Motherhood

Questions:
1. According to Hays, what were the four historical stages of development in the cultural notions of appropriate mothering in America in 17-20th centuries? What is intensive mothering, and does this concept apply to your mother or mothers of your friends?
2. In Crittenden's view, what are the main indicators that mothering is devalued in the United States? Do you agree with her?
3. According to Collins, what are the two types of mothering that Black women tend to do? How are these related to the notion of "motherhood as a symbol of power"?
4. According to Edin and Kefalas, what are the poor women's attitudes on and experiences with marriage and childbearing, and what can the society do to help these women get out of poverty? What is your opinion?


1. According to Hays, the four historical stages of development in the cultural notions of appropriate mothering in Amerca were:
1) the religiously grounded model of the Puritans- In Europe in the Middle Ages, children were considered demonic, anlimalistic, ill-formed, and fragile. It was right to fear them, for it was considered their natural instinct to harm both themselves and adults. Adults usually ignored them and left them under the care of someone else, often wet nurses, until they were 6 or 7 years old and could become apprentices and achieve social value. If adults did have any affection for their children, it was considered socially innapropriate to show it, as well as impractical, because so many children died before adulthood and it was a waste of investment. This began to change around the 17th and 18th centuries when the idea of childhood as a time of innocence came about, though not very extensively. In Puritan New England, there was no notion of childhood innocence, but they did see it as a special and distinct stage of life in which the child needed to be "redeemed" through discipline, physical punishment, religious instruction, and work. Young children were thought to have inherent sinfulness in the form of "self-will" and needed to be trained to obey God, parents, and work. They were also an economic asset and contributed to the "family economy" startin at a very young age. The father was the ruler of the home and both his wife and children had to obey him. Women were believed to be susceptible to indulgence and passions and were valued for child rearing and not child raising. That was in the hands of the church, community, and the male head of the household.
2) the nineteenth-century valorization of mothers- Children began to be seen not as inherent sinners in need of redemption, but as innocent "reedemers", and parents began to feel the need to prolong childhood as long as they could, and mother-child affection began to come into play. In the fervor of the revolutionary period, women were determined to shed their label of dependence, irrationality, and desire for luxury, and establish themselves as capable of raising virtuous citizens for a new nation, and believed they should be educated for the role. Women and children in the home were seen as the moral counterpart to the corruption of the outside world, and the "cult of domesticity" emerged: women were expected to provide moral and emotional sustenance for their husbands and children, and represented a more virtuous world. Child rearing guidebooks began to appear. To mold a child meant develop their conscience, morals, manners, religious faith, and cirtuous citzenship, and all were dependent on affection. A mother must instill virtue in her children by maintaining her own. Child rearing became to be seen as a task that was best done by the mother alone, without servants, older siblings, or other women- these were the building blocks of the ideology of intensive mothering. A middle-class child's future was no longer decided by their father's status, but by their own performance when they become adults. However, it is difficult to see how extensive the commitment to these new ideals were, since many middle-class homes had nurses maids, and governesses. In addition, working class children had a completely different experience, having to help earn wages for their families they didn't have the prolonged, innocent childhood of the middle class.
3) the early 20th century establishment of expert-guided child rearing- At the turn of the century, child rearing increasingly became thought of as a science. To overcome the social ills of the Progressive Era, such as immigration, increasing poverty, and labor unrest, it was believed that many "experts" could provide technical and scientific solutions to these problems. These experts advised in favor of strict scheduling of feeding, changing, sleeping, and playing, and against affectionate nurture and should "cry it out" rather than be comforted. The child had lost its status as innocent and was considered full of dangerous impulses that the parents must help it overcome. Child labor laws and compulsory education disrupted the family economy, more women had to work to offset the lack of wages provided by children. More and more women were initiated into the culture of intense mothering when they stayed at home to raise their children until they were old to enough to go to school. The focus of child raising shifted focus from moral character to scientific categories of emotional, behavioral, and cognitive development. As a result, mother's had to keep up with all the latest information on these scientific categories, keep a tight rein on their displays of affection, and pay close attention to the child's stage of development.
4) the permissive era- In the 1930's, strict scheduling, detached handling, and behavior modification lost favor, and love and affection were once again emphasized. However, the goals of affection were changed. Before the goal was to raise a child to be a good adult for the good of the family and the good of society. Now the idea is that the natural development of the child and the fulfullment of the child's desires are ends in themselves, and should be the basis of child raising. It became the mother's job to understand each of her individual children and allow their needs to determine her own behavior. She is expected to recognize each cognitive stage that the child goes through in order to meet their needs during each one. Women were expected to fina a middle road between neglect/rejection and overprotection/overindulgence, and increasingly used manuals and doctors to help them.
Intensive mothering is the model in which childhood is seen as a time of innocence, and their rearing should be centered on their needs and carried out primarily by mothers, with the guidance of experts, and is labor-intensive and costly. I feel that this concept does generally apply to my mother, and many of my friends. My mother did center her life on me and my brother and my sisters needs. I know that she had a lot of child rearing manuals, but I don't know how often she consulted it or how big of a role it played in raising us. While I feel that this model is very accurate, I also feel that this article doesn't give father's enough credit, and doesn't really attempt to explain how their roles changed over time. Growing up, my father worked a steady job, but spent a lot of time with us regardless and played a huge role in the raising of me and my siblings.

