received a notice from the state of Minnesota for missing so many days of school.

But instead of roaming around the city stealing or vandalizing stuff, I was home alone trying to get well. My body was wrapped in blankets. I slept through the whole day until someone came home from work or school. One of my five siblings were usually home by 4pm to find me on the floor of the living room burning up. Sometimes they'd help bring me a cup of water, but they knew that my body will eventually heal on its own. They pretty much just let me lay there on the ground wrapped in blankets.

And where were my parents in all of this?

Yum!

My mom and dad were working at minimum wage cutting vegetables all day at a factory in a freezing room-sized refrigerator.

My father was never home to take care of me when I became ill. He never took a day off of work to care for my illness. I was never certain of why.

My mother could only care for me in the few hours she had before work. She would hand me a bottle of DayQuil. Then she would say goodbye and headed out the door to drive to work. And that was it. I was on the floor of the living room, and she was gone. Is this a form of neglect? Or is there something else going on?

My own copy of her book!

In Joan C. Williams' book Reshaping the Work-Family Debate, she states how 3 out of every 4 employed adults say they have little or no control over their work schedules. According to one study done by WorkLife Law--an organization founded by Williams herself--53% of working-class employees cannot take time off to care for sick children.

My parents would have easily lost their low paying jobs if they took off so many days off of work to stay home to take care of me. It isn't their fault that they couldn't stay home. The real source of the issue here was that the workforce and its politics is failing families.

In Williams' book, she shows how the workplace disadvantages both women and men. Masculinity norms at work make men less willing to admit they need to leave work to care for their children. Men have faced termination because of leaving their job to attend to their family responsibilities. Williams promotes reframing the issue of workers' need for time off as an issue of workers' rights rather than family responsibilities. She discusses how we can reshape the work-family debate in consideration of class issues.