Mother, daughter, patient, nurse: women's emotion work in aged care

This paper examines emotion work within the predominantly female environmen t of aged-care nursing, identifying phenomena which must be accounted for i n a theory of emotional labour. These phenomena include the blurring of pub lic and private in women's experiences and maternal models of care. Initial findings demonstrate the high levels of stress experienced by staff, relat ed to emotional labour and to conflicts around the erosion of care standard s. Sixteen women, from rural Australia, participated in the first stage of the research. The oldest was in her sixties, the youngest in her thirties. Length of aged-care experience ranged from 2 to 33 years. Although most of the women expected to still be in aged care in 5 years' time, they were neg ative in their attitudes to personal ageing, suggesting an ambivalence in t heir feelings about working in aged care. Three women nurses are the partic ular focus of this paper. Their narratives illustrate the intersection of p rivate and public caring in nurses' lives and the implications of this for emotional labour. Phenomena such as dual caring, conflicts in insider-outsi der roles, and transference are revealed in their narratives. We argue that the welfare of the recipient of gerontic nursing is linked to the well-bei ng of the nurse-carer but that a cultural change is needed so as to recogni ze and value emotion work. However, endorsing Staden, we agree that such a change is dependent on the politicization of 'caring'. There is also need f or further and broader research concerning the nature of emotional labour a nd the ethics of care.