The first article for this week was written by Stephanie Coontz and entitled, "Putting Divorce in Perspective." In this article Coontz looks at how divorce affects children and what factors account for the variation in these affects.
Coontz quotes one family crusader who states, "The interests of adults and children are often different, and there are too many options today for parents to pursue personal fulfillment at the expense of their children's needs," (98). She states, "Fighting the "divorce culture" has to be the top priority because its the one thing we can affect by making parents realize what disastrous consequences divorce has for the future of their kids" (98). "Divorce can interfere with effective parenting and deprive children of parental resources" (98).
"While it is true that children in divorced and remarried families are more likely to drop out of school, exhibit emotional distress, get in trouble with the law, and abuse drugs and alcohol than children who grow up with both biological parents, most kids, from every kind of family, avoid these perils. What really is meant to be said is not that children in divorced families have more problems, but that more children of divorced parents have problems," (99). "It does not mean that all kids from divorced families will have more problems. There will be outstanding kids and kids with severe problems in both groups, but there will be a slightly higher proportion of kids from never-disrupted families in the outstanding group and a slightly lower proportion of them in the group with severe problems" (99).
"Interestingly, the large majority of children of divorce do not experience severe or long-term problems: Most do not drop out of school, get arrested, abuse drugs, or suffer long-term emotional distress" (100). Alan Acock and David Demo state, "There are few statistically significant differences across family types on measures of socioemotional adjustment and well-being," (100).
"Many of the problems seen in children of divorced parents are caused not by divorce alone but by other frequently coexisting yet analytically separate factors such as poverty, financial loss, school relocation, or a prior history of severe marital conflict" (101). "A critical factor in children's adjustment to divorce is how effectively the custodial parent functions. Usually this means the mother. The main problem for children of divorce is when depression, anger, or economic pressures distract the mother's attention," (103). "Children who were exposed to a disengaged or inconsistently harsh parenting style after a divorce, were more likely to be aggressive and insecure. Children with mothers who were warm, but not always available, were caring, competent children who were exceptionally popular, self-confident, well-behaved, and academically adept" (102).
Another factor, and main danger for children is conflict between parents during and after divorce. "Few marriages disintegrate overnight; the last few months or years are often marked by severe strife. More than half of divorced couples in one national survey reported frequent fighting prior to separation. More than a third of those who fought said that the fights sometimes became physical and that children were often present during these incidents," (104). "Post-divorce marital conflict, especially around issues connected with the children, is the largest single factor associated with poor adjustment in youngsters whose parents have divorced" (104). "Children in disrupted custody cases seem the most disturbed. They were much more likely to develop emotional and behavioral problems" (104).
The degree to which divorce affects children depends on multiple factors, and that specific family. It can depend on the economic situation, the situation between the two parents who have divorced, the ability of the custodial parent to "parent" in a sufficient manner, and things such as school relocation because of the divorce. If these factors are not positive, the children are likely to have behavioral and emotional problems. If these factors are dealt with in a positive manner, the children of divorce could end up with no problems. It is incredibly dependent on the family situation.
The second article on this topic was written by Frank F. Furstenberg and Andrew J. Cherlin and was entitled, "Children's Adjustment to Divorce." This article looks at what factors affect the short-term and long-term adjustment of children to divorce. Studies show a wide range of responses to divorce. Some children do very well. Others fare very poorly.
Furstenberg and Cherlin write, "The first two years following a separation has been labelled as a "crisis period" for adults and children. The crisis begins for children with shock, anxiety, and anger upon learning of the break-up," (493). "Children have two special needs during the crisis period. First, they need additional emotional support as they struggle to adapt to the breakup. Second, they need the structure provided by a reasonably predictable daily routine. Unfortunately, many single parents cannot meet both of these needs all the time" (493). "Depressed, anxious parents often lack the reserve to comfort emotionally needy children. Overburdened parents let daily schedules slip. As a result, their children lose some of the support they need" (493). "Researchers agree that almost all children are moderately or severely distressed when their parents separate and that most continue to experience confusion, sadness or anger for a period of months or even years" (494). Nevertheless, the careful studies show a great deal of variation in the short-term reactions of children. Most of this variation remains unexplained. "Part of the explanation has to do with differences in children's temperaments. Some probably are more robust and better able to withstand deprivation and instability" (494). Others factors will be looked at later in this review (494).
They write, "Even less is known about the long-term consequences of divorces than about the short-term consequences" (494). "The percentage of children from maritally disrupted families who had behaviour or discipline problems at school is more than half-again as large as the percentage from intact families. That's a substantial difference, suggesting that children from disrupted families have a noticeably higher rate of misbehaving seriously in school," (495). However, "the figures also demonstrate that 66 percent of all children from maritally disrupted homes did not misbehave seriously at school" (495). "So one can also conclude that most children of divorce don't have behaviour problems at school" (495). "The fundamental point that all experts agree on is that children's responses to the breakup of their parents' marriages vary greatly" (495). There is no straight path down which children of divorce progress. What becomes important is to identify the circumstances under which children seem to do well.
"A critical factor in both short-term and long-term adjustment is how effectively the custodial parent, who usually is the mother, functions as a parent" (496). It has been noted how difficult it can be for a recently separated mother to function well. "Their own distress may make it more difficult to cope with their children's distress, leading in some cases to a disorganized household, lax supervision, and inconsistent discipline" (496). "Mothers who can cope better with the disruption can be more effective parents" (496). "They can keep their work and home lives going from day to day and can better provide love, nurturing, consistent discipline and a predictable routine. The difference in these two types of mothering after a divorce can be the difference between whether the children are misbehaving or not, and emotionally distressed or not" (496). "A second key factor in children's well-being is a low level of conflict between their mother and father" (496). This was mentioned in the first article I wrote about. "A possible third key factor in children's successful adjustment is the maintenance of a continuing relationship with the non-custodial parent, who is usually the father" (497).
These factors show that there are multiple things that affect children when they experience a divorce in their family. Some children get lucky and get the positive side of these factors, while others are not so lucky and end up with a very disrupted home life.
The third and final article was written by Deborah Carr and is entitled, "Good Grief: Bouncing Back from a Spouse's Death in Later Life." This article looks at what three factors are the most important influences on spousal bereavement and how gender shapes the experience of spousal loss.
"Research reveals that many older men and women survive losses of a spouse with only a brief spell of depressive symptoms, while many report no depressive symptoms at all. Still others, released from stressful caregiving responsibilities, an unhappy marriage, or from watching their loved one suffer an incurable, protracted illness, enjoy improved psychological well-being" (22). "These survivors are neither "pathological" nor "cool." Rather they reveal that there is no single universal way to grieve" (22). "The ways that older widows and widowers grieve reflect how the couples related during marriage, how there spouses died, the strains experienced during the final weeks and months, and their other roles and relationships that might protect against the pain of losing a loved one" (22).
"What must be considered are the three most important influences on spousal bereavement: the age of the husband or wife, how the spouse died, and what the couple's life was like prior to the death" (24).
Carr writes, "Of the 900,000 Americans who lose a mate each year, nearly three-quarters are 65 or older," (24). "Older bereaved spouses have an important coping resource that is seldom available to younger widows and widowers: friends, peers, and siblings who also are adjusting to such a loss. Older adults often "rehearse" for losing a spouse by watching their peers go through the same experience; they can turn to one another for wisdom, practical support, and camaraderie" (24). Young people who lose a spouse do not have this because it is unlikely that there friends there age are going through the same thing. Also, the meaning of life and death is different for older and younger people. "Death may be viewed as the natural conclusion to an elderly spouse's long and meaningful life, rather than the interruption of a life yet to be lived. Most older persons experience such losses after decades of marriage. They have raised their children, celebrated the births of their grandchildren, and enjoyed at least a few years of retirement together" (24). Few feel that "they are being robbed of a long future together" (24), which is how younger widows and widowers feel.
"Age is not the only factor that shapes the experience of losing a spouse; the cause of death is also important" (25). "Most older spouses die of a chronic illness, or a long-term illness that causes physical pain or disability and often requires intensive care" (25). "Older caregivers report high levels of strain and depressive symptoms when their spouses are still alive, yet many bounce back shortly after their spouses die. One study showed that caregivers had high levels of depressive symptoms while caring for their spouses, yet showed a dramatic decrease in symptoms after their spouse had died. More than 90 percent felt that death was a relief to the patient, and 72 percent admitted that the death was also a relief to them" (25). For many bereaved spouses, the "event of the loss is not as painful as the long "death watch" period, which is often filled with drawn-out suffering" (25).
"Another reason that some older people are spared sever distress is that the death of a spouse may be a release from a marriage that was stifling or unrewarding" (25). "People with the most close-knit, loving marriages experience the most severe symptoms of sadness and yearning in the first six months after their loss" (25). The CLOC study shows, "Widows and widowers who had the most problematic marriages show better psychological health following their loss than do their married peers who remain in such troubled relationships," (25). Widows experience a boost to their self-esteem when they are "freed from a marriage that had been stifling" (25).
"Men and women experience marriage in very different ways, so they also experience the loss of a spouse differently" (25). "For women, widowhood often means a sharp dip in economic resources. Because men earn more than women during their working lives, they receive higher Social Security benefits upon retirement or disability. When the husband dies, these monthly checks are reduced. Widows are consequently more likely than widowers to experience distress and anxiety about money" (26).
"Men are more likely than women to experience sickness, disability, and death after their wives die. This is because they have lost their helpmate and caretaker" (26). "Wives typically monitor their husbands' diets, encourage them to exercise, remind them to take their medications and urge them to give up vices like smoking and drinking. When their wives die, these reminders cease as well" (26). "Even worse for men, though, is that their wives are often their primary (if not only) source of social support and integration. Widows report higher levels of both practical and emotional support from their children than do widowers, reflecting long-established patterns of reciprocity" (26). "For these reasons, widowers are much more motivated than widows to seek new romantic partners soon after their loss" (26).
This presents the three factors that are the most important influences on spousal bereavement and how gender shapes the experience of spousal loss.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Childhood
The first article that addresses childhood, written by Barrie Thorne and Zella Luria, is entitled "Sexuality and Gender in Childeren's Daily Worlds." This article takes a look at the aspect of childhood experience that serves as one of the main sources of gender differences and how this aspect operates.
The aspect of childhood experience that serves as one of the main sources of gender differences is gender segregation. "Gender segregation, the separation of girls and boys in friendship and casual encounters, is central to daily life in elementary school" (138). In school settings there is extensive spatial separation between girls and boys. "At lunchtime in elementary and middle schools there is a "boy" table and a "girl" table" (138). "Because girls and boys interact in same-sex groups, each group develops its own identity and way that they act, which is what lead to the gender differences" (138).
"Boys tend to interact in larger and more publicly-visible groups. They more often play outdoors and boys engage in more physically aggressive play and fighting. Their social relations tend to be hierarchical and competitive" (139). "Girls on the other hand interact in smaller groups or friendship pairs. Girls more often engage in turn-taking activities like jump-rope, and they less often play organized sports. Girls engage in conflict, but it takes a more indirect form than boys' aggressive conflict" (139).
In there separate gender groups, girls and boys learn somewhat different patterns of bonding. "Boys share the arousal of group rule-breaking, while girls emphasize the construction of intimacy and themes of romance" (147). "Gender-divided social worlds is the underlying theme that leads to all these differences between boys and girls" (147). Gender segregation is the aspect that is a main source of difference and it operates in school and social settings.
The second article on childhood, written by Frances Goldscheider and Linda Waite, is entitled "Children's Shares in Household Tasks." This article looks at how much housework children do in contemporary families and how it varies by child's gender and type of family.
Goldscheider and Waite open by stating, "The tasks children do are still rigidly divided by gender in most families, with girls doing different and more tasks around the house than boys," (809). "Girls tend to spend about twice as much time on housework as their brothers. It is often the case, however, that neither boys nor girls gain much experience doing household tasks because in many families their mothers do almost all of them" (809). "The old view that children should help there parents has given way to an expectation that parents must exert themselves to ensure that their children grow up to be successes. As a result, the ideal American child has been transformed from a "useful child" to a "useless child," (809). Contemporary children do less housework than previous children because nowadays parents are more concerned with how there children perform in school. Young people can now claim heavy school assignments as an adequate excuse for why they cant do some of there chores and parents accept this.
"Children take relatively little responsibility for most household tasks. Overall children contribute a relatively small proportion of total household labor-15 percent" (811). Other findings were important to go along with this statement. "The more children in the family the more the mother reports sharing housework with children as a group" (811). So a type of family that is more likely to have the children do more housework is a big family. Children's age and gender also influence the amount of task sharing. "As children get older, they clearly become more involved in household chores. Families with teenage children share substantially more housework with their children than families with only preteens. But the biggest difference by age and sex are in female chores" (812).
"Families with teenage girls report sharing five times more of these tasks with children than do families with boys of the same age. Girls ages twelve to eighteen seem to carry the largest share of housework of all children" (812). However, "young adult males contribute no more to housework than do preteen children" (812).
"Children who live in a mother-only family play a key role in the household economy" (814). "Comparing the children's share of household responsibilities in intact families and in mother-only families shows that children in mother-only families take nearly twice as much responsibility for household tasks as those in standard families" (814). Another type of family is that with children who live with their mother and a stepfather. "Those children also take a greater role in household chores than do children who live with both their biological parents. However, the differences between stepparent families and other two-parent families are much less than between mother-only families and never-disrupted families" (816).
"Looking at these three types of families suggests very strongly that the composition of the household has a considerable influence on the exposure of children to household tasks" (817). What is clear is that in most contemporary families, children are participating less in household tasks than they used to.
The third article focusing on childhood and childrearing was written by Annette Lareau and is entitled, "Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Families." This article takes a look at how models of childrearing differ in regards to class and race.
"Middle class parents, both white and black, engage in concerted cultivation by attempting to foster children's talents through organized leisure activities and extensive reasoning" (747). "They enroll their children in numerous organized activities that dominate family life. The parents view these activities as transmitting important life skills to children. Middle-class parents also stress language use and the development of reasoning and employ talking as there preferred form of discipline. This creates a cult of individualism within the family and an emphasis on children's performance" (748).
"Working-class and poor parents engage in the accomplishment of natural growth, providing the conditions under which children can grow but leaving leaving leisure activities to children themselves" (747). "These parents believe that as long as they provide love, food, and safety, their children will grow and thrive. They do not focus on developing their children's special talents. Working-class and poor children participate in few organized activities and have more free time and deeper ties within their extended families. These parents also use directives instead of reasoning. Some working-class and poor parents place more emphasis on physical discipline than do the middle-class parents" (749).
