"הסבתא הפעילה" ו"האם הטובה": סבתות ישראליות בין משפחתיות לניאו־ליברליזם

Our research focuses on grandmothers’ childcare, vital but generally invisible work. Based on in-depth interviews with 20 retired Jewish grandmothers,we examine how they understand and negotiate the expectations that they will help shoulder or “cover” the “care deficit” resulting from neoliberal market practices and policy. We show how they maneuver between family ideologies and individualistic cultural imperatives, constituting themselves as subjects acting to determine the conditions in which they will meet expectations while challenging the invisibility of their work. We argue that neoliberalism adds a tier to strengthening the family and familism, that through the invisible work of grandmothers, serves as one of the cornerstones of the neoliberal economy and relieves the state of the need to support families with children. Thus, familism and individualism create tensions and mediate between the political economy and the intimate moral economy based on the love, commitment, and ideology of the “good mother.”