mothers who make things public

This paper is an attempt to elaborate two concerns: those of maternal ethics, and notions of making things public. I attempt to bring these two concerns together and think them alongside one another, in hopefully productive ways. I want, in other words, to think about the ethics of what mothers ‘make public’, whether this is understood in its most rudimentary form, of enabling a child to express something, to make public an affective state, for instance, even if it is only the mother who is there to witness or receive it, through to more overt and material forms of ‘publication’ glimpsed when mothers parent in spaces we call ‘public’. This paper focuses on what happens to us all when we encounter ‘mothering’ – not in the enclosed, private, secluded spaces where we imagine mothering to take place, but in what Marc Augé has termed the ‘non-places of supermodernity’, where much of the day-to-day material practices of mothering in Western late-modern urban contexts actually occurs. As is often the case, it is when experience is dislodged from the contexts in which we expect to find it that its contours are shown up in relief, and we are called on to re-configure our understandings of experiences in ways that also shift our understandings of the contexts in which they occur. In this sense, mothering, that I am claiming ‘makes things public’, as well as occurring frequently and importantly ‘in public’, not only shows up something we may overlook about the maternal, but also deforms and reforms our understandings of ‘the public’ itself.     

Feeding Mothers’ Love: Stories of Breastfeeding and Mothering in Urban China

ABSTRACT

By analysing narratives of infant feeding, this article explores how emotions are involved in the making of maternal subjectivity. The article is based on interviews with 21 Chinese middle-class mothers of small infants living in Beijing and their stories of how breastfeeding connects to intimacy and love. By merging post-structural approaches of subjectivity with affect theory, the article shows how the emotional dimension of breastfeeding promotes an ideal of mothers as primary caregivers. It finds that this ideal is challenged by practices of multiple caregiving in the mothers’ everyday lives. By exploring the performativity of emotions, the article adds another sociological perspective beyond those concerned with medical discourses of feeding infants. Also, as emotions have been neglected in much social research on Chinese mothering, it contributes to new sociological knowledge about mothering in China.     

activist-mothers maybe,sisters surely? Black British feminism,absence and transformation

This article, drawing on selected feminist magazines of the 1980s, particularly Feminist Arts News (FAN) and GEN, offers a textual ‘braiding’ of narratives to re-present a history of Black British feminism. I attempt to chart a history of Black British feminist inheritance while proposing the politics of (other)mothering as a politics of potential, pluralistic and democratic community building, where Black thought and everyday living carry a primary and participant role. The personal—mothering our children—is the political, affording a nurturing of alterity through a politics of care that is fundamentally antiracist and antisexist. I attempt to show how Black feminist thought can significantly contribute to democracy in the present and how Black British history and thought, as fundamentally antiracist and anticolonial, can generate a reinvention much needed in the present of a shared British history. I argue for feminist intervention premised upon a politics of care, addressing through activist mothering the urgency of Black absence from prestigious institutions. Such debilitating absence in Britain inhibits the development of scholarship, distorts feminist history and seriously concerns potential Black feminists. From diverse texts, I develop a genealogical narrative supplemented through memory work. This ‘gathering and re-using’ privileges Black women’s theorising as a crucial component of the methodological métissage, which includes auto-theorising to develop ideas of resemblance in relation to Black British feminism and feminist kinship. The resultant ‘braiding’, I suggest after Lionnet, questions the absence of intersubjective spaces for reflection on Black British feminist praxis, indicating a direction for British feminists of all complexions. Attentive to the 1980s as historical context while invoking the maternal, I consider what is required to engage generationally, counterwrite the academy and pursue a dynamic process of transformation within a transnational feminism that challenges Black British absence from academic knowledge production, while nurturing its presence.     

Understanding child abuse: Ideologies of motherhood

Child abuse is usually considered to be a social problem where ‘bad mothering’ is of central concern.This study argues that the institution of motherhood in western society is oppressive, however; indeed, under the circumstances, it is surprising that incidents of child abuse are not more widespread. Some of the difficulties and dilemmas of women as mothers are discussed with a view to suggesting ways in which women can break out of the isolating experience of abusing children.     

The ‘Good’ Attached Mother: An Analysis of Postmaternal and Postracial Thinking in Birth and Breastfeeding Policy in Neoliberal Britain

ABSTRACT

In the last 20 years, a new parenting philosophy has garnered increasing attention and popularity. Coined by William Sears in the early 1980s, attachment parenting (AP) proposes that secure attachment between parent and child is necessary for optimal development and therefore ‘good’ parenting. Simultaneously, neoliberalism, a socio-political context defined by market logic, has emerged as the dominant global trend. In this article, I examine the correspondence between AP, and the broader ideology of intensive mothering it expresses, and the parenting-related policies advanced by the neoliberal state. Specifically, I focus on how birth and breastfeeding policy in Britain aligns with AP, contextualising the emergence of AP and its appearance in contemporary state policy as the result of two features of neoliberalism: postmaternal and post-racial thinking. I draw attention to the experiences of black mothers and, through this lens, reveal the raced, gendered and classed dimensions of ‘good’ parenting. In my examination of these policies, I argue that postmaternal and postracial thinking have enabled the emergence of AP, an approach that individualises child-rearing and relies upon an uncritical appropriation of the so-called traditional practices of racialised women.     