2. In her article, Crittendon argues that mothering is devalued in the United States because no one considers being a houswife to be a job worth compensation, despite actually being the hardest occupation. The main indicators of this are, first, that workplaces are very inflexible and force women to cut back on or even quit their jobs when they have children. This produces a huge loss of income, estimated to be more than a million dollars for a college-educated woman. Second, marriage is not an equal financial partnership. Mothers in 47 out of the 50 states don't have indisputable legal right to half of their assests. Furthermore, a mother's unpaid work doesn't entitle her to any ownership of her husbands income during marriage or after divorce. Third, government social policies don't define unpaid care of family as work, and one who does this isn't even considered a "full productive citizen", and is not eligible for social insurance programs, unemployment insurance, or workman's compensation (6). Those who do similar work for pay, like teachers, day care, and nannies, are also devalued. A mother's worth was estimated at $508,700 per year in wages alone, and yet she makes nothing. I definately agree with Crittendon that mothering is extremely devalued. Our society often looks down on women who choose to stay at home and raise their children rather than pursue a "life" of their own, and say that they "do nothing all day", when in reality raising children and taking care of a home is not only more work than any other paid job, but more important. I don't know that a society in which mother's are paid to be mother's would ever work, but I definately think they can be respected in other ways, including in government programs and courts.

3. According to Collins, it is common for Black women in the United States to partake in two types of mothering. The first is the natural care and raising of their own biological children. African American communities tend to believe that giving one person complete responsibility for mothering another human being is unwise and even impossible. As a result, it has become traditional that in addition to being bloodmothers, many women in African American communities are also "othermothers", meaning they assist other bloodmothers with the raising of their respective children. While men may be physically present and extremely important in the extended family, women tend to be the center. Grandmothers, sisters, aunts, and cousins may all act as othermothers to each other's children. Grandmothers in particular offer a lot of support when their children are raising their own kids. This was especially evident in the 1980s and 1990s when they saw their children get involved in drugs and crime, and often left behind their own children. Many such children were saved from foster care by their grandmother. In addition to raising children in their extended families, many black women also have "fictive kin"-- children in the community who they are not biologically related to but helped raise anyway. Neighbors often help one another out as well. In the African American communities, motherhood is seen as a symbol of power. When African Americans describe a "strong Black woman", they are describing the power that that black woman has to revitalize and uplift the community. Such women work on behalf of all the children, women and men of their communitues and attempt to "uplift the race". Raising more than just your own children gives you the ability to have influence over and change the lives of a great number of people. Seeing motherhood as a symbol of power causes Black women to take actions they might not have taken otherwise. Collin's cites an example of this by telling the story of a black woman who's 14 year old son was brutally murdered in Mississippi in 1955. She said she "Wanted the world to see" what had happened to her son and insisted on having an open casket funeral to display his battered body. Another woman said that "To me, having a baby inside me is the only time I'm really alive, I know I can make something, do something, no matter what color my skin is, and what names people call me". Having a child gives one the opportunity to make a difference, and in for Black women, having a community of children magnifies that opportunity.

4. According to Eden and Kefalas, poor women are more likely to have children earlier in life. The poor revere marriage, and see failed marriages and divorce as worse than having children out of wedlock. They see marriage as a commitment that is forever, and want to wait until they can marry well. Among poor couples there is often mistrust created by violence, infidelity, drugs and alcohol, criminal activity, and imprisonment. They often remain with with a partner for several years before turning to marriage so that they can test and be sure it will work. Many poor women are not content to rely on a man's earnings and want to become economically dependent on their own before getting married. The reasons for this are because they want an equal partnership or more say in a relationship, or insurance in a failed marriage. For many, children offer many and strong sense of purpose and source of intimacy and a "self-made community" (18). Many claim that having children helped to stabilize their lives and keep them away from drugs, alcohol, and other dangerous activities. Most recognize that having a child while poor and unmarried is not an ideal thing to do, but since their economic prospects are already limited, they have little motivation to schedule and plan their children as those of the middle class do. They often center on children at a time in their lives when the more wealthy would be planning for college and careers. They highly desire kids and believe that they are capable of mothering them even in the difficult circumstances. As the gap between the rich and poor grows, many see having very little to lose and a lot to gain by having a child. Society can help women get out of poverty by allowing them more access to jobs that can lead to their financial indepence, eventually allowing them to feel secure in their marriages. I think that the attitudes of poor women make complete sense. As middle to upper class college students, people in our community have a lot to lose by getting pregnant and having a child, and we tend to think that everyone has that mindset as well. But those who are poor have had difficult lives and often a child of their own can give them stability, purpose, and companionship. Most wish to get married but have high standards for marriage, and won't go through with it unless they know it will work. A lot of poor women refuse to rely on a man's money, which is respectable. Also, they don't neccesarily have opportunities to meet men that are well-off, because, as the article says, in their partner market, better-off men go to the better-off women. By getting jobs that lead to financial indepence, more women will be able to compete for partners and eventually feel comfortable getting married.