THE INTIMATE EXPERIMENT

Economic necessity is a very real reason that women whose families are on the way up return to work. How much more so for Latinas who have children here, in Mexico or Central America, or are sole support of parents? Could we not support one another as women who all want the best for our children and children in general? Why couldn’t the women who are willing to be employed in a home (working for those women who are not willing to work at home) bring their own children with them? That would be one way to cut down on the high turnover rate (among in-home child-care workers) and to relieve partially the child-care dilemma for two families instead of one. Perhaps Perez would seem less distracted by thoughts of the children she had to leave at home before dawn and will not see until long after sunset if they were with her. She does not have the option of paid disability for childbirth or the luxury of taking maternity leave, paid or unpaid, as her Anglo employers do.

SUSAN M. BAKER

Huntington Beach