"Middle-class children, both white and black, gain an emerging sense of entitlement from their family life. Race had much less impact than social class. The pattern of questioning and intervening among the white and black middle-class parents contrasts sharply with the definitions of how to be helpful and effective observed among the white and black working-class and poor adults" (747). "Working-class and poor children did not display the same sense of entitlement. Instead there pattern of the accomplishment of natural growth encourages an emerging sense of constraint" (747).
With both the concerted cultivation and accomplishment of natural growth approaches, three key dimensions can be distinguished (some of which I have already touched on a little): the organization of daily life, the use of language, and social connections. I have already addressed the different organizations of daily life. "With language use, the concerted cultivation approach states that children contest adult statements and have extended negotiations with their parents" (753). With the natural growth approach, "it is rare for children to question or challenge adults and children generally accept directives from there parents with little negotiation" (753). The dimension of social connections can be looked at as well. "In the concerted cultivation approach (middle-class) children have weak extended family ties and children are often in homogeneous age groupings. In the natural growth approach (working-class) children have strong extended family ties and children are often in heterogeneous age groupings" (753).
Lareau expected race to powerfully shape children's daily schedules, but this was not evident. In terms of enrollment in organized activities, language use, and social connections, the largest differences between the families she observed were across the social class, not racial groups.
The final article that focuses on childhood and childrearing was written by Juliet Schor and is entitled, "America's Most Wanted: Inside the World of Young Consumers." This article takes a look at the signs of commercialization of childhood and how this commercialization affects children's well-being.
A person does not have to look far to see how today's children have become immersed in the consumer marketplace. "At age one, she's watching teletubbies and eating the food of its "promo partners" Burger King and McDonalds. Kids can recognize logos by 18 months, and before reaching their second birthday, they are asking for products by brand name. Experts say that by age three or three and a half, children start to believe that brands communicate their personal qualities, such as they are cool, or strong, or smart" (1). "By age six or seven girls are asking for the latest fashions, using nail polish, and singing pop music tunes" (1). "Eight-year-old boys are enjoying Budweiser commercials, World Wrestling Entertainment, and graphically violent video games" (2). These are all signs of commercialization of childhood. One of the main causes of these things is television. "The average eight to thirteen year old watches over three and a half hours of television a day. American children view an estimated 40,000 commercials annually" (2).
Schor states, "The commercialization of childhood is being driven by social trends, but underlying them all is a marketing juggernaut characterized by growing reach, effectiveness, and audacity," (2). "A main part of the marketing mentality is industry language. Those at whom the ads are directed are targets" (2). The ads are created specifically in a way that will pull consumers in. And the thing is, it is working. Kids are buying. "Every half-second, somewhere in the world another Barbie is sold. A fifth of McDonald's business is happy meals" (4). There is now a thriving children's market segment. "Children are becoming shoppers at an earlier age. Six to twelve year olds are estimated to visit stores two to three times per week and to put six items into the shopping cart each time they go" (5). "These days, when kids ask, they ask for particular brands. The increased knowledge of brands is a predictable outcome of kids' greater exposure to ads. Increasingly, the brands kids want aren't just any brands. They crave designer duds and luxury items" (8). "The change in the experience of childhood that has attracted perhaps most attention is kids' heavy involvement with electronic media, prompting some to poist a new postmodern childhood, driven by television, Internet, video games, movies, and videos" (11).
"So in the past 15 to 20 years we have witnessed big changes in what kids have been doing and watching. How has it affected them?" (12). The first thing that Schor looks at is nutrition. "Diets have gotten far out of line with recommended nutritional standards. Most kids are eating the wrong foods and to much of them. Children eat excessive quantities of advertised food products (like McDonalds) and not enough fruits, vegetables, and fiber" (12). On the other side is the excessive concern with thinness and body image and a host of eating disorders. "Record number of girls are on diets, and they are beginning to diet at an increasingly young age" (12). This is a result of the media exploiting incredibly thin models, and young girls then believe that is how they should look as well. Nutrition is not the only problem. "Kids are smoking, drinking alcohol, and taking illegal drugs at alarming rates" (12). "Children and youth are increasingly suffering from emotional and mental health problems" (13). Taken together, these findings are not comforting. "They show that American children are worse off today than they were 10 or 20 years ago" (14).
Schor states, "The deterioration in well-being suggests that some powerful negative factors are at work," (14). "One of them most likely is the upsurge in materialistic values. Children define there self-worth in terms of the things they own and wear. In a study, more than half the children agreed that when you grow up, the more money you have, the happier you are. The children in this study also said that the only kind of job they want when they grow up is one that gets them a lot of money" (14). "Psychologists have found that these kinds of materialistic values undermine well-being, leading people to be more depressed, anxious, less vital, and in worse physical health. In light of all these findings, the changing outlook of childhood is worrisome" (14). Childhood has become much to commercialized.
The aspect of childhood experience that serves as one of the main sources of gender differences is gender segregation. "Gender segregation, the separation of girls and boys in friendship and casual encounters, is central to daily life in elementary school" (138). In school settings there is extensive spatial separation between girls and boys. "At lunchtime in elementary and middle schools there is a "boy" table and a "girl" table" (138). "Because girls and boys interact in same-sex groups, each group develops its own identity and way that they act, which is what lead to the gender differences" (138).
"Boys tend to interact in larger and more publicly-visible groups. They more often play outdoors and boys engage in more physically aggressive play and fighting. Their social relations tend to be hierarchical and competitive" (139). "Girls on the other hand interact in smaller groups or friendship pairs. Girls more often engage in turn-taking activities like jump-rope, and they less often play organized sports. Girls engage in conflict, but it takes a more indirect form than boys' aggressive conflict" (139).
In there separate gender groups, girls and boys learn somewhat different patterns of bonding. "Boys share the arousal of group rule-breaking, while girls emphasize the construction of intimacy and themes of romance" (147). "Gender-divided social worlds is the underlying theme that leads to all these differences between boys and girls" (147). Gender segregation is the aspect that is a main source of difference and it operates in school and social settings.
The second article on childhood, written by Frances Goldscheider and Linda Waite, is entitled "Children's Shares in Household Tasks." This article looks at how much housework children do in contemporary families and how it varies by child's gender and type of family.
Goldscheider and Waite open by stating, "The tasks children do are still rigidly divided by gender in most families, with girls doing different and more tasks around the house than boys," (809). "Girls tend to spend about twice as much time on housework as their brothers. It is often the case, however, that neither boys nor girls gain much experience doing household tasks because in many families their mothers do almost all of them" (809). "The old view that children should help there parents has given way to an expectation that parents must exert themselves to ensure that their children grow up to be successes. As a result, the ideal American child has been transformed from a "useful child" to a "useless child," (809). Contemporary children do less housework than previous children because nowadays parents are more concerned with how there children perform in school. Young people can now claim heavy school assignments as an adequate excuse for why they cant do some of there chores and parents accept this.
"Children take relatively little responsibility for most household tasks. Overall children contribute a relatively small proportion of total household labor-15 percent" (811). Other findings were important to go along with this statement. "The more children in the family the more the mother reports sharing housework with children as a group" (811). So a type of family that is more likely to have the children do more housework is a big family. Children's age and gender also influence the amount of task sharing. "As children get older, they clearly become more involved in household chores. Families with teenage children share substantially more housework with their children than families with only preteens. But the biggest difference by age and sex are in female chores" (812).
"Families with teenage girls report sharing five times more of these tasks with children than do families with boys of the same age. Girls ages twelve to eighteen seem to carry the largest share of housework of all children" (812). However, "young adult males contribute no more to housework than do preteen children" (812).
"Children who live in a mother-only family play a key role in the household economy" (814). "Comparing the children's share of household responsibilities in intact families and in mother-only families shows that children in mother-only families take nearly twice as much responsibility for household tasks as those in standard families" (814). Another type of family is that with children who live with their mother and a stepfather. "Those children also take a greater role in household chores than do children who live with both their biological parents. However, the differences between stepparent families and other two-parent families are much less than between mother-only families and never-disrupted families" (816).
"Looking at these three types of families suggests very strongly that the composition of the household has a considerable influence on the exposure of children to household tasks" (817). What is clear is that in most contemporary families, children are participating less in household tasks than they used to.
The third article focusing on childhood and childrearing was written by Annette Lareau and is entitled, "Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Families." This article takes a look at how models of childrearing differ in regards to class and race.
"Middle class parents, both white and black, engage in concerted cultivation by attempting to foster children's talents through organized leisure activities and extensive reasoning" (747). "They enroll their children in numerous organized activities that dominate family life. The parents view these activities as transmitting important life skills to children. Middle-class parents also stress language use and the development of reasoning and employ talking as there preferred form of discipline. This creates a cult of individualism within the family and an emphasis on children's performance" (748).
"Working-class and poor parents engage in the accomplishment of natural growth, providing the conditions under which children can grow but leaving leaving leisure activities to children themselves" (747). "These parents believe that as long as they provide love, food, and safety, their children will grow and thrive. They do not focus on developing their children's special talents. Working-class and poor children participate in few organized activities and have more free time and deeper ties within their extended families. These parents also use directives instead of reasoning. Some working-class and poor parents place more emphasis on physical discipline than do the middle-class parents" (749).
"Middle-class children, both white and black, gain an emerging sense of entitlement from their family life. Race had much less impact than social class. The pattern of questioning and intervening among the white and black middle-class parents contrasts sharply with the definitions of how to be helpful and effective observed among the white and black working-class and poor adults" (747). "Working-class and poor children did not display the same sense of entitlement. Instead there pattern of the accomplishment of natural growth encourages an emerging sense of constraint" (747).
With both the concerted cultivation and accomplishment of natural growth approaches, three key dimensions can be distinguished (some of which I have already touched on a little): the organization of daily life, the use of language, and social connections. I have already addressed the different organizations of daily life. "With language use, the concerted cultivation approach states that children contest adult statements and have extended negotiations with their parents" (753). With the natural growth approach, "it is rare for children to question or challenge adults and children generally accept directives from there parents with little negotiation" (753). The dimension of social connections can be looked at as well. "In the concerted cultivation approach (middle-class) children have weak extended family ties and children are often in homogeneous age groupings. In the natural growth approach (working-class) children have strong extended family ties and children are often in heterogeneous age groupings" (753).
Lareau expected race to powerfully shape children's daily schedules, but this was not evident. In terms of enrollment in organized activities, language use, and social connections, the largest differences between the families she observed were across the social class, not racial groups.
The final article that focuses on childhood and childrearing was written by Juliet Schor and is entitled, "America's Most Wanted: Inside the World of Young Consumers." This article takes a look at the signs of commercialization of childhood and how this commercialization affects children's well-being.
A person does not have to look far to see how today's children have become immersed in the consumer marketplace. "At age one, she's watching teletubbies and eating the food of its "promo partners" Burger King and McDonalds. Kids can recognize logos by 18 months, and before reaching their second birthday, they are asking for products by brand name. Experts say that by age three or three and a half, children start to believe that brands communicate their personal qualities, such as they are cool, or strong, or smart" (1). "By age six or seven girls are asking for the latest fashions, using nail polish, and singing pop music tunes" (1). "Eight-year-old boys are enjoying Budweiser commercials, World Wrestling Entertainment, and graphically violent video games" (2). These are all signs of commercialization of childhood. One of the main causes of these things is television. "The average eight to thirteen year old watches over three and a half hours of television a day. American children view an estimated 40,000 commercials annually" (2).
Schor states, "The commercialization of childhood is being driven by social trends, but underlying them all is a marketing juggernaut characterized by growing reach, effectiveness, and audacity," (2). "A main part of the marketing mentality is industry language. Those at whom the ads are directed are targets" (2). The ads are created specifically in a way that will pull consumers in. And the thing is, it is working. Kids are buying. "Every half-second, somewhere in the world another Barbie is sold. A fifth of McDonald's business is happy meals" (4). There is now a thriving children's market segment. "Children are becoming shoppers at an earlier age. Six to twelve year olds are estimated to visit stores two to three times per week and to put six items into the shopping cart each time they go" (5). "These days, when kids ask, they ask for particular brands. The increased knowledge of brands is a predictable outcome of kids' greater exposure to ads. Increasingly, the brands kids want aren't just any brands. They crave designer duds and luxury items" (8). "The change in the experience of childhood that has attracted perhaps most attention is kids' heavy involvement with electronic media, prompting some to poist a new postmodern childhood, driven by television, Internet, video games, movies, and videos" (11).
"So in the past 15 to 20 years we have witnessed big changes in what kids have been doing and watching. How has it affected them?" (12). The first thing that Schor looks at is nutrition. "Diets have gotten far out of line with recommended nutritional standards. Most kids are eating the wrong foods and to much of them. Children eat excessive quantities of advertised food products (like McDonalds) and not enough fruits, vegetables, and fiber" (12). On the other side is the excessive concern with thinness and body image and a host of eating disorders. "Record number of girls are on diets, and they are beginning to diet at an increasingly young age" (12). This is a result of the media exploiting incredibly thin models, and young girls then believe that is how they should look as well. Nutrition is not the only problem. "Kids are smoking, drinking alcohol, and taking illegal drugs at alarming rates" (12). "Children and youth are increasingly suffering from emotional and mental health problems" (13). Taken together, these findings are not comforting. "They show that American children are worse off today than they were 10 or 20 years ago" (14).
Schor states, "The deterioration in well-being suggests that some powerful negative factors are at work," (14). "One of them most likely is the upsurge in materialistic values. Children define there self-worth in terms of the things they own and wear. In a study, more than half the children agreed that when you grow up, the more money you have, the happier you are. The children in this study also said that the only kind of job they want when they grow up is one that gets them a lot of money" (14). "Psychologists have found that these kinds of materialistic values undermine well-being, leading people to be more depressed, anxious, less vital, and in worse physical health. In light of all these findings, the changing outlook of childhood is worrisome" (14). Childhood has become much to commercialized.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Fathering
The first article that addresses fatherhood is written by Richard Pleck and entitled, "American Fathering in Historical Perspective." This article analyzes the dominant images of fatherhood in earlier periods of United States history and considers there impact today.
