Surrogate Motherhood and the Morality of Care

The celebrated case of Baby M focused public attention on the practice of surrogate motherhood. This paper examines the judicial and legislative responses and the public policy implications of surrogate parenting contracts from the perspective of a morality of care. This perspective, which owes much to the pioneering work of Carol Gilligan, elevates the bond between mother and child over the rights conferred by contract. Working with this perspective, several arguments are advanced against the granting of specific performance of surrogate parenting contracts.     

Incarcerated Mothers of Minor Children: Physical Health,Substance Use,and Mental Health Needs

Mothers of minor children serving sentences in a large Midwestern jail were screened for potential substance use problems and asked to report their physical and mental health status and treatment experiences. Of mothers screened for substance use problems, 72.1% had positive findings on the AUDIT-12, 56.7% reported at least one serious physical health problem, and 67.1% had received mental health treatment. More than two-thirds (68.8%) of the 240 mothers reported a co-occurring condition, and a third (33.8%) reported problems in all three spheres (substance use, mental health, and physical health). The relationship among the three health-related problems is examined as well as the characteristics of mothers related to having co-occurring health conditions. Given that the overwhelming majority of mothers reported more than one health-related problem, the changes to policy and practice need to avoid simplistic solutions.     

The affective burden of separated mothers in PA(S) inflected custody law systems: a New Zealand case study

ABSTRACT

Custody law systems across the Anglo-West are increasingly characterised by the overt and covert use of parental alienation (syndrome) as an aid to the governance of post-separation mothers. Difficulties with care arrangements within PA(S) inflected custody law systems are often regarded as evidence of mothers’ alienating behaviours, resulting in a range of remedial, coercive and punitive censures, including losing resident parent status. I argue here that the synergistic interaction between custody law and PA(S) creates an affective burden for post-separation mothers. Drawing on the voices of mothers in contested custody cases, I show that their affective burden consists of negative emotional states for themselves and their children, emotion work in relation to these states, and court required emotion work in support of father-child relationships. The latter mitigates the risk of being found to be an alienator and losing what matters most to them – their children.     

Birth and death in a new land attitudes to infant death in colonial Australia

The goldrush colony of Victoria, Australia, was a favoured destination for aspirational emigrants from nineteenth-century Britain. Yet the persistence of high rates of infant mortality blighted the happiness of many first and second generation immigrant families alone in a new land. Drawing on birth, death and inquest records this paper interrogates the experience of infant death amongst the poorest families in the capital city popularly known as ‘Marvellous Melbourne’ during the second half of the nineteenth century. Although few infants died alone, the familial and community networks in which they were enmeshed were not always committed to their survival. While the paper argues that there was a hierarchy of value which determined the degree to which the death of a child would be welcomed or mourned, it also contests popular notions that evil baby farmers and unfeeling mothers were a major cause of infant death.     

The role of prevention in technological catastrophe

Abstract

This paper discusses the potential for and problems inherent in the prevention of stress resulting from technological catastrophe. Baum, Fleming, and Davidson's (1983) characterization of technological disaster is reviewed. These accidents, which involve the breakdown or failure of human‐made systems, differ from other types of disaster in their psychological impact. These differences are particularly important in accidents involving hazardous substances including radiation and chemical toxins. The continuing threat of future illness resulting from exposure to radiation and toxins contributes to feelings of uncertainty; and the fact that the accident resulted from a failure of human‐made systems means it is likely to be perceived as a loss rather than a lack of control. Because of their unique features, technological catastrophies are likely to result in long term effects including chronic stress in exposed populations. Because failures of human‐made systems would be prevented if the problem was foreseen and preventable, prevention concerns center around reducing stress where possible. Three domains of prevention activity are described. First, assessments aimed at predicting the stress inducing and reducing impact of intervention strategies can contribute to decisions about how to handle the accident once it has occurred. Second, some of the policy implications of these events are described. Finally, the ethics of stress reducing interventions in settings where a real danger is present are discussed.     

What Happens to Children When Their Mothers Are Battered? Results from a Four City Anonymous Telephone Survey

This article presents results of a study examining what happens to children when domestic violence is committed against their mothers. While many investigations have pointed to child exposure to violence in homes where women are battered, few have examined direct reports about what happens to children when adult domestic violence occurs. This study collected direct reports from mothers on real-life events and was designed to go beyond earlier research by eliciting information on a larger array of family and contextual factors that may account for variation in mother’s and their children’s direct and indirect exposure to violence within the same home. Anonymous telephone interviews with 111 battered mothers in four metropolitan areas across the United States elicited detailed information from women on the violence against them and their children. Findings confirm the seriousness of co-occurring mother and child exposure to violence. The research also revealed that women and children were often injured while trying to protect each other from the abuser. The article concludes by recommending further enhancing collaboration between child protection and battered women’s services; augmenting prevention and early intervention services to families experiencing adult domestic violence; and focusing on protecting and increasing the safety of both children and their battered mothers.