Kibbutz adolescence: Relevance to personality development theory

The paper presents the child-raising model of the Israeli kibbutzim and describes the modal kibbutz adolescent. The relation of some of its significant constituents (multiple mothering, peer group living, institutionalization of values, and role expectations) to the course and the outcome of adolescent maturation is reviewed. The advantages and disadvantages of the extended psychosocial moratorium are considered, and it is suggested that time-limited adolescence may be a favorable factor on healthy personality growth. Kibbutz experience also seems to disprove the established concept that adolescent turmoil is a developmental necessity. It is hypothesized that the extension of the period of adolescence contributes to turmoil and that, as a result of this, healthy development may be partly endangered.Received M.D. from Vienna University, Austria. Current research interests are adolescent psychopathology and schizophrenia.Received B.S. from Western Reserve University and M.D. from Hebrew University, Hadassah Medical School. Current research interests are personality development of kibbutz children, development of children of schizophrenic parents, and other issues of early child development.     

Young Offenders' Experiences of Child Protection Services

Young adult offenders' experiences of child protection services (CPS) from birth to 16 years of age were examined using early files from various agencies. File data concerning childhood abuse and neglect, family problems (e.g., parental alcoholism and criminality), and CPS interventions were available for 78 offenders. The vast majority of offenders had been clients of the CPS, and most entered the system first when older than 13 years. Half of the offenders had been placed in foster care. Hierarchical cluster analysis revealed two groups: 23 offenders with an early onset of foster care and multiple interventions and 55 offenders with a late-onset of outpatient services and a lower rate of interventions. A significantly higher proportion of the Early-onset foster care group than the Late-onset outpatient care group had records of psychological abuse and neglect, as well as of criminal and alcoholic parents. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted, with parental problems and maltreatment as predictor variables and the number of interventions as a dependent variable. When parental mental health problems, alcoholism, and criminality were entered first in the regression equation, maternal alcoholism and father's criminality predicted the number of interventions. When childhood maltreatment was first controlled for, neglect and father's criminality were significant predictors. The possible linkages between parental problems, maltreatment, and CPS interventions are discussed.     

“My Kids,They Safe.”: Lived Experiences of Parents Receiving Child Neglect Allegations

Abstract

This study aims to explore parents’ lived experiences of receiving child neglect allegations and how they make sense of these experiences. The sample consists of parents who participated in a family preservation program following allegations of child neglect. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The findings suggest that parents resist neglect allegations, both by denial and minimization, partly due to their lack of clear understanding of what constitutes child neglect. Further, parents in this study tended to be reactive to meanings ascribed to the label of child neglect rather than the allegations per se. They seemed to experience internal conflict between their positive evaluations of their own parenting and what their neglect allegations might imply about their parenting. Parents also experienced emotional distress, such as concern about social stigma and fear of losing their parental rights, as they tried to make sense of their current situations. Suggested implications for practice include exploring parents’ subjective understanding of their allegations and considering their unique familial and sociocultural contexts from the outset of their involvement with child protective services (CPS) in order to build a collaborative working alliance.     

What Mothers Do: Motherhood as a Resource for Negotiating Sick-Leave Legitimacy in Swedish Sickness Insurance Interactions

Sick leave in the Nordic countries is a gendered issue. Alongside other explanations, women’s higher levels of sick leave have been linked to their far-reaching family responsibilities. Meanwhile, studies have shown how such responsibilities induce questioning of the legitimacy of sick leave, indicating that normative aspects linking these categories cannot solely be approached in terms of causal explanations. The current study suggests an alternative way of studying this relationship, approaching motherhood as something being “done” in situated ways, to particular ends; a resource for interaction. By analysing naturally occurring interactions—meetings held by the Swedish Social Insurance Agency—the study renders visible the collaborative production of sick leave as a gendered matter, and motherhood as part of the negotiation of sickness insurance. The analysis shows the meaning and import of motherhood for sick leave to be a live issue for participants, drawing attention to how these categories are neither culturally predefined, nor dispositional, but flexibly assembled for certain purposes. Motherhood functions as a resource in two ways: (1) displaying restricted ability to care for children supports claims of impairment; (2) invoking motherhood works to account for slow or inactive rehabilitation. However, occasioning motherhood in the examined context is also risky: (3) displaying extensive mothering may be treated as indicating low commitment to rehabilitation, and (4) displaying limited mothering may be taken as indicating unfitness as a parent.     

