negotiating sacred roles: a sociological exploration of priests who are mothers

In 1992, in a historic move, the Church of England voted to allow women's ordination to priesthood and in 1994 the first women priests started to be ordained. Despite much research interest, the experiences of priests who are mothers to dependent children have been minimally investigated. Based on in-depth interviews with seventeen mothers ordained in the Church, this paper will focus on how the sacred-profane boundary is managed. Priests who are mothers have a particular insight into the Church hierarchy as they symbolically straddle the competing discourses of sacred and profane. However, instead of reifying these binaries, the experiences of these women show how such dualisms are challenged and managed in everyday life. Indeed, in terms of experience, ritual, ministry and preaching, priests who are mothers are resisting, recasting and renegotiating sacred terrain in subtle and nuanced ways. Mothers thus not only negotiate the practical and sacramental demands placed on priests, but also illuminate how the sacred domain is regulated and constructed.     

Parenting satisfaction of mothers during midlife

The present investigation explores the relations among midlife identity concerns, marital satisfaction, mental health, and parenting satisfaction among mothers of preadolescents and early adolescents. Data were obtained from 129 intact families with a firstborn child between the ages of 10 and 15. The results suggest that intense midlife concerns are associated with diminished satisfaction with parenting, although this relation is moderated by the mother's reported marital satisfaction and her overall psychological wellbeing. Specifically, mothers with intense midlife crisis symptoms report higher parenting satisfaction when their marital satisfaction is high, but lower parental satisfaction when their midlife concerns are accompanied by psychological distress. The relations among midlife concerns, marital satisfaction, psychological symptoms, and mothers' satisfaction with parenting are not moderated by the sex of the adolescent.The research reported here is part of a larger investigation supported by grants to the second author by the William T. Grant Foundation and the Graduate School Research Committee of the University of Wisconsin —Madison. This paper is based on a senior thesis completed by the first author in the Department of Child and Family Studies at the University of Wisconsin—Madison.Interests are in adolescent development and sex differences.Interests are in adolescent development and family relations.     

浅议实现快乐体育的有效手段

快乐体育使学生积极愉快地进行体育学习 ,是发挥学生主体性、创造性 ,与培养学生终身体育意识、情感及能力的一种教学手段。为此 ,任课教师必须深刻理解其内涵 ,创造一个和谐平等的课堂气氛 ,让学生有选择地进行体育学习 ,注意个性化培养 ,多运用激励性教学评价 ,把运动兴趣变成运动习惯。     

Future-time perspective in adolescence: The present of things future revisited

Several theorists have suggested that the observed changes in adolescent future-time perspective are due to the emergence of formal-operations reasoning [e. g., T. J. Cottle and S. Klineberg (1974),The Present of Things Future, Free Press-Macmillan, New York; P. Fraisse (1963),The Psychology of Time, Harper & Row, New York; H. Hartmann (1958),Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation, International Universities Press, New York; J. Piaget (1968),Six Psychological Studies, Vintage Book, New York]. Using a cross-sectional sample of 60 Caucasian adolescents, the present study was designed to examine this hypostatized interrelation. Data obtained through individual interviews provide only limited support for a cognitive hypothesis. As predicted, older students showed greater future extension and the more cognitively advanced students proved better able to project a set of events into the distant future. However, neither the older, nor the more cognitively advanced, students projected a greater number or a more consistent set of future events than did their respective counterparts. Moreover, analysis of the types of events projected obtained significance only for grade level. The findings are discussed from a contextualist perspective, within which consideration is given to the influence of experiential and life-span status factors.This paper is an expanded version of one presented as part of the symposium entitled, The Timing of Life Events in Adolescence, at the annual meeting of the Educational Research Association, Montreal, Canada, April 11–15, 1983. This work was completed while the author was a Clinical Research Training Fellow in Adolescence (funded by T32 MH 14668) at the Institute for Psychosomatic and Psychiatric Research and Training, Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center, in a program also sponsored by the Department of Behavioral Science (Human Development) and Psychiatry, University of Chicago, and the Adolescent Program of the Illinois State Psychiatric Institute.Received a Ph.D. from Boston University. Research interests include cognition, self-concept, and adolescence.     