The first time period that is considered is the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. In this period of history, the father was seen as the moral overseer. "Fathers were thought to have far greater responsibility for, and influence on, their children. Prescriptions for parents were addressed almost entirely to fathers; the responsibilities of mothers were rarely mentioned" (351). "Fathers were viewed as the family's ultimate source of moral teaching and worldly judgments" (352). Fatherhood in this time included a variety of responsibilities. "Fathers were supposed to concern themselves with the moral and religious education of the young. If the father was literate, he should teach his children reading and writing. The father was also responsible for guiding his sons into a occupational calling. He also played a key role in the courtship and marriage making of both his sons and daughters" (352). "In this time relationships between fathers and children, especially sons, often had strong emotional components" (352). The father was very involved in all aspects of his children's lives during this time period.
However, from the early nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, the role of the father changed. This father was known as the distant breadwinner. In this period "a gradual and steady shift toward a greater role for the mother, and a decreased and more indirect role for the father is clear and unmistakable" (353). "To the extent that either parent was involved in the marital choices of their children, it was now usually the mother. As opposed to the early time period, letters and diaries now indicated that mothers were more emotionally entangled with sons well into adulthood" (353). "This period also saw the development of the contemporary presumption of maternal custody following divorce. By the beginning of the twentieth century, psychiatrists gave almost exclusive attention to the mother" (353). There is one major reason for the decline in the father's role. "A major structural source for the decline in the father's role and increased maternal influence was the emergence of new paternal work patterns away from the family, brought about by industrialization" (354). "As geographical distance between the workplace and the home increased, so too did the father's direct involvement with his children" (354). This new kind of father "focused entirely on breadwinning was depicted in early-twentieth century advertisements" (354). "Nevertheless, the father continued to set the official standard of morality and to be the final arbiter of family discipline, but he did so at more of a remove than before" (355).
The next period that introduced a change in the role of the father was from 1940 to 1965. In this period the father was known as the sex role model. "During the postwar years the heightened critique of mothering ushered in a new perception of the father's direct importance in child rearing as a sex role model. This new conception did not become dominant: the distant father-breadwinner still prevailed. Nonetheless the sex role model interpretation of fathering is historically important as the first positive image of involved fatherhood since the moral overseer model" (356). This sex role model figure emerged from the theory that too much mothering and inadequate fathering lead to insecurity in male identity. "Fathers came to be seen as essential for the sex role development of their daughters as well" (357). "This new father was supposed to be the principal transmitter of culturally based conceptions of masculinity and femininity" (357).
Pleck states,"There is no question that the father-breadwinner model established in the nineteenth and early-twentieth century remains culturally dominant today, both in fathers' actual behavior and its media representation," (358). However, a new image summed up in the term "the new father" is clearly on the rise in print and broadcast media. "This new father differs from older images of involved fatherhood in several ways: he is present at the birth; he is involved with his children as infants, not just when they are older; he participates in the actual day-to-day work of child care, and not just play; he is involved with his daughters as much as his sons" (358). "This is due in part to the fact that wives are more often employed and do less in the family when they are and men are spending more time in the family, both absolutely and relative to women" (359). This "new father" exists but the models from the past are still present and continue to have influence on fathers. I believe that the expectations for fathers today are that they get more involved in the family and home life. However, I do believe that the traditional image of the father as the breadwinner is still very prevalent. Mr. mom is not that common, even now as women have made advancements in the workplace. Father's for the most part are still expected by society to be the one that works and provides financial security for the family.
The second article that I am going to address in regards to fathering is written by Dorothy Roberts and entitled, "The Absent Black Father." This article looks at the myth of the "absent black father" and the societal forces that have discouraged family participation of Black fathers.
"While Black fathers are disparaged for their absence, a number of societal forces work to discourage their family participation" (149). "Some argue that the promise of welfare benefits induces childbearing out of wedlock and some Black feminists point to a positive cultural tradition that is more accepting of unmarried mothers. Some suggest that we can view Black single mothers as resistors against patriarchy" (149). "One major societal force is the effects of racial repression, most notably high rates of unemployment and incarceration that continue to contribute to Black fathers' absence from the home" (149). "Black men's unemployment rates are more than double those of white men. Black men's declining ability to contribute financially to their households is a major cause of fatherlessness in Black homes. Black fathers are also separated from their families by imprisonment. Blacks, mostly men, make up over half of the one million inmates in American jails" (150). These forces show that Black men do not value family relationships any less than other men do. But many "have been restrained by unemployment, imprisonment, and other deprivations from developing the family ties they desire" (150).
There are elements of Black fatherhood that led to the creation of the myth of the Absent Black Father. "The elements of what society considers a "good father" have often been elements that the Black father cannot fulfill. What condemns the absent Black father is not his lack of involvement with his children, but his marital and economic status. A good father is a married breadwinner. And Black men typically have not fit that role" (154). "The economic definition of the father has excluded the Black family from society's respect and support. It has branded Black men as irresponsible fathers" (154). "The absent Black father refers mainly to those children whose parents are not married. However, if further attention was paid to Black fathering it would reveal that many presumably "absent" Black fathers actually play an important role in child rearing. Many Black men stay closely tied to their children even when they are not married to the mother or unable to provide financial support" (153). In this case, Black men have their own style of parenting, just as Black women have a distinct notion of motherhood. This pattern of behavior contradicts the myth that they are completely absent with no contact with their children.
In conclusion, the myth was created from our history. "Black men were depicted as menacing brutes or ridiculous buffoons, disparaging images that justified their exclusion from citizenship early in this nation's history" (148). "Society made Black men out so that they were not supposed to be role models for their children. Black men should be entitled to dominate their families as White men have but they have never been entitled to do so" (148). Because of this, they were seen as "absent". But even with the social forces against them, they still have proven that they can stay involved in their own style.
The third and final article in regards to fathering was written by Francine Deutsch and is entitled, "Halving it all: The Mother and Mr. Mom." This article addresses the revolution that is occurring in the homes of blue-collar families. This revolution is alternating work shifts, in which the mother's and father's are taking turns taking care of their children while their spouses work at paid jobs.
One of the main questions is why do couples with children decide to work alternating shifts, and how is that decision related to their social class status? "One of the main reasons couples alternate shifts is money. It is cheaper to avoid using paid child care. In over 80% of the alternating-shift couples, at least one spouse mentioned money when asked why they share the care of their children they way they do" (117). Alternating shifters have the lowest incomes. "Some thought they simply couldn't afford day care; others maintained that they could have afforded it, but believed alternating work shifts was economically wise" (117). "Some reasoned it was impractical to spend so much of their income on day care. Money maters, but money is not the only reason that parents invoke for alternating shifts. Many of the couples believed that children should only be cared for by family" (118). Alternating shift parents give a few reasons for avoiding day care. "First, they fear that terrible dangers await children who are cared for by strangers. The second reason is the parents "resolve to inculcate their children with their own values" (119). Now one might wonder why middle class families do not have these same concerns when it comes to sending their children to day care. "One reason could be that because blue-collar families have less money, the child care that they can pay for might be worse. Secondly, even if the blue-collar families could get the "best" institutional day care, that institution might reflect middle-class values and be less responsive to their concerns than to the concerns of middle-class couples" (119). It is incredibly clear how all of this is related to social class status. If you have less money, you will be less willing or unable to pay for day care, so the only other option is to chose the alternating shifts method. Also related to social class status is the fears with day care. Lower income families will be nervous that the specific day cares they can afford will not be as good, and therefore choose instead to do the alternating shifts.
Another issue to address in regards to alternating shifts is how these families' division of labor compare to there gender ideologies. Ironically "there is more support for traditional gender ideology within the working class than among the highly educated groups in the United States" (125). "By clinging to the core aspects of the men going to work while the wives stay at home to tend to the children, they can convince themselves that they are maintaining traditional gender identities despite their nontraditional arrangements" (125). These couples try to keep intact three aspects of gender identity: "the father is the breadwinner; the mother does not derive a primary sense of identity from work; and the mother is the primary parent" (125). "In almost all alternating-shift families, the parent's stressed the men's breadwinning roles by treating the father's job as the more important job in the family. These families structured their work lives to enable the father to retain the role of principal breadwinner. If the mother had a higher rate of pay, then the father would work more hours so that he still earned the most money" (126). These families wanted the father to fit into their gender ideology of him as the breadwinner. "Similarly, mother's in the alternating-shift families are still regarded as the number-one parent, regardless of how much time fathers spend with their children. Dads may take over many of the functions that mothers have traditionally performed, but the mother is still "the mother" (129). Women retain this special role in two ways. "First the mother try to tailor there work lives so they can be with the children at times they define as key times. Secondly, mothers retain their primary position through the claim that they are still the center of emotional life in the family and that they should be" (130). "Alternating shift couples believe in an ideal family life that features breadwinning fathers and stay-at-home moms. They are far from living that ideal. However, they manage the marked difference between there behavior and their ideology by maintaining core aspects of parental gender identity" (132).
To be completely frank, I hope that I do not have to even consider choosing an alternating-shift arrangement for my family. I hope that my family is financially secure enough so that both parents do not have to work when the children are young. But if I was put in a situation where both my husband and I needed to work for financial reasons when the kids were young, I think I would choose an alternating-shift arrangement because that way both parents can spend ideal time with the kids. However, on the other hand I would worry about how little my husband and I would see each other. It is a tough decision and honestly I don't know for sure what I would choose if faced with that choice.
The first time period that is considered is the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. In this period of history, the father was seen as the moral overseer. "Fathers were thought to have far greater responsibility for, and influence on, their children. Prescriptions for parents were addressed almost entirely to fathers; the responsibilities of mothers were rarely mentioned" (351). "Fathers were viewed as the family's ultimate source of moral teaching and worldly judgments" (352). Fatherhood in this time included a variety of responsibilities. "Fathers were supposed to concern themselves with the moral and religious education of the young. If the father was literate, he should teach his children reading and writing. The father was also responsible for guiding his sons into a occupational calling. He also played a key role in the courtship and marriage making of both his sons and daughters" (352). "In this time relationships between fathers and children, especially sons, often had strong emotional components" (352). The father was very involved in all aspects of his children's lives during this time period.
However, from the early nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, the role of the father changed. This father was known as the distant breadwinner. In this period "a gradual and steady shift toward a greater role for the mother, and a decreased and more indirect role for the father is clear and unmistakable" (353). "To the extent that either parent was involved in the marital choices of their children, it was now usually the mother. As opposed to the early time period, letters and diaries now indicated that mothers were more emotionally entangled with sons well into adulthood" (353). "This period also saw the development of the contemporary presumption of maternal custody following divorce. By the beginning of the twentieth century, psychiatrists gave almost exclusive attention to the mother" (353). There is one major reason for the decline in the father's role. "A major structural source for the decline in the father's role and increased maternal influence was the emergence of new paternal work patterns away from the family, brought about by industrialization" (354). "As geographical distance between the workplace and the home increased, so too did the father's direct involvement with his children" (354). This new kind of father "focused entirely on breadwinning was depicted in early-twentieth century advertisements" (354). "Nevertheless, the father continued to set the official standard of morality and to be the final arbiter of family discipline, but he did so at more of a remove than before" (355).
The next period that introduced a change in the role of the father was from 1940 to 1965. In this period the father was known as the sex role model. "During the postwar years the heightened critique of mothering ushered in a new perception of the father's direct importance in child rearing as a sex role model. This new conception did not become dominant: the distant father-breadwinner still prevailed. Nonetheless the sex role model interpretation of fathering is historically important as the first positive image of involved fatherhood since the moral overseer model" (356). This sex role model figure emerged from the theory that too much mothering and inadequate fathering lead to insecurity in male identity. "Fathers came to be seen as essential for the sex role development of their daughters as well" (357). "This new father was supposed to be the principal transmitter of culturally based conceptions of masculinity and femininity" (357).
Pleck states,"There is no question that the father-breadwinner model established in the nineteenth and early-twentieth century remains culturally dominant today, both in fathers' actual behavior and its media representation," (358). However, a new image summed up in the term "the new father" is clearly on the rise in print and broadcast media. "This new father differs from older images of involved fatherhood in several ways: he is present at the birth; he is involved with his children as infants, not just when they are older; he participates in the actual day-to-day work of child care, and not just play; he is involved with his daughters as much as his sons" (358). "This is due in part to the fact that wives are more often employed and do less in the family when they are and men are spending more time in the family, both absolutely and relative to women" (359). This "new father" exists but the models from the past are still present and continue to have influence on fathers. I believe that the expectations for fathers today are that they get more involved in the family and home life. However, I do believe that the traditional image of the father as the breadwinner is still very prevalent. Mr. mom is not that common, even now as women have made advancements in the workplace. Father's for the most part are still expected by society to be the one that works and provides financial security for the family.
The second article that I am going to address in regards to fathering is written by Dorothy Roberts and entitled, "The Absent Black Father." This article looks at the myth of the "absent black father" and the societal forces that have discouraged family participation of Black fathers.
"While Black fathers are disparaged for their absence, a number of societal forces work to discourage their family participation" (149). "Some argue that the promise of welfare benefits induces childbearing out of wedlock and some Black feminists point to a positive cultural tradition that is more accepting of unmarried mothers. Some suggest that we can view Black single mothers as resistors against patriarchy" (149). "One major societal force is the effects of racial repression, most notably high rates of unemployment and incarceration that continue to contribute to Black fathers' absence from the home" (149). "Black men's unemployment rates are more than double those of white men. Black men's declining ability to contribute financially to their households is a major cause of fatherlessness in Black homes. Black fathers are also separated from their families by imprisonment. Blacks, mostly men, make up over half of the one million inmates in American jails" (150). These forces show that Black men do not value family relationships any less than other men do. But many "have been restrained by unemployment, imprisonment, and other deprivations from developing the family ties they desire" (150).
There are elements of Black fatherhood that led to the creation of the myth of the Absent Black Father. "The elements of what society considers a "good father" have often been elements that the Black father cannot fulfill. What condemns the absent Black father is not his lack of involvement with his children, but his marital and economic status. A good father is a married breadwinner. And Black men typically have not fit that role" (154). "The economic definition of the father has excluded the Black family from society's respect and support. It has branded Black men as irresponsible fathers" (154). "The absent Black father refers mainly to those children whose parents are not married. However, if further attention was paid to Black fathering it would reveal that many presumably "absent" Black fathers actually play an important role in child rearing. Many Black men stay closely tied to their children even when they are not married to the mother or unable to provide financial support" (153). In this case, Black men have their own style of parenting, just as Black women have a distinct notion of motherhood. This pattern of behavior contradicts the myth that they are completely absent with no contact with their children.