Mothers’ and Fathers’ Autonomy-Relevant Parenting: Longitudinal Links with Adolescents’ Externalizing and Internalizing Behavior

The goal of this study was to advance the understanding of separate and joint effects of mothers’ and fathers’ autonomy-relevant parenting during early and middle adolescence. In a sample of 518 families, adolescents (49 % female; 83 % European American, 16 % African American, 1 % other ethnic groups) reported on their mothers’ and fathers’ psychological control and knowledge about adolescents’ whereabouts, friends, and activities at ages 13 and 16. Mothers and adolescents reported on adolescents’ externalizing and internalizing behaviors at ages 12, 14, 15, and 17. Adolescents perceived their mothers as using more psychological control and having more knowledge than their fathers, but there was moderate concordance between adolescents’ perceptions of their mothers and fathers. More parental psychological control predicted increases in boys’ and girls’ internalizing problems and girls’ externalizing problems. More parental knowledge predicted decreases in boys’ externalizing and internalizing problems. The perceived levels of behavior of mothers and fathers did not interact with one another in predicting adolescent adjustment. The results generalize across early and late adolescence and across mothers’ and adolescents’ reports of behavior problems. Autonomy-relevant mothering and fathering predict changes in behavior problems during early and late adolescence, but only autonomy-relevant fathering accounts for unique variance in adolescent behavior problems.     

Childhood Neglect,Internalizing Symptoms and Adolescent Substance Use: Does the Neighborhood Context Matter?

Childhood neglect is associated with risk behaviors in adolescence, including substance use. There is evidence that internalizing behaviors may serve as a mechanism linking childhood neglect and substance use; however, further research is needed to examine this developmental pathway. According to developmental and ecological approaches, the neighborhood context and the developmental timing of maltreatment should both be considered when examining the sequelae of childhood neglect. Hence, the present study uses a longitudinal sample of youth (N?=?965, 49.1% female, 59.2% African-American) to examine the influence of timing in the relationship between childhood neglect and adolescent psychopathology, and to examine the indirect effects of child neglect on substance use via internalizing symptoms in adolescence. Furthermore, the role of neighborhood disorder in this indirect effect was tested. Five data collection time points were used: Time 1(M _age ?=?4.557, SD _age ?=?.701), Time 2 (M _age ?=?6.422, SD _age ?=?.518), Time 3 (M _age ?=?12.370, SD _age ?=?.443), Time 4 (M _age ?=?14.359, SD _age ?=?.452), and Time 5 (M _age ?=?16.316, SD _age ?=?.615). The findings showed that internalizing problems mediated the link between the severity of neglect in early childhood and adolescent substance use, and this pathway was moderated by neighborhood disorder. These results have implications for preventative interventions aimed toward reducing substance use for at-risk adolescents.     

Adolescent Neglect, Juvenile Delinquency and the Risk of Recidivism

Victims of child abuse and neglect are at an increased risk of involvement with the juvenile justice and adult correctional systems. Yet, little is known about the continuation and trajectories of offending beyond initial contact with law enforcement. Neglect likely plays a critical role in continued offending as parental monitoring, parental rejection and family relationships are instrumental in explaining juvenile conduct problems. This study sought to determine whether neglect is associated with recidivism for moderate and high risk juvenile offenders in Washington State. Statewide risk assessments and administrative records for child welfare, juvenile justice, and adult corrections were analyzed. The sample was diverse (24 % female, 13 % African American, 8 % Hispanic, 5 % Native American) and included all moderate and high risk juvenile offenders screened by juvenile probation between 2004 and 2007 (n = 19,833). Official records from child protection were used to identify juvenile offenders with a history of child neglect and to identify juvenile offenders with an ongoing case of neglect. Event history models were developed to estimate the risk of subsequent offending. Adolescents with an ongoing case neglect were significantly more likely to continue offending as compared with youth with no official history of neglect. These findings remain even after controlling for a wide range of family, peer, academic, mental health, and substance abuse covariates. Interrupting trajectories of offending is a primary focus of juvenile justice. The findings of the current study indicate that ongoing dependency issues play a critical role in explaining the outcomes achieved for adolescents in juvenile justice settings. The implications for improved collaboration between child welfare and juvenile justice are discussed.     

