motherhood

In the middle ages, Hays describes an idea of child rearing that was extremely hands off. Babies were not heaped with love, toys, and other luxuries. In fact, they were often ignored. This, Hays claims is due to the fear of babies “demonic properties”, which were socially constructed.(24) it was not until age 6-7 that children, now considered mature, would be more affiliated with parents. Moving on through the 17th-18th centuries showed a change. Childhood changed from a demonic period in a child’s life to a valuable period. They began to feel that children were innocent as compared to demonic. IN this period, children were afforded special clothes and toys. (25) This occurred in Europe, but not in New England, where the old ways still flourished, along with additional strict puritanical discipline. Moving into the 19th century, mothers of affluent families would often use servants to raise their children. This is similar to medieval wet nurses,, yet very different in the fact that wet nurses often did not even differentiate between children, while servants would often take very good care of children. That is, it was thought that a good nursemaid was hard to find and given priority.(36) Toward the end of the 19th century, the focus on the mother’s ability to manage their own children changed. It was believed that they must be scientifically trained by doctors, or others who “knew best.” (39) This lead to child labor laws and mandatory education. Finally, contemporary child rearing has shifted more into the “permissive era”. Instead of focusing on teaching children “scientifically”, it was though that teaching inherent goodness was more important. (45). This has moved us into the more common practices that seem second nature to us today.

Intensive mothering came about after world war II. It was a drastic change from “Rosie the Riveter”, who during the war helped the war effort in the fact that it forced mother back into the home. It encouraged women not to work, but to keep a solid household and shower children with live and affection. This seems foreign to me, not in the love and affection part, but in mothers always being around. My family, and those of my friends, had full time working mothers. So the ideals of “the feminine mystique” do not seem to apply in my case. However, the unconditional love from both mothers and fathers was never an issue as far as I knew in my own or my friends families.

Crittendon describes motherhood as getting all the lip-service in the world, but no actual respect, and I believe she does it rather convincingly. She describes the duties of maintaining a household and asserts that it is often associated with “doing nothing” Even childless women have been known to criticize mothers for not working. Crittendon herself claims she originally wrote an article defending motherhood, but it was more out of compassionate contempt. The social views of the populace claim to admire mothers, but as it is stated in the article by one mother; ”I cannot mention my 13 years of experience caring for a chronically ill child on my resume.” Just looking at pay rates for child care is enough to show how little value is placed on child rearing.(6)

According to Collins, the two types of mothering that black women tend to take are 1.) The common image, that of the controlling mother, the matriarch, and the welfare mother. As Collins points out, these are all forms of oppression and designed to keep the status quo i.e. oppression. (176) Mothers in this group encourage their children not to be creative, but the be able to work, get a job and support themselves. And 2.) The second is a style in which mothers encourage creativity, self respect, strong character and furthering education. They view this a chance for themselves to become a sort of social activist. (176 I believe that this can ALSO lead their children to become social activists, for the black community as well. I believe that it can be related to the system of power in the passage on 175 in which the black PHD (on seeing a struggling black mother) exclaims, “That is one strong sister.” He believes that this women, who is barely getting by, is a powerful mother even though the images fall into the first category of oppression. I wish her story could have been elaborated on further to see if her parenting styles also fit that mold, or moved more toward the second category.


The attitude of many mothers in Edin and Kefala’s article is one of gratitude toward their children. Many of the mother claimed that having their children saved them in the sense that it gave them a new perspective and purpose in life. In Jen’s story she says that having a child gives her a reason to go home at night and not to buy drugs or otherwise get into trouble. She also claims that staying unmarried gives her a certain economic insurance. That is, if they did get a divorce (which she deemed likely) she would be in much more trouble than if she never was married. In order to help mothers like Jen get out of poverty, they will need access to jobs that ALLOW them to do so. (22) In addition, just advocating for marriage will not help if further support is not given. As Jen pointed out, it’s a good possibility that not marrying had made her life a great deal better.

adoption, welfare, etc...