The determinants of parenting competence in adolescent mothers

Recent research has implicated the maternal behavior of adolescent mothers as a significant factor in the high rate of developmental delays observed in infants of young mothers. In the present study, the interaction of 58 low-income adolescent mothers and their infants was observed and standardized and projective tests were administered. Factor analysis indicated that the variables of overall self-esteem and maternal efficacy explained 66% of the variance in terms of maternal self-perception, while expressivity and facilitation accounted for 83% of the variance in maternal behavior. Self-esteem and self-efficacy were more positively associated with involvement with the infant's father than with the mother's family of origin. On the other hand, support from the father was negatively associated with parenting competence. The capacity to interpret infant emotions was crucial to the development of parenting competence. Overall, the associations between the determinants of parenting competence and the quality of mother-infant interaction showed significant variations according to the age of the adolescent, suggesting a need to move away from use of maternal age as a continuous variable. Also required is the development of parenting models that recognize that the determinants of competence are different for adolescents than for adult women.     

Unmarried mothers in Ireland, 1880-1973

This article explores the changing experiences and representation of Ireland's unmarried mothers from 1880 to 1973. It focuses on the stigma of illegitimacy in political and cultural discourse and the representation of unmarried mothers as immoral and their children as a drain on resources. These remained constant themes within the discourse of unmarried motherhood in Ireland throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The article uses the records of philanthropic, government and religious organisations to chart the rising interest in the moral reformation of unmarried mothers at the end of the nineteenth century and rising tolerance towards them by the end of the twentieth century.     

Self-Concept differences between single and married school-age mothers

This study examined differences in self-perceptions between single and married school-age mothers. The Tennessee Self Concept Scale was administered to 84 single and married girls who passed through a school-age parent program over a two-year period and who chose to keep and rear their babies. Data were subjected to a stepwise discriminant analysis to determine an optimal set of variables that would distinguish between the two groups. Results indicated that the single school-age mothers had extremely low self-concepts, suffered from serious emotional problems, had inappropriate coping behaviors, and exhibited significant differences from the comparison group on 11 of 26 variables. The single subjects, in contrast to their married counterparts, perceived themselves as undersirable, unworthy, morally bad, and unhappy with their behavior, physical selves, and social relationships. The married subjects had nominally low self-concepts, with their most negative perceptions focused on their moralethical selves. Their most positive feelings were expressed about family relationships.Received his Ed.D. from Texas Tech University in 1973. His research interests include adolescent pregnancy, hearing-impaired children and their families, and family therapy.     

Sexually active but not pregnant: A comparison of teens who risk and teens who plan

Previous studies have compared contraceptive users with nonusers, and pregnant teens with nonpregnant ones. This paper reports the findings of a study of a sample of 119 women aged 21 and under who visited the Young Adult Clinic at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City during 1981. All of these women had been sexually active for a year or longer, but had never been pregnant. The expectation that such a sample would include mainly consistent users of contraception was unwarranted; within this special population were found young women who had never used contraception or who had only been sporadic users, as well as the consistent users. Moreover, there are many more similarities than differences among these groups, and their stated motivations for not becoming pregnant are the same. The consistent contraceptors were more likely to live with their mothers, to have mothers who worked, to indicate that their parents would help them have an abortion, and to indicate they would have an abortion should they become pregnant. The similarities between these young women are very important for programs, which often rely heavily on stated motivation or even on a clinic visit as evidence that a young woman intends to use a birth control method. There is nothing here to support this simple view. Instead the notion is substantiated that many adolescents may lack cognitive consistency on this subject or may lack the future orientation to be effective contraceptive users.     

Working mothers of pre-school children in an underdeveloped society

The present study attempts to understand the problems of working mothers with pre-school children. A sample of mothers who use the day care system run by the Colombian state is studied. Though this sample is not statistically representative of the female population with pre-school children, it presents similar characteristics to those of the women in the large urban centres.It was found that: (a) The living conditions of the families in the low and middle-low socio-economic positions are more limited than those observed in the families in the middle-high socio-economic position. (b) The intensity and the composition of domestic tasks also vary, not only by virtue of the different economic resources available to the family, but also by virtue of differential access to public services such as electricity, running water, public transportation and so on. (c) The very organization of the family appears to be affected by their socio-economic conditions. This is particularly evident for the single parent (mother) families which are more frequent in the middle-low and lower social positions.Although the mothers take the children to these centres looking for a service for the children and not for themselves, the centres become a very important promotion space also for the mothers. In fact, for the majority of them, this experience means a link allowing them to partly overcome the isolation that characterizes their daily life.It is concluded that the conditions of social reproduction can be substantially improved for the families from the lowest social strata, if there is an adequate state participation in this process. There is no doubt that it would be a fundamental factor advancing the circumstances of the working mothers of young children and especially those from the lower income sectors.     