In conclusion, the myth was created from our history. "Black men were depicted as menacing brutes or ridiculous buffoons, disparaging images that justified their exclusion from citizenship early in this nation's history" (148). "Society made Black men out so that they were not supposed to be role models for their children. Black men should be entitled to dominate their families as White men have but they have never been entitled to do so" (148). Because of this, they were seen as "absent". But even with the social forces against them, they still have proven that they can stay involved in their own style.
The third and final article in regards to fathering was written by Francine Deutsch and is entitled, "Halving it all: The Mother and Mr. Mom." This article addresses the revolution that is occurring in the homes of blue-collar families. This revolution is alternating work shifts, in which the mother's and father's are taking turns taking care of their children while their spouses work at paid jobs.
One of the main questions is why do couples with children decide to work alternating shifts, and how is that decision related to their social class status? "One of the main reasons couples alternate shifts is money. It is cheaper to avoid using paid child care. In over 80% of the alternating-shift couples, at least one spouse mentioned money when asked why they share the care of their children they way they do" (117). Alternating shifters have the lowest incomes. "Some thought they simply couldn't afford day care; others maintained that they could have afforded it, but believed alternating work shifts was economically wise" (117). "Some reasoned it was impractical to spend so much of their income on day care. Money maters, but money is not the only reason that parents invoke for alternating shifts. Many of the couples believed that children should only be cared for by family" (118). Alternating shift parents give a few reasons for avoiding day care. "First, they fear that terrible dangers await children who are cared for by strangers. The second reason is the parents "resolve to inculcate their children with their own values" (119). Now one might wonder why middle class families do not have these same concerns when it comes to sending their children to day care. "One reason could be that because blue-collar families have less money, the child care that they can pay for might be worse. Secondly, even if the blue-collar families could get the "best" institutional day care, that institution might reflect middle-class values and be less responsive to their concerns than to the concerns of middle-class couples" (119). It is incredibly clear how all of this is related to social class status. If you have less money, you will be less willing or unable to pay for day care, so the only other option is to chose the alternating shifts method. Also related to social class status is the fears with day care. Lower income families will be nervous that the specific day cares they can afford will not be as good, and therefore choose instead to do the alternating shifts.
Another issue to address in regards to alternating shifts is how these families' division of labor compare to there gender ideologies. Ironically "there is more support for traditional gender ideology within the working class than among the highly educated groups in the United States" (125). "By clinging to the core aspects of the men going to work while the wives stay at home to tend to the children, they can convince themselves that they are maintaining traditional gender identities despite their nontraditional arrangements" (125). These couples try to keep intact three aspects of gender identity: "the father is the breadwinner; the mother does not derive a primary sense of identity from work; and the mother is the primary parent" (125). "In almost all alternating-shift families, the parent's stressed the men's breadwinning roles by treating the father's job as the more important job in the family. These families structured their work lives to enable the father to retain the role of principal breadwinner. If the mother had a higher rate of pay, then the father would work more hours so that he still earned the most money" (126). These families wanted the father to fit into their gender ideology of him as the breadwinner. "Similarly, mother's in the alternating-shift families are still regarded as the number-one parent, regardless of how much time fathers spend with their children. Dads may take over many of the functions that mothers have traditionally performed, but the mother is still "the mother" (129). Women retain this special role in two ways. "First the mother try to tailor there work lives so they can be with the children at times they define as key times. Secondly, mothers retain their primary position through the claim that they are still the center of emotional life in the family and that they should be" (130). "Alternating shift couples believe in an ideal family life that features breadwinning fathers and stay-at-home moms. They are far from living that ideal. However, they manage the marked difference between there behavior and their ideology by maintaining core aspects of parental gender identity" (132).
To be completely frank, I hope that I do not have to even consider choosing an alternating-shift arrangement for my family. I hope that my family is financially secure enough so that both parents do not have to work when the children are young. But if I was put in a situation where both my husband and I needed to work for financial reasons when the kids were young, I think I would choose an alternating-shift arrangement because that way both parents can spend ideal time with the kids. However, on the other hand I would worry about how little my husband and I would see each other. It is a tough decision and honestly I don't know for sure what I would choose if faced with that choice.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
My Family
When people look at my family, we probably look like the "perfect" American family. My parents were high school sweethearts. They met when they were 15 years old and have been in love ever since. To this day they are still happily married. After getting married they waited three years before having me. I am an only child which I guess is a little bit against the norm, but nowadays it is becoming much more common. We live in a very nice house, in a great town. We have the token perfect dog, a golden retriever named Derby. I love my family so much and do realize that things have come easy to me. My parents sometimes worry that I have been a little spoiled. They don't treat me like a spoiled only child, it is just in general how our life has been.
Even though I have what is considered to be a perfect family, my parents have made sure that I have been exposed to lots of different things. My parents are the most open people I know. They hold no prejudices toward anyone, and have made sure to pass that on to me. They have raised me in a house where gender is not an issue. My mom and dad are complete equals in my house. If someone asked me whether my mom or dad was in charge, I could not answer that. They are both in charge. They delegate chores of the house. Yes, my mom does cook dinner much more often than my dad. However, this is because my mom is a gourmet cook and loves to make dinner. My dad offers all the time, but my mom always says that she would prefer to do it. My parents have definitely set an example that men and women in the family should be equal. In regards to issues of race, it was never an issue in my house. Black or white meant nothing in my house. Everyone was the same. Honestly, in regards to social class, I did grow up basically among people of the same social class. This may be the one area in which I have been a bit sheltered, but it was not one purpose. My parents were not consciously like, "We want her only surrounded by people like us." It was just the way things turned out. And while this is the case, my parents made sure that I never got the idea that I was above anyone. The last issue is sexuality. My parents are completely open to homosexuality. True, our family doesn't know many homosexuals, but that doesn't mean that we don't completely accept it. My parents are in favor of gay marriage because they do not believe anyone has the right to say who should or should not be able to get married. I have heard there reasoning and have accepted this as my belief as well.
My ideas about family have really been shaped by my parents. We have the typical family, but I am very aware of the diverse nature of families. Everyone tells me that I am incredibly mature, and that is because I grew up always joining in my parents adult conversations. They liked to involve me in there conversations. Because of this I have learned so much from them. I realize the question is how have race, gender, social class, and sexuality affected my ideas about family. Above I shared my parents ideas about gender, social class, race, and sexuality. Honestly, their views have shaped my ideas about family. I am thankful to them for this. I haven't just complacently taken their views, I just truly agree with them.
The last issue is how I will let race, gender, social class, and sexuality affect my family in the future. I know that I will have to marry someone who is as open as I am. I need to be able to raise a family that is accepting of what is different from what we may be. My husband and I need to be equals. We need to treat each other as equals because that is the way I have seen things growing up. I believe the environment one grows up in definitely impacts the way they view issues of class, gender, race, and sexuality. You may agree with the way you were brought up or disagree and adjust how you do things with your family. I am lucky enough to love the way I grew up and want to pass on the same values I was taught to my own children.
I have realized after writing this how much I respect my parents, and how happy I am with the way I view those who have different families. It always seemed so natural to me but now putting it into words and actually thinking about it, makes it even more clear. This may seem incredibly cliche, but my parents have always told me that different is not wrong. Because what we see as different, someone else sees as normal, and what someone else sees as different, we see as normal. If people just understood this, I feel that race, gender, sexuality, and social class would not be an issue. I realize this is wishful thinking, but I can't help but write it.
Even though I have what is considered to be a perfect family, my parents have made sure that I have been exposed to lots of different things. My parents are the most open people I know. They hold no prejudices toward anyone, and have made sure to pass that on to me. They have raised me in a house where gender is not an issue. My mom and dad are complete equals in my house. If someone asked me whether my mom or dad was in charge, I could not answer that. They are both in charge. They delegate chores of the house. Yes, my mom does cook dinner much more often than my dad. However, this is because my mom is a gourmet cook and loves to make dinner. My dad offers all the time, but my mom always says that she would prefer to do it. My parents have definitely set an example that men and women in the family should be equal. In regards to issues of race, it was never an issue in my house. Black or white meant nothing in my house. Everyone was the same. Honestly, in regards to social class, I did grow up basically among people of the same social class. This may be the one area in which I have been a bit sheltered, but it was not one purpose. My parents were not consciously like, "We want her only surrounded by people like us." It was just the way things turned out. And while this is the case, my parents made sure that I never got the idea that I was above anyone. The last issue is sexuality. My parents are completely open to homosexuality. True, our family doesn't know many homosexuals, but that doesn't mean that we don't completely accept it. My parents are in favor of gay marriage because they do not believe anyone has the right to say who should or should not be able to get married. I have heard there reasoning and have accepted this as my belief as well.
My ideas about family have really been shaped by my parents. We have the typical family, but I am very aware of the diverse nature of families. Everyone tells me that I am incredibly mature, and that is because I grew up always joining in my parents adult conversations. They liked to involve me in there conversations. Because of this I have learned so much from them. I realize the question is how have race, gender, social class, and sexuality affected my ideas about family. Above I shared my parents ideas about gender, social class, race, and sexuality. Honestly, their views have shaped my ideas about family. I am thankful to them for this. I haven't just complacently taken their views, I just truly agree with them.
The last issue is how I will let race, gender, social class, and sexuality affect my family in the future. I know that I will have to marry someone who is as open as I am. I need to be able to raise a family that is accepting of what is different from what we may be. My husband and I need to be equals. We need to treat each other as equals because that is the way I have seen things growing up. I believe the environment one grows up in definitely impacts the way they view issues of class, gender, race, and sexuality. You may agree with the way you were brought up or disagree and adjust how you do things with your family. I am lucky enough to love the way I grew up and want to pass on the same values I was taught to my own children.
I have realized after writing this how much I respect my parents, and how happy I am with the way I view those who have different families. It always seemed so natural to me but now putting it into words and actually thinking about it, makes it even more clear. This may seem incredibly cliche, but my parents have always told me that different is not wrong. Because what we see as different, someone else sees as normal, and what someone else sees as different, we see as normal. If people just understood this, I feel that race, gender, sexuality, and social class would not be an issue. I realize this is wishful thinking, but I can't help but write it.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Childrearing
The first article on this topic, written by Sharon Hays is entitled, "From Rods to Reasoning: The Historical Construction of Intensive Mothering."In this article Hays presents four historical stages of development in the cultural notions of appropriate mothering in America from the 17th to the 20th century.
"In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century New England there was no notion of childhood innocence, no protected place for children and no separate children's toys or games. Small children were dressed in swaddling clothes, subjected to floggings and sedated with opium" (26). "There was a belief in early childhood as a special and distinct stage; it was the stage when the child needed to be "redeemed" through strict discipline. The young child was not ignored but consciously molded by means of physical punishment, religious instruction, and participation in work life" (27). "For Puritan New Englanders the purpose of such early obedience training was to overcome the "sin nature" of the child. The primary guide for child rearing was the Bible, supplemented by the sermons and speeches of church and community leaders" (27). Wives were valued for their fertility but not for their child-rearing abilities. "Once a child was old enough to help, a mother served as the overseer of their labor in the household, making little distinction between servant children and her own children" (28). Her task was to "keep the children in line; ultimately she obeyed her husband" (28). The Puritan model was the dominant cultural model of the prerevolutionary era.
The next historical stage is that of the nineteenth century mother. "For the middle class urban dweller during that period, ideas of appropriate child rearing shifted dramatically" (29). "The young child was no longer seen as an agent of sin in need of redemption but was instead proclaimed and innocent "redeemer". Increasingly, motherhood was valorized, parents went to great lengths to prolong the period of childhood innocence, and affection suffused the mother-child relationship" (29). "By the second half of the nineteenth century child rearing was synonymous with mothering. The overall image of both was one of pervasive sentimentality mixed with purity, piety, and patriotism" (30). "No longer were the fathers the shepherds and mothers the sheepdogs. Mothers, and only mothers, now moral and pure, were the shepherdesses, leading their children on the path of righteousness" (30). "Although the father was still the ultimate authority, the mother now had a much larger and more valued role to play in shaping the child" (32).
The third stage came into view toward the end of the nineteenth century. "Middle-class child-rearing ideologies took a somewhat curious turn. A mother's instincts, virtue, and affection were no longer considered sufficient to ensure proper child rearing. She now had to be "scientifically" trained. With the growing belief in child rearing as a science, mothers' status as valorized, naturally adept child nurturers was diminished" (39). "The mother now had to more than set a good example; she needed to keep abreast of the latest information on child development and to practice the methods experts suggested. This was the era of strict scheduling, regularity, and letting the child "cry it out" rather than calming him with affectionate nurture" (39). This era was known as the progressive era (39).
The fourth historical stage is called the permissive era. "The ideology of permissive child rearing that dominates contemporary advice and provides the cultural model used by present-day mothers had its beginnings in the 1930s" (45). "The primary objective was no longer the rigid behavioral training of the child to meet adult requirements; nurturing the child's inherent goodness was again the goal" (45). This may sound the same as that of early nineteenth century, but its not. "Although the family had become child-centered then, child rearing was then perceived as guided by parents, in line with adult interests. Not until the "permissive era" did child rearing become "child-centered in the sense of being explicitly determined by the needs and desires of children" (45). "Child rearing was no longer centered on the good of the family and the good of the nation. It was now centered on the fulfillment of the child" (45).
"Not only is home life centered on children, but child rearing is guided by them. The child is now to train the parent. This is what intensive mothering is" (46). "The recommended methods of child rearing have become fully intensified: not only have they become expert-guided and child-centered, they are also more emotionally absorbing, labor intensive, and financially expensive than ever before" (46). The concept of intensive mothering does apply to my mother. She left her job when I was born and has not gone back to work since, because she wanted to be there for me. She was not intimidated by feminists claims that the family is an oppressive institution. She felt more fulfilled being there for me all the time than she would have if she had a normal job in the workforce. This applies too most of my friends mothers as well.
The second article on this subject written by Ann Crittendon is the introduction to her book The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World is Still the Least Valued. In the introduction she points out what she believes to be the main indicators that mothering is devalued in the United States.
"Even now, the lack of respect and tangible recognition is still part of every mother's experience. Most people take female caregiving utterly for granted. The job of making a home for a child and developing his or her capabilities is often equated with "doing nothing" (2). "Thus the disdainful question frequently asked about mothers at home: "What do they do all day?" (2). "A mother's work is not just invisible; it can become a handicap. Raising children may be the most important job in the world, but you can't put it on a resume" (3). A woman with a master's degree, when looking for a job, was warned to not mention the thirteen years of caring for her disabled child. "She was told instead to pad her resume with descriptions of volunteer work and occasional freelance writing" (4). "The idea that time spent with one's child is time wasted is embedded in traditional economic thinking. Economic theory has nothing to say about the acquisition of skills by those who work with children; presumably there are none" (4). This is one main indicator that mothering is devalued in the United States.
