首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Don’t Fear the Male Babysitter For decades, boys, not girls, were seen as the ideal people to take care of children. Why did
Don’t Fear the Male Babysitter For decades, boys, not girls, were seen as the ideal people to take care of children. Why did
admin
2022-06-25
44
问题
Don’t Fear the Male Babysitter
For decades, boys, not girls, were seen as the ideal people to take care of children. Why did that change?
A) The very thought of a male babysitter (保姆) is enough to make some parents anxious. Every online parenting forum seems to have a thread on the issue of male babysitters, such as "Hiring a Male Babysitter (or Manny)" on the site Park Slope Parents. In a satire (讽刺作品) on The Onion titled "Desperate Mom Okays Male Babysitter," the mom normally wouldn’t hire a male babysitter and knew it wasn’t ideal, but she really needed the night off.
B) In an article for the Washington Post earlier this year, author Petula Dvorak hires a male babysitter and realizes it "is apparently something few parents would do." She said she received raised eyebrows from other parents at the playground when she introduced the new sitter and felt compelled to explain how long she’s known him and how much she likes him to anyone who would listen. "When it comes to kids, we are pretty close to being a society that has demonized (妖魔化) men," Dvorak writes, noting that a government study found that in 96 percent of sexual assaults on children the offenders were male.
C) This anxiety about male babysitters is remarkable when you look at the history of babysitting. Throughout the twentieth century, boys were not only as accepted as babysitters, they were often preferred over girls. The reason is twofold: Teenage girls were dismissed as flighty (轻浮的) and selfish; and young boys needed male role models as their fathers were unemployed during the Great Depression or gone all week at work in the latter half of the century.
D) According to Miriam Forman-Brunell, a history professor and the author of Babysitter: An American History, babysitting in its modern incarnation (化身) came about in the 1920s, with "the expansion of suburbs for the first time." Parents were more likely to be separated from extended family members that once were relied on to watch children. Coincidentally, the 1920s also gave rise to the notion of a modern teenage girl who cared more about boys, movies and makeup than taking care of kids. To adults, the rise of the teenage girl signaled disorder and fueled anxieties.
E) As Forman-Brunell writes, because adolescent girls "attended sports events and flirted with men on the street corners, especially in front of the innocent babies they took care of," the authors of a popular mid-1920s child-rearing manual criticized adolescent girls and dismissed them as acceptable child-care providers.
F) Although babysitting first appeared in the 1920s, it didn’t flourish as a cultural phenomenon until after World War II. The baby boom created plentiful jobs for babysitters. Still, though women had enjoyed greater employment opportunities during World War II, parents were hesitant to use a female babysitter. During this period, "parents were very anxious about hiring the girl next door, as has always been the case. It just has so much to do with their perception of teenage girls," says Forman-Brunell.
G) Even as teenage girls were provoking anxiety in parents, male babysitters were idealized as the perfect solution. During the Great Depression, Forman-Brunell says, unemployed adolescent boys became "saviours (救星) to upset mothers and tired housewives unsatisfied with neighborhood girls."
H) In glowing descriptions in Parents Magazine from the 1930s, it seemed as if there was nothing boy helpers couldn’t do. Some child-rearing experts during the Great Depression believed that male babysitters could go so far as to "restore boyhood" for their young charges. While husbands became depressed due to unemployment or deserted their families, Parents Magazine reassured readers that boys were up to the task of babysitting.
I) "It’s surprising that you would find the entrepreneurial, perfect male babysitter in popular culture, but he’s everywhere," says Forman-Brunell, "and he’s not burdened by the same expectations that girls are." Being smart, competitive, and business-oriented were all considered positive characteristics of a male babysitter.
J) By the late 1940s, some Ivy-League schools institutionalized babysitting for male college students. For example, Forman-Brunell writes, male undergraduates at Princeton organized the "Tiger Tot Tending Agency" where, beginning in 1946, "college boys babysat for the children of faculty members and married students for thirty-five cents an hour." One mother who hired male babysitters through the Tiger Tot agency told Princeton Alumni Weekly, "I loved the idea of four tall and strong young men watching over my baby daughter. Diapers (尿布) were changed with efficiency and calmness." Four men came for the price of one babysitter so they could have enough people for a bridge game.
K) A 1940s New Yorker article reported that the Columbia University football coach—a former babysitter himself—created a sitting service for his players and was just as proud of their babysitting accomplishments as their hard work on the football field. The strong babysitters were able to maintain their manliness while caring for children. While tales of hellish babysitter experiences with teenage girls who racked up phone bills and ignored screaming children in order to be with their boyfriends continued to populate the media, so did accounts of capable, responsible male babysitters.
L) When fathers were away at work in the 1950s, it was up to male sitters to instill manliness in young boys and turn boys into hardy men. A Life Magazine cover story reported that 23 percent of the 7.9 million boys in the United States worked as babysitters in 1957, collectively earning an estimated $319 million.