A sociocultural analysis of childrearing support for mothers of preschoolers living in Tokyo

Drop-in play centres have been developed by the state since 2002 to provide better environments for childrearing in Japan's low fertility society. This study examines the centres' value and role in relation to the support provided by kin and non-kin in the lives of preschoolers’ mothers living in Tokyo. Beyond the practical support users receive in the form of helpful childrearing tips from staff and volunteers, drop-in centres are particularly valued for providing a child-friendly public space where mothers and their preschoolers can engage in meaningful interactions with non-family others.     

Mothers of children removed under a care order: outcomes and experiences

ABSTRACT

Focusing on accounts by women who have children taken into care, this paper reports on a socio-legal case study in England, investigating the life experiences of nine mothers, whose children have been made subject to care orders under the Children Act 1989. In particular it considers the women’s experiences of their relationships with their own mothers and places this within the context of the mothers’ own experiences of having their children taken into care. Drawing on free association narrative interviews, the study focuses on the mothers’ accounts of long-term harm that began in their childhoods, especially their experiences of their mothers’ own difficulties and of their experiences of harm. It highlights the impact of relationship difficulties between mother and child, and questions how the legal concepts of harm and reasonable parental care are defined and deployed. In conclusion, it demonstrates a need for the legal framework to address children’s experiences of harm in a more intergenerational and intersubjective way. It highlights a new approach, suggesting consideration of harm, reasonable parental care and welfare to involve an increased concentration on the welfare of mothers and the relationship between mother and child, akin to an intersubjective and intergenerational approach to harm.     

Adolescent and Young Adult Mothers’ Relationship Quality During the Transition to Parenthood: Associations with Father Involvement in Fragile Families

Data from the Fragile Families and Child-Well-being Study were used to examine predictors of involvement among fathers of young children (N=2,215) born to adolescent and young adult mothers (ages 14–25; N=2,850). Participants were interviewed immediately following their baby's birth and at 3-years postpartum regarding co-parental relationship quality, fathers’ caretaking behavior (“father involvement”), and fathers’ provision of material support for the child (“in-kind” support). Early postnatal and 3-year postpartum parental relationship quality and father-child cohabitation predicted 3-year father involvement while early father involvement did not. The race of fathers, specifically African American, was associated with lower levels of father involvement. For in-kind support, 3-year father-child cohabitation and 3-year relationship quality were both positively associated with provision of in-kind support. Father's income was not a significant predictor but mother's involvement with a new partner at the 3-year follow-up was marginally significant. Lastly, the race of fathers, specifically African American and Latino, was associated with provision of less in-kind support. Christina B. Gee, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, The George Washington University, Christina Gee's research interests include coparenting and father involvement during transition to parenthood among adolescent mothers and fathers, adolescent mothers’ psychological adjustment, and romantic relationships among at-risk couples. Christopher M. McNerney, B.A., Department of Psychology, George Washington University, Christopher McNerney's research interests include marginalized couples, couples interventions, and family treatments to improve parenting outcomes. Michael J. Reiter, B.A., Department of Psychology, George Washington University, Michael Reiter's research interests include interfaith and interracial romantic relationships within a family systems approach. Suzanne C. Leaman, B.A., Department of Psychology, George Washington University, Suzanne Leaman's research interests include adolescents and young families, minority mental health, low-income communities, and the implications of dating violence for mental health.     

Biologising Paternity,Moralising Maternity: The Construction of Parenthood in the Determination of Paternity Through the Courts in Portugal

This article explores how the Portuguese legal system’s efforts to determine paternity of children born outside legal marriage, automatically initiated by the Registry Office when a birth registration does not indicate the father, reveal cultural models which reinforce the naturalisation of the differences between mothers and fathers, with significant effects on the social construction of parental roles and on expectations of family organisation and female sexual behaviour. The article relies on ethnographic data drawn from direct observation of court proceedings for the determination of paternity, as well as interviews with judges and prosecuting counsels all over the country. It is argued that judicial practices in the specific context of courtroom investigations of paternity reinforce gender inequalities in two interrelated ways. On the one hand, they are strengthened in the discursive practices performed during the course of the interactions between judges, prosecuting counsels and the mother of the child, as well as the alleged father. On the other hand, the normative model of family life and the dominant ideology of women’s and men’s relationships, which emphasise women’s socially subordinate position, are revealed by the selective use of DNA testing in paternity cases, based on the judge’s evaluation of the mother’s sexual behaviour. The article argues that legal attempts to establish the paternity of children born outside marriage—though based on novel technical and supposedly objective procedures—tend, nevertheless, to reproduce the prevailing patriarchal structures.