"The policies of American business, government, and the law do not reflect Americans' stated values" (5). Crittenden states, "Across the board, individuals who assume the role of nurturer are punished and discouraged from performing the very tasks that everyone agrees are essential. We talk endlessly about the importance of family, yet the work it takes to make a family is utterly disregarded," (5).
"First, inflexible workplaces guarantee that many women will have to cut back on, if not quit, their employment once they have children" (5). "Second, marriage is still not an equal financial partnership. Mothers in forty seven of the fifty states do not have an unequivocal legal right to half of the family's assets" (6). "Third, government social policies don't even define unpaid care of family dependents as work" (6). "A family's primary caregiver is not considered a full productive citizen, eligible in her own right for the major social insurance programs" (6). These are all primary indicators.
The devaluation of a mother's work extends to those who do similar work for pay. "Wages for child care are so low that the field is hemorrhaging its best-trained people" (6). "Increasingly, day care is being provided by an inexperienced workforce. Just because caring work is not self-seeking doesn't mean a person should be penalized for doing it" (8).
"The dominant culture considers child rearing as unskilled labor, if it considers child rearing at all" (11). "No one is stating the obvious: if human abilities are the ultimate fount of economic progress, as many economists now agree, and if those abilities are nurtured in the early years, then mothers and other care givers of the young are the most important producers in the economy" (11). "They do have, literally, the most important job in the world" (11).
I do agree with Crittendon's view. I believe that mothering is completely underrated in our country. It is so important in creating young adults who will move on to great universities, and then to great jobs. My mom was a stay at home and she loved it. I can vouch for her that it was no easy task. It requires limitless energy. She was just as busy, if not more busy, than my dad who had a typical office job. Our government's policies and laws definitely do not take the importance of mothering into consideration. I agreed with all of her examples and explanations.
The third article, written by Patricia Collins, is entitled, "Black Women and Motherhood." This article explains two types of mothering that black women tend to do. The two mother are bloodmothers and othermothers. "In many African-American communities, fluid and changing boundaries often distinguish biological mothers from other women who care for children" (178). "Biological mothers, or bloodmothers, are expected to care for their children. But African and African-American communities have also recognized that vesting one person with full responsibility for mothering a child may not be wise or possible. As a result, othermothers-women who assist bloodmothers by sharing mothering responsibilities-traditionally have been central to the institution of Black motherhood" (178).
Collins writes, "Organized, resilient, women-centered networks of bloodmothers and othermothers are key in understanding this centrality of women. Grandmothers, sisters, aunts, or cousins act as othermothers by taking on child care responsibilities for one another's children," (178). "In many African-American communities these women-centered networks of community-based child care have extended beyond the boundaries of biologically related individuals to include fictive kin" (179). "Othermothers can be key in helping bloodmothers who, for whatever reason, lack the preparation or desire for motherhood" (180). Othermothers not only feel accountable to their own kin, they experience a bond with all of the Black community's children.
"Motherhood-whether bloodmother, othermother, or community othermother-can be invoked as a symbol of power by African-American women engaged in Black women's community work" (192). "Moreover, much of U.S. Black women's status in African-American communities stems from their activist mothering as community othermothers. Some of the most highly respected Black women in working-class Black neighborhoods are those who demonstrate an ethic of community service" (192). "Black women's involvement in community work forms one important basis for power within Black civil society. This is the type of power many African-Americans have in mind when they describe the "strong Black woman" they hope will revitalize contemporary Black neighborhoods. Community othermothers work on behalf of the Black community by expressing ethics of caring and personal accountability" (192). "Viewing motherhood as a symbol of power can catalyze Black women to take actions that they otherwise might not have considered" (192).
The fourth and final article, written by Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas, is entitled "Unmarried with Children." The article takes a look at poor women's attitudes on and experiences with marriage and childbearing. It also addresses what society can do to help these women get out of poverty.
Edin and Kefalas write, "Promoting marriage among the poor has become the new war on poverty. And it is true that the correlation between marital status and child poverty is strong. But poor single mothers already believe in marriage" (17). A mother featured in the article, Jen, insists that she will walk down the aisle one day. "Most poor, unmarried mothers and fathers readily admit that bearing children while poor and unmarried is not the ideal way to do things" (17). When the authors asked mothers like Jen what their lives would be like if they had not had children, "they expected them to express regret over foregone opportunities for school and careers. Instead, most believe their children "saved" them. They describe their lives as spinning out of control before becoming pregnant" (18). "Children offer poor youth like Jen a compelling sense of purpose" (18). Jen paints a before and after picture of her life that was common among the mothers they interviewed. "Before, I didn't have nobody to take care of. I didn't have nothing left to go home for...Now I have my son to take care of. I have him to go home for...I don't have to go buy weed or drugs with my money. I could buy my son stuff with my money!" (18).
Few of these poor mothers have given up on the idea of marriage. "However, for the poor, marriage has become an elusive goal, one they feel ought to be reserved for those who can support a "white picket fence" lifestyle" (18). "These poor young women insist on being economically "set" in their own right before taking marriage vows" (18). "Jen measures her worth as a mother by the fact that she has managed to provide for her son largely on her own" (20). "Notably poor women do not reject marriage; they revere it. Indeed, it is the conviction that marriage is forever that makes them think that divorce is worse than having a baby outside of marriage. Their children, far from being liabilities, provide crucial social-psychological resources-a strong sense of purpose and a profound sense of intimacy" (21). In the end Jen believes Colin's birth has brought far more good into her life than bad.
The last thing this article addresses is what society needs to do to help these women get out of poverty. Edin and Kefalas write, "Until poor young women have more access to jobs that lead to financial independence, until there is reason to hope for the rewarding life pathways that their privileged peers pursue, the poor will continue to have children far sooner than most Americans think they should, while still deferring marriage. Marital standards have risen for all Americans" (22). "The poor want to marry to but they want to marry well" (22). Our society needs to create more jobs for these women so that they can pull themselves up from where they had the misfortune of starting. This might also include much better and readily available child care, as many of these young women will need to have their children looked after if they do get jobs.
My opinion is that I respect the attitudes these women have on marriage and childbearing. I thought it was inspirational that these women are able to acknowledge the fact that having a child may have actually helped them. It was not the attitude I expected to hear when starting this article. My opinion on what we should do for them is clearly stated in the above paragraph and i believe it to be incredibly necessary.
"In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century New England there was no notion of childhood innocence, no protected place for children and no separate children's toys or games. Small children were dressed in swaddling clothes, subjected to floggings and sedated with opium" (26). "There was a belief in early childhood as a special and distinct stage; it was the stage when the child needed to be "redeemed" through strict discipline. The young child was not ignored but consciously molded by means of physical punishment, religious instruction, and participation in work life" (27). "For Puritan New Englanders the purpose of such early obedience training was to overcome the "sin nature" of the child. The primary guide for child rearing was the Bible, supplemented by the sermons and speeches of church and community leaders" (27). Wives were valued for their fertility but not for their child-rearing abilities. "Once a child was old enough to help, a mother served as the overseer of their labor in the household, making little distinction between servant children and her own children" (28). Her task was to "keep the children in line; ultimately she obeyed her husband" (28). The Puritan model was the dominant cultural model of the prerevolutionary era.
The next historical stage is that of the nineteenth century mother. "For the middle class urban dweller during that period, ideas of appropriate child rearing shifted dramatically" (29). "The young child was no longer seen as an agent of sin in need of redemption but was instead proclaimed and innocent "redeemer". Increasingly, motherhood was valorized, parents went to great lengths to prolong the period of childhood innocence, and affection suffused the mother-child relationship" (29). "By the second half of the nineteenth century child rearing was synonymous with mothering. The overall image of both was one of pervasive sentimentality mixed with purity, piety, and patriotism" (30). "No longer were the fathers the shepherds and mothers the sheepdogs. Mothers, and only mothers, now moral and pure, were the shepherdesses, leading their children on the path of righteousness" (30). "Although the father was still the ultimate authority, the mother now had a much larger and more valued role to play in shaping the child" (32).
The third stage came into view toward the end of the nineteenth century. "Middle-class child-rearing ideologies took a somewhat curious turn. A mother's instincts, virtue, and affection were no longer considered sufficient to ensure proper child rearing. She now had to be "scientifically" trained. With the growing belief in child rearing as a science, mothers' status as valorized, naturally adept child nurturers was diminished" (39). "The mother now had to more than set a good example; she needed to keep abreast of the latest information on child development and to practice the methods experts suggested. This was the era of strict scheduling, regularity, and letting the child "cry it out" rather than calming him with affectionate nurture" (39). This era was known as the progressive era (39).
The fourth historical stage is called the permissive era. "The ideology of permissive child rearing that dominates contemporary advice and provides the cultural model used by present-day mothers had its beginnings in the 1930s" (45). "The primary objective was no longer the rigid behavioral training of the child to meet adult requirements; nurturing the child's inherent goodness was again the goal" (45). This may sound the same as that of early nineteenth century, but its not. "Although the family had become child-centered then, child rearing was then perceived as guided by parents, in line with adult interests. Not until the "permissive era" did child rearing become "child-centered in the sense of being explicitly determined by the needs and desires of children" (45). "Child rearing was no longer centered on the good of the family and the good of the nation. It was now centered on the fulfillment of the child" (45).
"Not only is home life centered on children, but child rearing is guided by them. The child is now to train the parent. This is what intensive mothering is" (46). "The recommended methods of child rearing have become fully intensified: not only have they become expert-guided and child-centered, they are also more emotionally absorbing, labor intensive, and financially expensive than ever before" (46). The concept of intensive mothering does apply to my mother. She left her job when I was born and has not gone back to work since, because she wanted to be there for me. She was not intimidated by feminists claims that the family is an oppressive institution. She felt more fulfilled being there for me all the time than she would have if she had a normal job in the workforce. This applies too most of my friends mothers as well.
The second article on this subject written by Ann Crittendon is the introduction to her book The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World is Still the Least Valued. In the introduction she points out what she believes to be the main indicators that mothering is devalued in the United States.
"Even now, the lack of respect and tangible recognition is still part of every mother's experience. Most people take female caregiving utterly for granted. The job of making a home for a child and developing his or her capabilities is often equated with "doing nothing" (2). "Thus the disdainful question frequently asked about mothers at home: "What do they do all day?" (2). "A mother's work is not just invisible; it can become a handicap. Raising children may be the most important job in the world, but you can't put it on a resume" (3). A woman with a master's degree, when looking for a job, was warned to not mention the thirteen years of caring for her disabled child. "She was told instead to pad her resume with descriptions of volunteer work and occasional freelance writing" (4). "The idea that time spent with one's child is time wasted is embedded in traditional economic thinking. Economic theory has nothing to say about the acquisition of skills by those who work with children; presumably there are none" (4). This is one main indicator that mothering is devalued in the United States.
"The policies of American business, government, and the law do not reflect Americans' stated values" (5). Crittenden states, "Across the board, individuals who assume the role of nurturer are punished and discouraged from performing the very tasks that everyone agrees are essential. We talk endlessly about the importance of family, yet the work it takes to make a family is utterly disregarded," (5).
"First, inflexible workplaces guarantee that many women will have to cut back on, if not quit, their employment once they have children" (5). "Second, marriage is still not an equal financial partnership. Mothers in forty seven of the fifty states do not have an unequivocal legal right to half of the family's assets" (6). "Third, government social policies don't even define unpaid care of family dependents as work" (6). "A family's primary caregiver is not considered a full productive citizen, eligible in her own right for the major social insurance programs" (6). These are all primary indicators.
The devaluation of a mother's work extends to those who do similar work for pay. "Wages for child care are so low that the field is hemorrhaging its best-trained people" (6). "Increasingly, day care is being provided by an inexperienced workforce. Just because caring work is not self-seeking doesn't mean a person should be penalized for doing it" (8).
"The dominant culture considers child rearing as unskilled labor, if it considers child rearing at all" (11). "No one is stating the obvious: if human abilities are the ultimate fount of economic progress, as many economists now agree, and if those abilities are nurtured in the early years, then mothers and other care givers of the young are the most important producers in the economy" (11). "They do have, literally, the most important job in the world" (11).
I do agree with Crittendon's view. I believe that mothering is completely underrated in our country. It is so important in creating young adults who will move on to great universities, and then to great jobs. My mom was a stay at home and she loved it. I can vouch for her that it was no easy task. It requires limitless energy. She was just as busy, if not more busy, than my dad who had a typical office job. Our government's policies and laws definitely do not take the importance of mothering into consideration. I agreed with all of her examples and explanations.
The third article, written by Patricia Collins, is entitled, "Black Women and Motherhood." This article explains two types of mothering that black women tend to do. The two mother are bloodmothers and othermothers. "In many African-American communities, fluid and changing boundaries often distinguish biological mothers from other women who care for children" (178). "Biological mothers, or bloodmothers, are expected to care for their children. But African and African-American communities have also recognized that vesting one person with full responsibility for mothering a child may not be wise or possible. As a result, othermothers-women who assist bloodmothers by sharing mothering responsibilities-traditionally have been central to the institution of Black motherhood" (178).
Collins writes, "Organized, resilient, women-centered networks of bloodmothers and othermothers are key in understanding this centrality of women. Grandmothers, sisters, aunts, or cousins act as othermothers by taking on child care responsibilities for one another's children," (178). "In many African-American communities these women-centered networks of community-based child care have extended beyond the boundaries of biologically related individuals to include fictive kin" (179). "Othermothers can be key in helping bloodmothers who, for whatever reason, lack the preparation or desire for motherhood" (180). Othermothers not only feel accountable to their own kin, they experience a bond with all of the Black community's children.
"Motherhood-whether bloodmother, othermother, or community othermother-can be invoked as a symbol of power by African-American women engaged in Black women's community work" (192). "Moreover, much of U.S. Black women's status in African-American communities stems from their activist mothering as community othermothers. Some of the most highly respected Black women in working-class Black neighborhoods are those who demonstrate an ethic of community service" (192). "Black women's involvement in community work forms one important basis for power within Black civil society. This is the type of power many African-Americans have in mind when they describe the "strong Black woman" they hope will revitalize contemporary Black neighborhoods. Community othermothers work on behalf of the Black community by expressing ethics of caring and personal accountability" (192). "Viewing motherhood as a symbol of power can catalyze Black women to take actions that they otherwise might not have considered" (192).