The main reason that many women would choose a home birth over a hospital birth is the issue of choice and privacy. This is directly weighed against the governments interest in public health, specifically in the mother and the child. The data however, would suggest that contrary to popular belief, a home birth can be just as safe, if not safer than a hospital birth. This may have something to do with a hospital’s tendency to intervene in childbirth, sometimes doing more harm than good. It is my opinion that a woman has the right to choose where she would have her baby. If she feels more comfortable in her own home, it is truly her prerogative. In the same token, if a woman feels more comfortable with a doctor and all the specialized treatments and equipment that a hospital has to offer, it is also her choice. As to those who cite safety concerns, one must only look at the statistics cited in the article about other western nations. These are higher rates of midwife aided births with a lower mortality rate.
I have never given much thought to adoption, though my conception of it was that it would be very similar to how it is now, based on care. This was an incorrect assumption however. Originally, adoption was designed to help maintain bloodlines. (Which are not important in the US, but were in England and still are in France). Childless couples could adopt in order to maintain their family name and grantee an heir. The article mentions that occasionally illegitimate children who were acknowledged by a father could be adopted.
IN the US, Massachusetts specifically, there was, and still is not any emphasis on bloodlines. In the past, adopting a child might be compared to “buying or selling a cornfield”, as Friedman puts it. Missouri law actually compared adopting a child to the acquisition of real estate. Luckily in more recent times, the courts systems have not only been charged with overseeing the “contract” of the adoption, but also the welfare of a child…which has taken on a much higher importance.
Welfare reform is a big issue in my studies as I plan on eventually going on the gat my MSW…however it is still astonishing how much I do not understand about it. At first glance I am sickened by the conservative view of welfare, that people who are on it are lazy, and “freeloading”. They believe that those on welfare lack a certain morality. This flies directly in the face of my views, which are far more liberal. That is that those on welfare generally are not people who lack morals or drive, but economic hardship has driven them to these points and they should be helped. (Of course, working in a social services office for a summer and watching the case workers dented my idealistic view a bit, but did not break it)
According to Hays, 90% of those on welfare are single mothers. The welfare reforms have made it increasingly hard to stay on welfare, as new limits on who qualifies and for how long have been enacted. Conservative family values seem stunted when single mothers are forced to get jobs in order to stay on welfare, and as a result must leave their children. This country’s emphasis on self sufficiency and a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality is all fine, but almost impossible to realize with today’s cycle of poverty. Children in poverty will either go without money, because a mother stays home, or without a mother, because the welfare system requires that at all times she be training, looking, or holding down a job.
Countries like the Netherlands consider poverty to be caused by economic and structural factors, rather than “bad behavior” according to Block, Korteweg and Woodward.. The bad behavior approach is more common in the US, where policy makers assume that it is because of laziness, drug use and promiscuity that poverty is maintained. (This very much echoes Hays ideas.) As I mentioned earlier, mothers who are forced to work to remain on welfare cannot take care of their kids, who then may get into trouble without supervision. IN addition, these women must sometimes “cheat’ the system because the requirements have become so ridiculously stringent. In order to improve, there must be a consistent effort to improve the range of people social services reach AND their quality. Other initiatives like raising the minimum wage to a reasonable level (at least high enough to raise families above the poverty line) must be taken on.
According to Clawson and Gerstel, in order to improve the child care system in the US, we must stop thinking about it as child care, and more as early education. IN the French education system, children begin school at the age of three. Even though much if it is thought it be fun, much of the day is used educationally. Clawson and Gerstel also point out that it is only a small bit more expensive for the French public version ($4500 per child) than it is for US version of private child care. However, in France, the standards are easy figure out. IN the United States, the standards and quality of child care is far more hit or miss.

violence against women

The gender perspective is based on the predication that we live in a sexist society. As a result, violence against women is often not reported to police. When it is, it is often not prosecuted and the offending male escapes punishment. This also looks at violence against women as just that...men committing violence against women. The violence perspective does not assume we live in a sexist society, just a violent one. It looks directly at statistics saying that men are more likely to commit a violent crime, and most often against other men. When they commit crimes against women, it is because they are a criminal, not a sexist.
It is my position that in order to get a full picture, you must take both perspectives together. Looking at violence as the sole fault of criminals or "bad guys" completely ignores the fact that we DO live in a sexist society. To deny it would be to move backwards from our progress during the ongoing women's movement.
Jones claims that the answer to the question “why doesn’t she leave?” (as pertains to battered women) is that they most certainly do leave. The story about Karen Straw, where she tried to separate for two years, tried to have him prosecuted for 2 years, and then ended up being beaten, raped and held hostage, tell a powerful story. The most telling factor was probably that Karen was the one who ended up being prosecuted when she finally defended herself. This story would support the gender perspective as described by Felson. It shows that it is difficult, if not impossible to fight back against a battering husband, let alone just simply leave, even though one might try.
One of the most common excuses men used, according to Ptacek, was the denial of responsibility. They would claim that they had lost control of themselves, therefore minimizing their actual responsibility in the battering. Some even cited drugs or alcohol in their loss of control. Ptacek even claimed that many of the men thought physical violence was an appropriate response to a wife’s verbal abuse. Another common excuse is that women are exaggerating their injuries. That is, the men do not beat their wives “that bad”.
The contradictions within these excuses are everywhere. Ptacek describes that most men wanted to keep their dominance. Loss of control is no excuse if your behavior patterns say otherwise. Writing threatening letters to their wives, or driving them back to their mothers so they can show them how to be a wife are a few behaviors described in the article. If battering was a “loss of control”, then these men would not be exhibiting these other sexist behaviors. It is this attempt by men to maintain dominance over women by any means necessary that supports the gender perspective. The fact that it is so accepted that men would behave like this shows the depths of our society’s misogyny.