M) Even as gender differences began to blur in the 1970s, male babysitters were still seen as an ideal, as is apparent in the children’s book George the Babysitter (1977). Long-haired George would cook and clean each day for the kids he babysat, and at the end of the day liked to sit and read a football magazine. The book made teenage boy babysitters seem both domestic and masculine. Up until the end of the 20th century, popular culture and children’s books such as Arthur Babysits (1992) and Jerome the Babysitter (1995) boosted the reputation of teenage boys as smart, dependable babysitters.
N) But today babysitting is most commonly viewed as a woman’s domain. A Red Cross Babysitter Training Course video shows two women, one white and one black, babysitting. But there are no male sitters in the video. According to a Wall Street Journal article published earlier this year, Sittercity.com, an online marketplace for babysitting, has 94 percent female sitters, while SmartSitting.com, an agency that matches highly educated sitters with New York families reports that 87 percent of its sitters are female.
O) Men have been so erased from the history of babysitting that the same Wall Street Journal article wrongly compares babysitting with cooking, saying, "Could childcare someday go the way of cooking? In the 1950s everyone assumed that women were better in the kitchen…these days, of course, cooking is gender neutral." The writer imagines a time in the future when babysitting "is no longer considered a girl’s job." Little does she know that up until about 20 years ago, it wasn’t a girl’s job.
The notion of a modern teenage girl deteriorated in the 1920s.
选项
答案
D
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/rrx7777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
中国是历史悠久的多民族国家。光辉灿烂的中华文化是各民族相互融合、共同创造的。由于生态环境、生产生活方式以及民俗风情的差异,各少数民族在长期的历史发展过程中,形成了风格迥异、丰富多彩的文化特质。少数民族工艺美术品是民族悠久历史与灿烂文化的重要载体,是各民
中国传统画家的目标在于不仅要描绘主体的外观,还要捕捉其内在本质——活力、生命力和精神。他们用最经济的手段——毛笔和墨水——实现了这一点。为了实现这一目标,中国传统画家往往拒绝使用彩色。如同喜欢拍摄黑白作品的摄影师,中国传统艺术家认为彩色会分散注意力。他
中国科学家正在沿海省份大面积试验用海水(seawater)灌溉农作物,以供养众多的人口,这些人口正面临土地匮乏、淡水(freshwater)短缺的压力。中国人口约占世界总人口的五分之一,而耕地面积只占世界耕地面积的七分之一。假如能够普及海水灌溉技术的话
当今世界,环境保护已经成为各国政府和各界人士共同关心的问题。过去10年,海平面上升和森林砍伐的速度都是前所未有的;生态恶化、物种灭绝(extinction)、温室效应等一系列环境问题已经严重影响到人类的生存环境和健康。中国作为一个发展中国家,面临着发展
A、Shelikestravellingandmeetingvariouskindsofpeople.B、Sheenjoystheprocessofhelpingothers.C、Shehasgottenaquali
A、Encouragingotherstofollowhiswrong-doingB、Stealingendangeredanimalsfromthezoo.C、Organisingpeopleagainsttheautho
A、Ithelpspeoplegetupearly.B、ItproducesVitaminD.C、Itkillscoldviruses.D、Itenablesustolookhealthy.BB为两次提及的明示信息,
A、Healthconditionsimprovewithtimespentwatchinghealthyprograms.B、Comedyvideoscancuremostpeopleofchronicheartatt
A、Freedomfromthestressofworking.B、Freedomfromsocialregulations.C、Freedomfromlaws.D、Freedomfromstudy.A
随机试题
正火比退火的生产周期短、成本低,且操作方便,故在可能的情况下优先采用正火。()
“走出去”战略与______共同构成了我国对外开放的完整格局。
下列施工阶段的目标控制工作中,属于监理工程师质量目标控制工作的有()
垂直于坝轴线方向的缝称为()。
为提高计算机的安全性,密码应尽可能做到()。
债券发行人通过发行债券筹集的资金一般没有期限,债权人随时可以取回本金和合同约定的利息。()
小明平时易受暗示,屈从权威,喜欢按照他人的意见办事,不善于应付紧急情况,他的这种性格类型属于()。
根据下列材料,回答问题。材料1深圳建市25年来,曾用18年使CDP达到1000亿元,5年后达到2000亿元,而突破3000亿元仅用了2年。25年来,深圳年均增长速度近30%,生产总值增加了1800倍,人口从30万增长到1000万。人
(1)用SQL语句完成下列操作:检索“田亮”所借图书的书名、作者和价格,结果按价格降序存人book_temp表中。(2)在考生文件夹下有一个名为menu_lin的下拉式菜单,请设计一个名为form_menu的顶层表单,将菜单menu_lin加入到
下面属于系统软件的是()。
最新回复
(
0
)