‘Everyone needs a holiday from work,why not mothers?’ Motherhood,Feminism and Citizenship at the Australian Royal Commission on Human Relationships, 1974–1977

The Royal Commission on Human Relationships was an initiative of the Whitlam government, instigated in 1974 to investigate ‘the family, social, educational, legal and sexual aspects of male and female relationships’, with particular attention to the concept of ‘responsible parenthood’. The Commission heard evidence from thousands of Australians on a broad range of topics, and given the Royal Commission's origins in the 1973 Federal Parliamentary debate over abortion, it is perhaps unsurprising that motherhood featured so prominently in submissions presented to the Commission. In this article it is argued that mothers’ submissions to the Royal Commission on Human Relationships reveal the ways that social and cultural meanings of motherhood were being contested in 1970s Australia. Rather than making claims for rights in the established language of maternal citizenship, many women deployed their private experiences of mothering to argue that the state should facilitate their access to both paid employment and time away from mothering. These mothers argued for equal citizenship rights, challenging the reproductive compact that had long been central to maternal citizenship. The submissions reveal the ways that mothers (and their critics) drew upon both new and old meanings of motherhood to articulate new cultural and political possibilities for motherhood and citizenship in 1970s Australia.     

“(L)Activists and Lattes”: Breastfeeding Advocacy as Domestic Performance

This article considers how “lactivists” (lactation activists) consciously stage the act of public breastfeeding as a means of political advocacy, cultural resistance, and ideological subversion. Through the exploration of a specific nurse-in protest (the 2004 Nurse at Starbucks campaign in Silver Spring, Maryland), the author explores how the “domestic performance” of nurse-ins force spectators to confront (and hopefully, reconsider) latent and overt assumptions about motherhood in relation to parenting proficiency, civic responsibility, maternal sexuality, and political efficacy. In so doing, the author discloses how nurse-ins subvent traditional perceptions of mothers and mothering as a way of instigating social change.     

Developmental Growth Trajectories of Self-Esteem in Adolescence: Associations with Child Neglect and Drug Use and Abuse in Young Adulthood

Neglectful rearing is linked with young adults’ substance use and abuse, though the developmental mechanisms that underlie this association are unclear. The present study examines links between self-esteem growth during adolescence, childhood supervisory versus physical neglect severity, and substance use and abuse in young adulthood. A sample of youth was obtained from the Add Health study (N = 8738; 55.4 %-Female; 20 %-African American, 14.7 %-Hispanic). Growth mixture modeling analyses supported declining, ascending, and stable high self-esteem trajectories. The declining and ascending trajectories reported greater neglect and alcohol abuse (but not use) as well as cannabis use and abuse. The findings suggest that compromised development of self-esteem underlies associations between neglect and substance use and abuse. Preventive interventions may benefit from targeting self-esteem among neglected youth.     

At-risk factors for the adolescent mother and her infant

This article describes some at-risk features for the adolescent mother and her infant. The inadequacies of the adolescent mother may be manifest in her inability to provide for herself or her infant, and in difficulties in relating to a mate in a suitable fashion since she is still dependent on and, to some extent, symbiotic with her own mother. Complications, such as the increased possibility of having crises in pregnancy, a premature birth, giving up the baby for adoption, malnutrition, decreased stimulation, and divided mothering, are detailed. Compared to infants of adult mothers, offspring of adolescent mothers have a greater risk later on of conduct disorders, absence of both parents, and placement in foster homes or institutions. The adolescent mother's dynamics seem related to oedipal conflicts, wishes to mother and be mothered, and a predominance of symbiotic or other preoedipal conflicts. Becoming a mother in adolescence may be based on efforts to separate from infantile objects, an attempt to make up for the loss thereof, or substitution and avoidance of separation-individuation conflicts; or it might be an accident to avoid regression. At-risk factors are listed for the psychiatrist and pediatrician to observe in the adolescent mother and her infant in order to be alert to the possibilities of increased complications.Past President of American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry. Received his M.D. from the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine in 1948. Trained in psychiatry and child psychiatry in New Orleans. Main interests include group and family therapy, separation and attachment processes, and early child development, particularly in prematures.     

Gender and colonialism: Women's organisation under the Raj

The popular media have recently born witness to a renewed interest in India under British rule. This article examines the portrayal of Indian liberation struggles in two of the more serious expositions, The Jewel in the Crown and Gandhi, questioning the political implications of this portrayal. It shows that they both neglect the crucial role played by women in the maintenance and demise of the Raj. We argue that women's contribution was so significant that its omission constitutes a misrepresentation of history that can fairly be termed revisionist. We suggest that the reason for this process of mystification lies in the relevance of India's fight for national liberation and sexual equality in the early twentieth century, to present day struggles against imperialism and male domination, which are two of the most explosive issues affecting the modern Western world.     

Seeing like an indigenous community: the World Bank's Agriculture for Development Report read from the perspective of postwar rural Guatemala

This paper uses the case of a rural indigenous village in the war torn highlands of Guatemala to question the framework for using ‘agriculture for development’ put forth by the World Bank in its 2008 World Development Report. There is a significant gap between the Bank's sanguine vision of recent developments in Guatemala and the limited options available to indigenous rural agrarian producers. This gap stems from critical lacunae in the Report's framework, namely, its neglect of the non-economic forces that structure agrarian poverty, and its neglect of history.