The family health maintenance demonstration : a controlled long term investigation of family health. Proceedings of a round table at the 1953 Annual Conference of the Milbank Memorial Fund.

  • Milbank Memorial Fund.
Date:
1954
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: The family health maintenance demonstration : a controlled long term investigation of family health. Proceedings of a round table at the 1953 Annual Conference of the Milbank Memorial Fund. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The Psychiatric Social Worker in the Demonstration 53 edging the fact that the total HIP enrollment is largely made up of civil service employees, it is nevertheless a fact of significance and interest in helping us to understand these individuals. What were the influences which led them to choose civil service. For most, security was of the utmost importance. Almost all were profoundly affected by the depression. If they had not personally suffered hard ship during this time, they arrived at working age to find the job- market almost non-existent. Civil service seemed the only answer. Not many were aware then or now of those elements in their own personality—fear of aggression, open competition, passivity, and compulsiveness which led them to make the choice. For many, the very search for security seemingly achieved through civil service has been a betrayal, since rising costs have placed the civil service worker at a disadvantage confronted as he is by high prices, diminished in come, and the consequent reawakening of anxiety. In spite of the drawbacks, are there satisfactions to be found in the work done? Satisfaction is most easily achieved by those whose original ambi tions and goals work-wise were either ill defined or who were able to achieve work somewhere near their original goal. Of the 100 wives on the program thirty-five work—six of them only part time. Most of the wives work less for monetary gain than for the opportunity it affords to release them from the confines of the home. A few of these, notably where the work is primarily for money, find working and maintaining a home difficult and ener vating. Husbands of wives who work seemed genuinely accepting of the situation and little threatened by their wives’ ability to earn. Arrangements for the care of children of working mothers are usually well thought out, and, of course, in the case of those teachers or school clerks with school age children, the corresponding hours, holidays, and vacations, made the problem comparatively simple. Almost all wives worked before marriage and many who were now at home expressed the hope and desire of returning to work some time in the future when the children would be in school and not require their whole attention. Comparatively, few women looked upon their functions as homemaker with interest or enjoyment. For most it appeared to be a necessary evil, nevertheless only a few were