The fourth and final article, written by Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas, is entitled "Unmarried with Children." The article takes a look at poor women's attitudes on and experiences with marriage and childbearing. It also addresses what society can do to help these women get out of poverty.
Edin and Kefalas write, "Promoting marriage among the poor has become the new war on poverty. And it is true that the correlation between marital status and child poverty is strong. But poor single mothers already believe in marriage" (17). A mother featured in the article, Jen, insists that she will walk down the aisle one day. "Most poor, unmarried mothers and fathers readily admit that bearing children while poor and unmarried is not the ideal way to do things" (17). When the authors asked mothers like Jen what their lives would be like if they had not had children, "they expected them to express regret over foregone opportunities for school and careers. Instead, most believe their children "saved" them. They describe their lives as spinning out of control before becoming pregnant" (18). "Children offer poor youth like Jen a compelling sense of purpose" (18). Jen paints a before and after picture of her life that was common among the mothers they interviewed. "Before, I didn't have nobody to take care of. I didn't have nothing left to go home for...Now I have my son to take care of. I have him to go home for...I don't have to go buy weed or drugs with my money. I could buy my son stuff with my money!" (18).
Few of these poor mothers have given up on the idea of marriage. "However, for the poor, marriage has become an elusive goal, one they feel ought to be reserved for those who can support a "white picket fence" lifestyle" (18). "These poor young women insist on being economically "set" in their own right before taking marriage vows" (18). "Jen measures her worth as a mother by the fact that she has managed to provide for her son largely on her own" (20). "Notably poor women do not reject marriage; they revere it. Indeed, it is the conviction that marriage is forever that makes them think that divorce is worse than having a baby outside of marriage. Their children, far from being liabilities, provide crucial social-psychological resources-a strong sense of purpose and a profound sense of intimacy" (21). In the end Jen believes Colin's birth has brought far more good into her life than bad.
The last thing this article addresses is what society needs to do to help these women get out of poverty. Edin and Kefalas write, "Until poor young women have more access to jobs that lead to financial independence, until there is reason to hope for the rewarding life pathways that their privileged peers pursue, the poor will continue to have children far sooner than most Americans think they should, while still deferring marriage. Marital standards have risen for all Americans" (22). "The poor want to marry to but they want to marry well" (22). Our society needs to create more jobs for these women so that they can pull themselves up from where they had the misfortune of starting. This might also include much better and readily available child care, as many of these young women will need to have their children looked after if they do get jobs.
My opinion is that I respect the attitudes these women have on marriage and childbearing. I thought it was inspirational that these women are able to acknowledge the fact that having a child may have actually helped them. It was not the attitude I expected to hear when starting this article. My opinion on what we should do for them is clearly stated in the above paragraph and i believe it to be incredibly necessary.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Childbearing, childrearing, and welfare
The first article written by Chris Hafner-Eaton and Laurie K. Pierce is entitled, "Birth Choices, the Law and Medicine: Balancing Individual Freedoms and Protection of the Public's Health." This article focused on the debate between whether it is better to give birth in a medical setting, usually a hospital, or to give birth at home with a midwife. The common belief is that giving birth at home with only a midwife is much more dangerous and increases the risks for the mother and the baby. This is not the case and leads into the reasons why some prefer to give birth at home with the assistance of a midwife.
According to World Health Organization officials. "Every single country in the European Region with perinatal and infant mortality rates lower than the United States uses midwives as the principal and only birth attendant for at least 70 percent of all births," (813). This shows that giving birth at home with a midwife does not increase the risk of infant mortality. In fact it seems to lower infant mortality rates. "Furthermore, the introduction of hospital-based and physician-attended births was associated with a dramatic increase in the rates of puerperal fever and maternal death" (815).
There recently has been an increase in the number of parents is the United States who are choosing to have their babies at home. "One frequently cited reason that has paralleled this is the increase in obstetrical attempts to manage and augment childbirth in a "medicalized manner" (814). "20 percent of mothers delivering in the hospital setting reported that they would have preferred a nonhospital delivery" (814).
"The midwife has been labeled the "guardian of normal birth" and reaffirms the mother as the active, rather than passive, participant in home births" (816). Some parents now prefer this idea of a more interactive birth, one that they can truly get involved in. This is a big reason for why parents are opting for home births. "Lay midwives have a special body of knowledge, gained through experience and familiarity with the female body, that they pass along to women, their partners, and families during pregnancy and birth. The combination of these aspects appeals to the segment of the population that desires control over their bodies" (819).
I believe that either choice is correct and that it just depends on the individuals. Some people have the type of personality where they would rather be in a hospital, in every medical setting because it makes them feel more comfortable, even if it is no more safe. On the other hand, there are those people who would rather be in a more casual environment. Given the fact that both methods seem to be equally safe, my opinion is that neither is better but that it just depends on what you personally want.
The second article written by Lawrence Friedman is entitles, "Who are Our Children? Adoption, Past and Present." It addresses the changes in legal ties between parents and children, as well as how adoption laws have changed.
The first issue is the legal ties between parents and children. "At one time, parental control over children continued as long as the children lived; for example, parents arranged their children's marriages" (272). "In those aspects of law that deal with children, there has been a strong, long-term trend toward emancipating the child from its father and from the family in general. The separation is absolute for adult children. Adults are now under no duty to obey their parents or to take account of them in any way; even the duty to support aged and infirm parents has been evaporating" (272). The law more and more recognizes the child as a distinct individual, even when the child is just a baby or very young. "The law punishes abusive or neglectful parents. It can take children away from a bad family and give them to a good family. It has the ability to act in place of the parents. In effect, children have legal rights as against their own mothers and fathers. If the children are too young to do it themselves, the state enforces these rights" (272). "However, even though the authority of the family is weaker than it was, it is still extremely strong. The state can take a child away from the family, but it does so reluctantly and in extreme cases. Law and society clearly recognize that in general the rights of parents are sacred. Parents have less control over their children, but parent's are still at the center of their young children's lives" (273).
The second issue addressed in this article is historically, what the purpose of adoption was. "In many systems, adoption was recognized as a way to guarantee that a family with no blood children would not die out. Adoption was a well-known feature of ancient Roman society" (273). "In France, adoption allowed for even adults to be adopted in order to carry on the family name. Until 1976, parents with children were not allowed to adopt" (273). "In colonial America, adoption could be seen as children who were bound out as apprentices, which meant that from a fairly young age they were living in somebody else's household" (274).
Over time, the laws regarding adoption have changed as well. In 1851, there was a strong movement to create adoption laws. "These laws rejected the common law understanding that blood relationship is crucial, and that people are joined by blood or marriage or not at all" (274). "However, in the beginning the procedure for adopting a child was not much different from procedures for buying or selling a cornfield" (274). "More and more though, the rules and procedures expressed the idea that the welfare of the child was the paramount interest" (275). "Informal adoption was the norm in England and the United States before more advanced adoption laws were set. Nobody needs a court decision or a formal document to take a child into a family, feed it, raise it, and love it" (275). "Demographic change has had an important effect on adoption and adoption practices. In the nineteenth century orphans were in plentiful supply. Women died giving birth; plagues and accidents carried off fathers and mothers alike. Those who had no relatives to take care of them were sent to orphanages" (276). "Mainstream adoption in the middle of the twentieth century was quite different from nineteenth century adoption. Middle-class people were living longer. Death in childbirth had become a rare event. In the age of antibiotics, plagues and epidemics did not take nearly as many people. Because of this, in the twentieth century adoption became more and more the destiny of children whose parents did not want them or were unable to resist social and legal pressures to give up their children" (277). "It was no longer about the parents dying and leaving children orphaned. More recently, the nature of adoption has changed again, in response to changes in social norms and in demography" (278). Today it is childless middle-class couples who wish to adopt and are fairly willing to pay good money to get a baby. Now there is a shortage of babies to adopt in the United States and people are going to other countries in order to adopt (278).
The third article written by Sharon Hays is entitled, Flat Broke with Children: Women in the age of Welfare Reform." This entire article focuses on a few different aspects of welfare. The first aspect is the conservative and liberal views of welfare. "The conservative critics of welfare offered the primary fuel for negative public sentiment" (12). "They accused welfare recipients of being lazy, promiscuous, and pathologically dependent, and they argued that the welfare system encouraged those bad values with overly generous benefits and "permissive" policies that provided incentives for family dysfunction and nonwork" (12). "They believed the welfare system not only perpetuated poverty, but by promoting laziness and single parenting, actually cause it to increase" (12). "Liberal scholars have agreed that there were problems in the old welfare system and among the poor. But they have argued that any problems of morality that existed among poor families were primarily the result, rather than the cause, of economic hardship" (12). So while conservatives claimed that the "value-orientation of the welfare system and the welfare poor needed overhaul, liberals emphasized that welfare policy needed to focus on providing better economic supports for the poor" (12).
Another thing to look at are the differences between the new welfare reform and the old. "Nineteenth century poor laws established the moral distinction between the "deserving" poor and "undeserving" poor" (13). "In the old system, the benefits were so dismally low that almost all recipients had to come up with additional sources of help just to cover the cost of their most basic needs. Its policies operated to make it all the more difficult to climb out of poverty, and its recipients were stigmatized" (11). "Further, despite the crucial importance of paid work and family ties in American culture, the old welfare system did very little to help recipients manage employment, to subsidize childcare, or to include poor fathers" (11). New welfare reform came in 1996. "This established the absolute demand that mothers participate in the paid labor force, offering no exceptions to the more "virtuous" or more vulnerable women. Most significantly, by ending the entitlement to welfare benefits, this law suggested that the nation no longer believed that women and children deserved any form of special protection" (15). Women were no longer seen as the dependent of men. They were now seen as beings who can be held responsible for their own lives and breadwinning.
There are two visions of work and family life embedded in this legislation. One vision is the Work Plan. "In the Work Plan, work requirements are a way of rehabilitating mothers, transforming mothers into women who are self-sufficient, independent, productive members of society" (19). "The Family Plan, on the other hand, uses work requirements as a way of punishing mothers for their failure to get married and stay married" (19). A"ccording to the Family Plan, work requirements will teach women a lesson; they will come to know better than to get divorced or to have children out of wedlock" (19).
Hays writes, "The two competing visions embedded in welfare are directly connected to a much broader set of cultural dichotomies that haunt us all in our attempts to construct a shared vision of the good society - independence and dependence, paid work and caregiving, competitive self-interest and obligations to others, the value of the work ethic and financial successes versus the value of personal connection and community ties" (19). "Depending on one's angle of vision, welfare reform can be seen as a valorization of independence, self-sufficiency, and the work ethic. On the other hand, it can serve as a condemnation of single parenting and a reaffirmation that women's place is in the home" (20). "In conclusion, if you get rid of all the controversy and contradiction of welfare reform, at the bottom one can find a set of honorable moral principles. The worthy ideals represent collective and long-standing commitments to the values of independence, productivity, citizenship, family togetherness, social connection, and the well-being of children" (21).
The fourth article written by Fred Block and others is entitled, "The Compassion Gap in American Poverty Policy." "Our society recognizes a moral obligation to provide a helping hand to those in need, but those in poverty have been getting only the back of the hand. In reality, they receive little or no public assistance" (14).
The first question to be addressed is how countries such as Norway understand poverty. "Our government's official poverty line is quite stingy by international standards. If we used the most common international measure, which counts people who live on less than half a country's median income as poor, then almost 20 percent of the American population would be considered poor" (14). "Children in single-mother households are four times more likely to be poor in the Unites States than in Norway. These other countries all take a more comprehensive government approach to combating poverty, and they assume it is caused by economic and structural factors rather than bad behavior" (17). This is the key difference in our understandings of poverty.
The second issue to be addressed is the prevailing theory of why poor people are poor in the United States. "The common theory is that the real source of poverty is bad behavior" (16). Block writes, "Since African-American and Hispanic women and men, as well as single mothers of all ethnicity's and races, are disproportionately represented among the poor, this theory defines these people as morally deficient," (16). "Its proponents assume that anyone with enough grit and determination can escape poverty. They claim that giving people cash assistance worsens poverty by taking away their drive to improve their circumstances through work" (16).
This leads to the next issue which is how this theory operates as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those who lack compassion have made their own predictions come true. "They begin by claiming that the poor lack moral character. They use stories of welfare cheaters to increase public concern about people getting something for nothing. Consequently, our patchwork of poorly funded programs reaches only a fraction of the poor and gives them less than they need. Those who depend on these programs must cut corners and break rules to keep their families together. This "proves" the original proposition that the poor lack moral character, and the "discovery" is used to justify ever more stringent policies. The result is a spiral of diminishing compassion and greater preoccupation with the moral failings of the poor" (18). This is how this theory is a self-fulfilling prophecy. They insist that immorality is the root cause of poverty and when assistance to the poor is no where near enough, the poor have no choice but to break some rules in order to survive. Supporters of the theory then point at these infractions and say "see the poor are bad."
The last issue is that of the American Dream. "The American Dream includes owning a single-family house, full health insurance coverage, quality child care for a four-year-old, and enough annual savings to ensure that both children can attend a public, four-year college or university" (15). "The reason that the American Dream is now beyond reach for so many families is that the price of four critical services has risen much more sharply than wages and the rate of inflation: health care, higher education, child care, and housing" (19). "To make the American Dream more accessible to the poor we need new initiatives to expand the supply of these key services while assuring their quality" (19). "This requires accelerated movement toward universal health insurance and universal availability of quality child care and preschool programs. We need to move toward universal access to higher education and we need to create new public-private partnerships to expand the supply of affordable housing for poor and working families" (19). To do all these things requires restoring the value of minimum wage. "Between 1968 and 2002, the purchasing power of the federal minimum wage fell by a third. We need to reverse this trend and assure that in the future the minimum wage continues to rise with inflation. We could establish a stable income floor by transforming our present Earned Income Tax Credit into a program that provided all poor families with sufficient income to cover food and shelter. The key to making these policy initiatives feasible is to remind our fellow citizens what true compassion requires" (19).