Child-rearing practices and attitudes of working and full-time mothers

Mothers who wish to work are faced with the double burden of paid employment and childcare. They also have to confront the widely held view that ‘a woman's place is in the home’ and the prevailing popular opinion that a mother who also works outside the home is somehow harming her child. Previous research has shown little evidence that maternal employment disadvantages children.The present study, a comparison of the child-rearing practices and attitudes of a group of working (both full- and part-time) and a group of full-time mothers of 4 year olds, reveals few significant differences between the two groups. Mothers in paid employment differ in only one child-rearing practice: they place greater stress on table manners.However, a number of significant attitudinal differences emerged between the two groups of mothers: working mothers found their child rearing more pleasurable, their relationship with the child was better and the child was more likely to be described as happy and contented. Working mothers were rated warmer, higher in self-esteem and less anxious about their child rearing. Husbands of working mothers were more likely and more willing to participate in childcare and were rated as having a more affectionate relationship with the child. Overall, the results of the study are strongly supportive of the aspirations of the growing number of women who wish to combine work and motherhood.     

Perception of infant cries in adolescent and adult mothers

Deficits in parenting behavior in adolescent mothers could be due to the adolescent mother's perception of her infant's behavior. The aim of this study was to compare how adolescent and adult mothers perceive the crying behavior of their newborns. The 19 adolescent and 18 adult mothers listened to a tape recording of their infants' crying and rated the characteristics of the cry on 12 seven-point scales. The sample included newborns with normal growth and newborns with compromised growth. Acoustic characteristics of the cries were extracted by computer. Adult mothers rated the cries of their infants with compromised growth toward the negative end of the scales. By contrast, adolescent mothers rated the cries of their infants with compromised growth toward the positive end of the scales. Acoustic analysis showed that the cries of the infants with compromised growth were higher pitched and more variable than the cries of infants with normal growth. Correlations between the cry ratings and the acoustic analysis showed that for adult mothers, higher pitched and more variable cries were associated with negative ratings. For adolescent mothers, higher pitched and more variable cries were associated with more positive ratings. The findings suggest that adolescent mothers differ in the perception of their infant's behavior, which may have implications for later parenting behavior.This research was supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation.Received Ph.D. from Michigan State University. Main Research interests are infant crying, determinants of neontal and infant development, assessment of preterm and at-risk infants.Received Ph.D. from Harvard University. Main research interests are sociocultural aspects of development, teenage pregnancy, infant temperament, and psychophysiology.Main research interests have been in maternal and infant interactions of high risk infants.     

Getting tough on mothers: regulating contact and residence

This article critically examines the relationship between shared residence and contact after the breakdown of the parents’ relationship. It examines the background to the government’s main emphasis on methods of monitoring, facilitating and enforcing contact as the most efficacious method of proceeding in respect of the law reform agenda, focussing particularly on the potential impact of punitive enforcement measures on primary carers, usually mothers. The article sets the discussion within its wider cultural context in respect of fathers’ rights claims that family law currently favours mothers, and shows how recent legal developments constitute part of a package to manage post-separation relationships between parent and children. It also examines some of the emerging case law to show how the judiciary is using shared residence orders and transfer of residence to deal with protracted and very difficult contact disputes, and in ways which were not anticipated when shared residence orders were first introduced. Drawing on feminist legal commentaries the argument will be made that the use of transfer of residence and shared residence orders in these disputes is extremely worrying, especially in light of the growing body of empirical research which heralds caution. The article will conclude by suggesting that far from favouring mothers, both the law reforms and the case law effectively construct mothers as integral to the problem of contact. They are treated as the site of and solution to the ‚problem’ of contact, and the means of dealing with the problem is by increasingly punitive measures which are inappropriate in a family law context. At the same time non-residential fathers who do not uphold contact escape legal sanctions.