The last article written by Dan Clawson and Naomi Gerstel is entitled, "Caring for our Young: Child Care in Europe and the United States." In the United States working parents struggle to arrange and pay for private care. Clawson and Gerstel write, "Publicly-funded child care programs are restricted to the poor. Although most U.S. parents believe that their children receive quality care, standardized ratings find most of the care mediocre and much of it seriously inadequate" (29). "This system of child care is in great contrast to those of Europe, most specifically in France. French child care is intended primarily as early education. All children, rich and poor, immigrant or not, are part of the same national system, with the same curriculum, staffed by teachers paid good wages by the same national ministry" (30). "In contrast, staff in the United States who work in child care earned $6.61, not only considerably less than teachers but also less than parking lot attendants" (31). Consequently employee turnover averages 30 percent per year, which is not beneficial for the children.
"Recent research suggests that the quality of care for young children is poor or fair in well over half of child care settings" (34). "This low quality of care, in concert with a model of intensive mothering, means that many anxious mothers privately hunt for high-quality substitutes while trying to ensure they are not being replaced. System administrators need to patch together a variety of funding streams, each with its own regulations and paperwork. Because the current system was fashioned primarily for the affluent at one end and those being pushed off welfare at the other end, it poorly serves most of the working class and much of the middle class" (34). "The features that are common to our peer nations in Europe would presumably be a part of a new U.S. system. The programs would be publicly funded and universal, available to all, either at no cost or at a modest cost with subsidies for low-income participants, The staff would be paid about the same as public school teachers. The core programs would cover at least as many hours as the school day and "wrap-around" care would be available before and after this time. Participation in the programs would be voluntary, but the programs would be of such a high quality that a majority of children would enroll" (34). This is what has to be done to improve child care in the United States.
According to World Health Organization officials. "Every single country in the European Region with perinatal and infant mortality rates lower than the United States uses midwives as the principal and only birth attendant for at least 70 percent of all births," (813). This shows that giving birth at home with a midwife does not increase the risk of infant mortality. In fact it seems to lower infant mortality rates. "Furthermore, the introduction of hospital-based and physician-attended births was associated with a dramatic increase in the rates of puerperal fever and maternal death" (815).
There recently has been an increase in the number of parents is the United States who are choosing to have their babies at home. "One frequently cited reason that has paralleled this is the increase in obstetrical attempts to manage and augment childbirth in a "medicalized manner" (814). "20 percent of mothers delivering in the hospital setting reported that they would have preferred a nonhospital delivery" (814).
"The midwife has been labeled the "guardian of normal birth" and reaffirms the mother as the active, rather than passive, participant in home births" (816). Some parents now prefer this idea of a more interactive birth, one that they can truly get involved in. This is a big reason for why parents are opting for home births. "Lay midwives have a special body of knowledge, gained through experience and familiarity with the female body, that they pass along to women, their partners, and families during pregnancy and birth. The combination of these aspects appeals to the segment of the population that desires control over their bodies" (819).
I believe that either choice is correct and that it just depends on the individuals. Some people have the type of personality where they would rather be in a hospital, in every medical setting because it makes them feel more comfortable, even if it is no more safe. On the other hand, there are those people who would rather be in a more casual environment. Given the fact that both methods seem to be equally safe, my opinion is that neither is better but that it just depends on what you personally want.
The second article written by Lawrence Friedman is entitles, "Who are Our Children? Adoption, Past and Present." It addresses the changes in legal ties between parents and children, as well as how adoption laws have changed.
The first issue is the legal ties between parents and children. "At one time, parental control over children continued as long as the children lived; for example, parents arranged their children's marriages" (272). "In those aspects of law that deal with children, there has been a strong, long-term trend toward emancipating the child from its father and from the family in general. The separation is absolute for adult children. Adults are now under no duty to obey their parents or to take account of them in any way; even the duty to support aged and infirm parents has been evaporating" (272). The law more and more recognizes the child as a distinct individual, even when the child is just a baby or very young. "The law punishes abusive or neglectful parents. It can take children away from a bad family and give them to a good family. It has the ability to act in place of the parents. In effect, children have legal rights as against their own mothers and fathers. If the children are too young to do it themselves, the state enforces these rights" (272). "However, even though the authority of the family is weaker than it was, it is still extremely strong. The state can take a child away from the family, but it does so reluctantly and in extreme cases. Law and society clearly recognize that in general the rights of parents are sacred. Parents have less control over their children, but parent's are still at the center of their young children's lives" (273).
The second issue addressed in this article is historically, what the purpose of adoption was. "In many systems, adoption was recognized as a way to guarantee that a family with no blood children would not die out. Adoption was a well-known feature of ancient Roman society" (273). "In France, adoption allowed for even adults to be adopted in order to carry on the family name. Until 1976, parents with children were not allowed to adopt" (273). "In colonial America, adoption could be seen as children who were bound out as apprentices, which meant that from a fairly young age they were living in somebody else's household" (274).
Over time, the laws regarding adoption have changed as well. In 1851, there was a strong movement to create adoption laws. "These laws rejected the common law understanding that blood relationship is crucial, and that people are joined by blood or marriage or not at all" (274). "However, in the beginning the procedure for adopting a child was not much different from procedures for buying or selling a cornfield" (274). "More and more though, the rules and procedures expressed the idea that the welfare of the child was the paramount interest" (275). "Informal adoption was the norm in England and the United States before more advanced adoption laws were set. Nobody needs a court decision or a formal document to take a child into a family, feed it, raise it, and love it" (275). "Demographic change has had an important effect on adoption and adoption practices. In the nineteenth century orphans were in plentiful supply. Women died giving birth; plagues and accidents carried off fathers and mothers alike. Those who had no relatives to take care of them were sent to orphanages" (276). "Mainstream adoption in the middle of the twentieth century was quite different from nineteenth century adoption. Middle-class people were living longer. Death in childbirth had become a rare event. In the age of antibiotics, plagues and epidemics did not take nearly as many people. Because of this, in the twentieth century adoption became more and more the destiny of children whose parents did not want them or were unable to resist social and legal pressures to give up their children" (277). "It was no longer about the parents dying and leaving children orphaned. More recently, the nature of adoption has changed again, in response to changes in social norms and in demography" (278). Today it is childless middle-class couples who wish to adopt and are fairly willing to pay good money to get a baby. Now there is a shortage of babies to adopt in the United States and people are going to other countries in order to adopt (278).
The third article written by Sharon Hays is entitled, Flat Broke with Children: Women in the age of Welfare Reform." This entire article focuses on a few different aspects of welfare. The first aspect is the conservative and liberal views of welfare. "The conservative critics of welfare offered the primary fuel for negative public sentiment" (12). "They accused welfare recipients of being lazy, promiscuous, and pathologically dependent, and they argued that the welfare system encouraged those bad values with overly generous benefits and "permissive" policies that provided incentives for family dysfunction and nonwork" (12). "They believed the welfare system not only perpetuated poverty, but by promoting laziness and single parenting, actually cause it to increase" (12). "Liberal scholars have agreed that there were problems in the old welfare system and among the poor. But they have argued that any problems of morality that existed among poor families were primarily the result, rather than the cause, of economic hardship" (12). So while conservatives claimed that the "value-orientation of the welfare system and the welfare poor needed overhaul, liberals emphasized that welfare policy needed to focus on providing better economic supports for the poor" (12).
Another thing to look at are the differences between the new welfare reform and the old. "Nineteenth century poor laws established the moral distinction between the "deserving" poor and "undeserving" poor" (13). "In the old system, the benefits were so dismally low that almost all recipients had to come up with additional sources of help just to cover the cost of their most basic needs. Its policies operated to make it all the more difficult to climb out of poverty, and its recipients were stigmatized" (11). "Further, despite the crucial importance of paid work and family ties in American culture, the old welfare system did very little to help recipients manage employment, to subsidize childcare, or to include poor fathers" (11). New welfare reform came in 1996. "This established the absolute demand that mothers participate in the paid labor force, offering no exceptions to the more "virtuous" or more vulnerable women. Most significantly, by ending the entitlement to welfare benefits, this law suggested that the nation no longer believed that women and children deserved any form of special protection" (15). Women were no longer seen as the dependent of men. They were now seen as beings who can be held responsible for their own lives and breadwinning.
There are two visions of work and family life embedded in this legislation. One vision is the Work Plan. "In the Work Plan, work requirements are a way of rehabilitating mothers, transforming mothers into women who are self-sufficient, independent, productive members of society" (19). "The Family Plan, on the other hand, uses work requirements as a way of punishing mothers for their failure to get married and stay married" (19). A"ccording to the Family Plan, work requirements will teach women a lesson; they will come to know better than to get divorced or to have children out of wedlock" (19).
Hays writes, "The two competing visions embedded in welfare are directly connected to a much broader set of cultural dichotomies that haunt us all in our attempts to construct a shared vision of the good society - independence and dependence, paid work and caregiving, competitive self-interest and obligations to others, the value of the work ethic and financial successes versus the value of personal connection and community ties" (19). "Depending on one's angle of vision, welfare reform can be seen as a valorization of independence, self-sufficiency, and the work ethic. On the other hand, it can serve as a condemnation of single parenting and a reaffirmation that women's place is in the home" (20). "In conclusion, if you get rid of all the controversy and contradiction of welfare reform, at the bottom one can find a set of honorable moral principles. The worthy ideals represent collective and long-standing commitments to the values of independence, productivity, citizenship, family togetherness, social connection, and the well-being of children" (21).
The fourth article written by Fred Block and others is entitled, "The Compassion Gap in American Poverty Policy." "Our society recognizes a moral obligation to provide a helping hand to those in need, but those in poverty have been getting only the back of the hand. In reality, they receive little or no public assistance" (14).
The first question to be addressed is how countries such as Norway understand poverty. "Our government's official poverty line is quite stingy by international standards. If we used the most common international measure, which counts people who live on less than half a country's median income as poor, then almost 20 percent of the American population would be considered poor" (14). "Children in single-mother households are four times more likely to be poor in the Unites States than in Norway. These other countries all take a more comprehensive government approach to combating poverty, and they assume it is caused by economic and structural factors rather than bad behavior" (17). This is the key difference in our understandings of poverty.
The second issue to be addressed is the prevailing theory of why poor people are poor in the United States. "The common theory is that the real source of poverty is bad behavior" (16). Block writes, "Since African-American and Hispanic women and men, as well as single mothers of all ethnicity's and races, are disproportionately represented among the poor, this theory defines these people as morally deficient," (16). "Its proponents assume that anyone with enough grit and determination can escape poverty. They claim that giving people cash assistance worsens poverty by taking away their drive to improve their circumstances through work" (16).
This leads to the next issue which is how this theory operates as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those who lack compassion have made their own predictions come true. "They begin by claiming that the poor lack moral character. They use stories of welfare cheaters to increase public concern about people getting something for nothing. Consequently, our patchwork of poorly funded programs reaches only a fraction of the poor and gives them less than they need. Those who depend on these programs must cut corners and break rules to keep their families together. This "proves" the original proposition that the poor lack moral character, and the "discovery" is used to justify ever more stringent policies. The result is a spiral of diminishing compassion and greater preoccupation with the moral failings of the poor" (18). This is how this theory is a self-fulfilling prophecy. They insist that immorality is the root cause of poverty and when assistance to the poor is no where near enough, the poor have no choice but to break some rules in order to survive. Supporters of the theory then point at these infractions and say "see the poor are bad."
The last issue is that of the American Dream. "The American Dream includes owning a single-family house, full health insurance coverage, quality child care for a four-year-old, and enough annual savings to ensure that both children can attend a public, four-year college or university" (15). "The reason that the American Dream is now beyond reach for so many families is that the price of four critical services has risen much more sharply than wages and the rate of inflation: health care, higher education, child care, and housing" (19). "To make the American Dream more accessible to the poor we need new initiatives to expand the supply of these key services while assuring their quality" (19). "This requires accelerated movement toward universal health insurance and universal availability of quality child care and preschool programs. We need to move toward universal access to higher education and we need to create new public-private partnerships to expand the supply of affordable housing for poor and working families" (19). To do all these things requires restoring the value of minimum wage. "Between 1968 and 2002, the purchasing power of the federal minimum wage fell by a third. We need to reverse this trend and assure that in the future the minimum wage continues to rise with inflation. We could establish a stable income floor by transforming our present Earned Income Tax Credit into a program that provided all poor families with sufficient income to cover food and shelter. The key to making these policy initiatives feasible is to remind our fellow citizens what true compassion requires" (19).
The last article written by Dan Clawson and Naomi Gerstel is entitled, "Caring for our Young: Child Care in Europe and the United States." In the United States working parents struggle to arrange and pay for private care. Clawson and Gerstel write, "Publicly-funded child care programs are restricted to the poor. Although most U.S. parents believe that their children receive quality care, standardized ratings find most of the care mediocre and much of it seriously inadequate" (29). "This system of child care is in great contrast to those of Europe, most specifically in France. French child care is intended primarily as early education. All children, rich and poor, immigrant or not, are part of the same national system, with the same curriculum, staffed by teachers paid good wages by the same national ministry" (30). "In contrast, staff in the United States who work in child care earned $6.61, not only considerably less than teachers but also less than parking lot attendants" (31). Consequently employee turnover averages 30 percent per year, which is not beneficial for the children.
"Recent research suggests that the quality of care for young children is poor or fair in well over half of child care settings" (34). "This low quality of care, in concert with a model of intensive mothering, means that many anxious mothers privately hunt for high-quality substitutes while trying to ensure they are not being replaced. System administrators need to patch together a variety of funding streams, each with its own regulations and paperwork. Because the current system was fashioned primarily for the affluent at one end and those being pushed off welfare at the other end, it poorly serves most of the working class and much of the middle class" (34). "The features that are common to our peer nations in Europe would presumably be a part of a new U.S. system. The programs would be publicly funded and universal, available to all, either at no cost or at a modest cost with subsidies for low-income participants, The staff would be paid about the same as public school teachers. The core programs would cover at least as many hours as the school day and "wrap-around" care would be available before and after this time. Participation in the programs would be voluntary, but the programs would be of such a high quality that a majority of children would enroll" (34). This is what has to be done to improve child care in the United States.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Violence in the Family
The first article about violence in the family was by Richard Felson and entitled, "Is Violence Against Women about Women or about Violence." In this article Felson addresses the genetic perspective as well as the violence perspective to understanding violence against women. The approach called the gender perspective is the perspective known to most of the general public. "Those who follow the gender perspective argue that men assault women in order to maintain their dominance" (21). "They believe that societies tolerate violence against women, leading offenders to think that they can get away with it" (21). "The reason they are able to get away with it is because victims usually do not report the incidents. They believe that this then leads to an epidemic of violence against women, most of it hidden" (21). However, there is know a new perspective called the violence perspective. The supporters of this perspective say that we should "rely on theories of violence and crime, not theories of sexism, to explain violence against women" (21).
There is prevalent evidence to support both perspectives. Felson takes the violence perspective in his book. He states that "sexism plays at most a trivial role. Typically men who commit these crimes commit other crimes as well, and their backgrounds and attitudes toward women are similar to those of other criminals" (21). Felson states that "they are versatile "bad guys" - selfish, not sexist" (21). "More support for the violence perspective is the fact that a survey revealed that husbands and wives actually hit each other with equal frequency. However, a husband is more likely to do serious damage" (21).
The gender perspective argues with the claim that wives and husbands hit each other equally. "They argue that frequency counts are misleading because wives use violence mainly to defend themselves" (22). "Homicide research does show that women are more likely to kill in self-defense than man, but police attribute only 10 percent of homicides committed by wives to self-defense" (22). This information can lend doubt to the claim from the gender perspective. "Additionally the gender perspective implies that men use violence against wives to maintain their dominance. However, a recent survey suggests that husbands are no more controlling than wives. The survey showed that men are more likely to prevent their wives from working outside the home, but women are more likely to insist on knowing who their husbands are with at all times. Overall the women are slightly more bossy" (22). This once again hurts the gender perspective. "Gender scholars have suggested that rape is used as a form of male domination and control" (23). In an influential book written on rape, Susan Brownmiller argues that rape is used to keep women in their place. "One example cited was that of the Mehinaku, a Brazilian Indian tribe, who use the threat of group rape to prevent women from observing certain male ritual objects" (23). "On the other side, scholars from the violence perspective suggest that rape is usually just sexually motivated" (23).
Personally, after reading this article I tend to lean towards the violence perspective, but that could be because the author of the article is biased toward the violence perspective and therefore provides more evidence against the theories of the gender perspective. After reading about the survey in which woman are found to be more bossy, I found the claim by the gender perspective about dominance in husbands to have many weaknesses. This claim is central to their theory, hence why I tend to agree more with the violence perspective.
The second article about violence in the family was written by Ann Jones and entitled, "Why Doesn't She Leave?" from her book Next Time, She'll Be Dead: Battering and How to Stop It. In this article, Jones addresses exactly what the title says. She looks into why peoples immediate reaction to hearing about a wife being abused is "why doesn't she leave?" and how this can be an unfair question. Jones states that "this question is not a real question. it doesn't call for an answer; it makes a judgment. It transforms a social problem into a personal transaction and pins responsibility on the victim" (131). The question suggests two ideas. "First, it suggests that help is readily available to all worthy victims and second, that this victim must not be one of the worthy victims" (132). Jones writes that the answer is the simple truth; "that she is leaving, she does leave, she left" (132). What people do is question why she doesn't leave, even after she has left. One example to make this clearer is that of Karen Straw. Karen Straw had left her abusive husband and moved with her children to a welfare motel. She wanted a divorce but couldn't afford one. She obtained orders of protection from the court, but for two years her husband continuously cam after her. "Finally in December 1986, he broke into her room, beat her, raped her at knife point in front of the children and then threatened to kill her. She got hold of a kitchen knife, stabbing and killing him" (134). While on trial, a news anchor posed the question of why she would kill him instead of just walking away (135). The thing is she had walked away. "She had tried desperately to get away from him, but a flimsy piece of paper from court was not going to keep him away" (135). She had done everything she could to get away. With the news anchor asking that question it moved attention away from the brutally violent husband and onto the wife, who was the victim.
What Jones wants to show in this article is the fact that people have still not turned their attention from the victims to the violence of men. There definitely seems to be a gender bias in this situation. The issue presented by Jones can be related to the gender vs. violence debate presented in the first article by Felson. In this case I believe this should be looked at through the gender perspective. In society their is still this view as males dominate over females, even if it is now reduced. But this underlying belief can cause the public to take the perspective that the abused wife must be passive or helpless. What Jones is showing is that this is not the truth. The women take action, but without suitable support from the government their is only so much they can do to get away from a husband who most likely will take extreme measures to get to the wife.
In my opinion, i think the question "why doesn't she leave?" is horrible. It's a way to turn attention from the faults of the system. Karen Straw did everything that the government offered to try to get away from her husband. But what the government offered feel extremely short. It showed the terrible weaknesses in the system. It is easier for the public to ask the question of why didn't she leave, and then be able to speculate about passiveness, helplessness, dependency, etc. I think the question should be "What steps do we need to take in the government, so that men like Karen's husband cannot get to her even after she has left?"
The last article relating to violence in the family is by James Ptacek and entitled, "Why Do Men Batter Their Wives." In this article Ptacek looks at the explanations made by abusive men. In the article Ptacek points out the denials and justifications men use to explain their abusive behavior. Ptacek also shows the contradictions within their explanations. For this study, Ptacek conducted interviews with 18 abusive men. There are two types of accounts that are used by the abusive men. "The first is excuses. Excuses are those accounts in which the abuser denies full responsibility for his actions" (141). "The second is justifications. Justifications are those accounts in which the abuser may accept some responsibility but denies or trivializes the wrongness of his violence" (141). Often the abuser will use both excuses and justifications, which is where contradictions will arise.
"The most common way that batterers try to excuse their violent behavior is through an appeal to loss of control" (142). "Partial or complete loss of control is usually attributed to either alcohol or drug use or from a build up of frustrations. Of the 18 men interviewed, 94% said that their abuse was a result of either drugs or alcohol, frustrations, or complete loss of control. An alcohol-drug excuse is present in 33% of the men interviewed" (142). "With these men, when asked if they would be violent towards a woman again they said no if they could stay free of alcohol and drug dependency. A frustration-aggression description of violence is present in the accounts of 67% of the men" (143). "In the accounts of 56% of the men, descriptions of the violence are presented in terms of being completely out of control" (144). "Appeals to lose of control and victim-blaming are excuses that represent denial of responsibility. On the other hand, justifications are denials of wrongdoing on the part of the offender" (145).
The first category of justification is denial of injury. These men deny or minimize the injuries the women suffered. These men say that "the woman's fears were exaggerated, or possibly they will deny that the behavior was violent" (146). "The second category of justification is failure to fulfill obligations of a good wife. Of the 18 men interviewed, 78% gave accounts falling into this category" (147).
The definitions of excuses and justifications contradict each other. "One is a denial of responsibility, while one is a denial of wrongness. Most of the 18 men made statements falling into both categories, so they were obviously contradicting themselves" (149). "With one man, in the space of a few minutes, he went from denying responsibility, to seemingly accepting responsibility while minimizing the wrongness, to denying responsibility again" (149). This is an obvious contradiction and is just the man's attempt to make the violence appear more normal.
This article addresses the gender vs. violence debate. "Excuses and justifications are "standardized within cultures" and they are "socially approved vocabularies" for avoiding blame" (151). "These rationalizations represent culturally sanctioned strategies for minimizing and denying violence against women. The excuses of loss of control and provocation are largely taken at face value by the larger public" (155). "This shows a bit of a gender bias. People readily believe the excuses of these men. Clinicians tend to label the batterers as temporarily insane. Clinicians largely accept batterers' rationalizations for the violence" (153). The issue of people believing that women create their own victimization is discussed here as well. So once again I do believe that this shows the gender side of the debate. It seems again that men seem to get off easily.
There is prevalent evidence to support both perspectives. Felson takes the violence perspective in his book. He states that "sexism plays at most a trivial role. Typically men who commit these crimes commit other crimes as well, and their backgrounds and attitudes toward women are similar to those of other criminals" (21). Felson states that "they are versatile "bad guys" - selfish, not sexist" (21). "More support for the violence perspective is the fact that a survey revealed that husbands and wives actually hit each other with equal frequency. However, a husband is more likely to do serious damage" (21).
The gender perspective argues with the claim that wives and husbands hit each other equally. "They argue that frequency counts are misleading because wives use violence mainly to defend themselves" (22). "Homicide research does show that women are more likely to kill in self-defense than man, but police attribute only 10 percent of homicides committed by wives to self-defense" (22). This information can lend doubt to the claim from the gender perspective. "Additionally the gender perspective implies that men use violence against wives to maintain their dominance. However, a recent survey suggests that husbands are no more controlling than wives. The survey showed that men are more likely to prevent their wives from working outside the home, but women are more likely to insist on knowing who their husbands are with at all times. Overall the women are slightly more bossy" (22). This once again hurts the gender perspective. "Gender scholars have suggested that rape is used as a form of male domination and control" (23). In an influential book written on rape, Susan Brownmiller argues that rape is used to keep women in their place. "One example cited was that of the Mehinaku, a Brazilian Indian tribe, who use the threat of group rape to prevent women from observing certain male ritual objects" (23). "On the other side, scholars from the violence perspective suggest that rape is usually just sexually motivated" (23).
Personally, after reading this article I tend to lean towards the violence perspective, but that could be because the author of the article is biased toward the violence perspective and therefore provides more evidence against the theories of the gender perspective. After reading about the survey in which woman are found to be more bossy, I found the claim by the gender perspective about dominance in husbands to have many weaknesses. This claim is central to their theory, hence why I tend to agree more with the violence perspective.
The second article about violence in the family was written by Ann Jones and entitled, "Why Doesn't She Leave?" from her book Next Time, She'll Be Dead: Battering and How to Stop It. In this article, Jones addresses exactly what the title says. She looks into why peoples immediate reaction to hearing about a wife being abused is "why doesn't she leave?" and how this can be an unfair question. Jones states that "this question is not a real question. it doesn't call for an answer; it makes a judgment. It transforms a social problem into a personal transaction and pins responsibility on the victim" (131). The question suggests two ideas. "First, it suggests that help is readily available to all worthy victims and second, that this victim must not be one of the worthy victims" (132). Jones writes that the answer is the simple truth; "that she is leaving, she does leave, she left" (132). What people do is question why she doesn't leave, even after she has left. One example to make this clearer is that of Karen Straw. Karen Straw had left her abusive husband and moved with her children to a welfare motel. She wanted a divorce but couldn't afford one. She obtained orders of protection from the court, but for two years her husband continuously cam after her. "Finally in December 1986, he broke into her room, beat her, raped her at knife point in front of the children and then threatened to kill her. She got hold of a kitchen knife, stabbing and killing him" (134). While on trial, a news anchor posed the question of why she would kill him instead of just walking away (135). The thing is she had walked away. "She had tried desperately to get away from him, but a flimsy piece of paper from court was not going to keep him away" (135). She had done everything she could to get away. With the news anchor asking that question it moved attention away from the brutally violent husband and onto the wife, who was the victim.
What Jones wants to show in this article is the fact that people have still not turned their attention from the victims to the violence of men. There definitely seems to be a gender bias in this situation. The issue presented by Jones can be related to the gender vs. violence debate presented in the first article by Felson. In this case I believe this should be looked at through the gender perspective. In society their is still this view as males dominate over females, even if it is now reduced. But this underlying belief can cause the public to take the perspective that the abused wife must be passive or helpless. What Jones is showing is that this is not the truth. The women take action, but without suitable support from the government their is only so much they can do to get away from a husband who most likely will take extreme measures to get to the wife.
In my opinion, i think the question "why doesn't she leave?" is horrible. It's a way to turn attention from the faults of the system. Karen Straw did everything that the government offered to try to get away from her husband. But what the government offered feel extremely short. It showed the terrible weaknesses in the system. It is easier for the public to ask the question of why didn't she leave, and then be able to speculate about passiveness, helplessness, dependency, etc. I think the question should be "What steps do we need to take in the government, so that men like Karen's husband cannot get to her even after she has left?"
The last article relating to violence in the family is by James Ptacek and entitled, "Why Do Men Batter Their Wives." In this article Ptacek looks at the explanations made by abusive men. In the article Ptacek points out the denials and justifications men use to explain their abusive behavior. Ptacek also shows the contradictions within their explanations. For this study, Ptacek conducted interviews with 18 abusive men. There are two types of accounts that are used by the abusive men. "The first is excuses. Excuses are those accounts in which the abuser denies full responsibility for his actions" (141). "The second is justifications. Justifications are those accounts in which the abuser may accept some responsibility but denies or trivializes the wrongness of his violence" (141). Often the abuser will use both excuses and justifications, which is where contradictions will arise.
"The most common way that batterers try to excuse their violent behavior is through an appeal to loss of control" (142). "Partial or complete loss of control is usually attributed to either alcohol or drug use or from a build up of frustrations. Of the 18 men interviewed, 94% said that their abuse was a result of either drugs or alcohol, frustrations, or complete loss of control. An alcohol-drug excuse is present in 33% of the men interviewed" (142). "With these men, when asked if they would be violent towards a woman again they said no if they could stay free of alcohol and drug dependency. A frustration-aggression description of violence is present in the accounts of 67% of the men" (143). "In the accounts of 56% of the men, descriptions of the violence are presented in terms of being completely out of control" (144). "Appeals to lose of control and victim-blaming are excuses that represent denial of responsibility. On the other hand, justifications are denials of wrongdoing on the part of the offender" (145).
The first category of justification is denial of injury. These men deny or minimize the injuries the women suffered. These men say that "the woman's fears were exaggerated, or possibly they will deny that the behavior was violent" (146). "The second category of justification is failure to fulfill obligations of a good wife. Of the 18 men interviewed, 78% gave accounts falling into this category" (147).
The definitions of excuses and justifications contradict each other. "One is a denial of responsibility, while one is a denial of wrongness. Most of the 18 men made statements falling into both categories, so they were obviously contradicting themselves" (149). "With one man, in the space of a few minutes, he went from denying responsibility, to seemingly accepting responsibility while minimizing the wrongness, to denying responsibility again" (149). This is an obvious contradiction and is just the man's attempt to make the violence appear more normal.
This article addresses the gender vs. violence debate. "Excuses and justifications are "standardized within cultures" and they are "socially approved vocabularies" for avoiding blame" (151). "These rationalizations represent culturally sanctioned strategies for minimizing and denying violence against women. The excuses of loss of control and provocation are largely taken at face value by the larger public" (155). "This shows a bit of a gender bias. People readily believe the excuses of these men. Clinicians tend to label the batterers as temporarily insane. Clinicians largely accept batterers' rationalizations for the violence" (153). The issue of people believing that women create their own victimization is discussed here as well. So once again I do believe that this shows the gender side of the debate. It seems again that men seem to get off easily.
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