Motherhood and child-rearing

1. Between the 17th and 20th centuries, the concept of motherhood was certainly transformed throughout time. In the 17th and 18th centuries throughout America there was no notion of childhood innocence (that existed in Europe at the time). Children continued to get flogged and were dressed in swaddling clothes. Obedience was instilled in children and was used as a means to overcome the inherent “sin nature” that was believe to be in each child. The Bible was widely used as a child rearing guide. For the American Catholics, they believed that the child’s will did not have to be broken through physical punishment or harm because the sins were believed to be forgiven through baptism. In the 18th and 19th centuries, a more modern concept of motherhood began to emerge. A mother’s role began to take on new importance and movements such as the “cult of domesticity,” the “cult of true womanhood,” and the “Domestic Code” began to give mothers a more valued sense. Mothers were becoming known as the keepers of morality and were beginning to be seen as pure and virtuous, and their children were their “angelic missionaries.” Instead of viewing the child as a demonic creature (as they were in during the Middle Ages), there was focus on bringing out the inner goodness from each child. Toward the end of the 19th century (the Progressive Era), child-rearing took a turn. The child lost the sense of innocence and instead was said to have dangerous impulses that needed to be kept in check through techniques such as precise scheduling, detached handling, and behavior modifications. Mothers were warned not to smother their children with love, but rather act as guides and role models for their children. Following the Progressive Era was the Permissive Era where the ideology of the permissive child dominates our current cultural model used by present day mothers. A new concept of the child-centered family emerged where home life is centered on the child and child rearing is guided by them as well. There has been a shift back to the preservation of a child’s innocence and purity. Today, motherhood heavily focuses on a mother’s love and her nurturing nature.

The Permissive Era also fully established the concept of intensive mothering. This model says that children are innocent and priceless, and that rearing should be carried out primarily by the mother and it should be centered on the child’s needs. The methods that are used should be derived by experts and will most likely be costly. Even though my mother stayed home with my siblings and I, I do not believed she used “intensive mothering” to guide us. I was definitely raised by both my mother and father. My mother was always there for us, but I do not believe she used costly techniques that were derived from experts in order to raise us.

2. I really enjoyed this article because it really gave a voice to all the mothers out there who truly care about raising their children. There are so many money-hungry Americans out there who care more about their careers than their own children. Our country has become centered on the notion that we all need to climb up the “corporate ladder” in order to achieve much success. But in what point in your life do you stop “climbing”? So many Americans are too focused on making more and more money (that a lot of parents claim is for their children), but what about spending priceless time with the child? It does not cost a penny to nurture and play with your child. Crittenden made so many good points in her article. She said that mothering today has become more of a handicap, even though it is the most important job in the world. It is clearly a job that you cannot add to your resume, so therefore, it can’t even be rewarded and is instead penalized. There are too many people out there that believe that the time spent with one’s child is time wasted and they should be out making money. Another important point is that mothers have smaller pensions than either men or childless women. In fact, women over the age of 65 are twice as likely to be poor as compared to men of the same age. This goes to show that the job of motherhood is barely recognized. Crittenden provided many anecdotes that illustrated her important points. One woman was fired for not working overtime because she wanted to spend time with her son. She had been hired to work between the hours of 8:15am and 5:30pm and did not believe it was necessary to work any longer than that. There needs to be much more credit given to the mothers who choose to stay at home and take care of their children. They are the future of our world, so it only makes sense to guide them and sculpt them into amazing human beings.

3. According to Collins, there are two types of mothering roles that Black women will demonstrate: bloodmothers and othermothers. A bloodmother, or biological mother, is expected to care for her own children. Othermothers take on a bit of a different role. They assist bloodmothers by sharing mothering responsibilities and sometimes provide care to the entire community. Some girls are groomed as early as ten years old to become othermothers. Many African-American communities have women-centered networks of community-based child care, which are heavily comprised of othermothers. This cooperation among Black mothers has given them much empowerment in which to serve a critical function in African-American communities. A large majority of Black women are the breadwinners in their families. Many women in Black communities take on very centralized roles where mostly everyone in the community knows their name. These role models are described as “strong Black women” and have demonstrated that motherhood can be viewed as a symbol of power. They have created maternal politics which refers to “political movements which are rooted in women’s defense of their roles as mothers and protectors of their children.” Black women use maternal politics as a way of being symbols of power.

4. In the article, “Unmarried with Children,” the life of Jen Burke, a 15 year old mother, was documented. She provided a very interesting perspective that having a child saved her (from her own life). Before she became pregnant, she was depressed and doing drugs and drinking. Her son, Colin, gave her a reason to straighten up and she started to take life more seriously. A lot of young mothers believe that having children at a young age keeps them off the streets and out of harm. The only problem is that they are usually poor to begin with and are not financially able to support a young child. Unfortunately delve deeper into a life of poverty and many are forced to be on welfare. I feel as if there is very little society can do to stop this cycle. As long as poor young girls keep having children, the need for welfare will not subside. Then again, if these girls stop having children, would they just end up on the streets? My only suggestion is to create more centers for poor girls who have children and do not have children and try to educate them more about marriage and family. Perhaps if we instill moral-based instruction into these young girls, they will become more cognizant of the consequences of being unmarried and becoming pregnant.

Violence Against Women

1. The gender perspective is the notion that men victimize women in order to maintain their dominance over the "inferior gender." It usually involves the woman keeping quiet about the incident(s) so that these acts of violence never get reported to the police. This helps it become that much easier for men to abuse women, so the cycle continues and progressively gets worse. The other perspective, the violence perspective, states that men who commit crimes against women are not necessarily sexist, but are rather overall violent in general. Men who are committing crimes against women are committing other crimes as well and can be characterized as violent in nature. Felson tends to lean more toward this perspective and backs up his argument with evidence that I am a bit skeptical of. He says that recent surveys have shown that both men and women use physical force at the same rates. Also, John Archer found that wives are more likely to initiate violence. Felson also claims that husbands are no more controlling than their wives. As for rape motives, Felson claims that young men have sex on their minds, not the domination of women. He also says that men who rape and/or inflict violence upon their wives also commit other crimes and do not merely specialize in violence against women.

I am very skeptical of Felson and his claims. He mostly uses phrases such as "evidence shows" and "research suggests," but where is this evidence/research coming from? He does not make any specific references to any creditable sources. Also, because I am a woman, I am naturally biased towards this article. I feel as though Felson is trying to prove that women are not as innocent as they seem and men who commit violence against women are not just specifically targeting women, but also commit various other crimes. I just find all his evidence hard to believe because how often do you really hear about women killing their husbands on the news or in the newspaper ?! I know I hardly do! I believe that violence against women is very psychological and that there is a clear motive. For the most part, men are physically stronger than women. So it is much easier for a man to abuse a woman (rather than vice versa), which gives men a sense of power. Despite what Felson's evidence shows, I believe a man's "power trip" directly relates to sexism. Therefore, I would have to side with the gender perspective.

2. Jones provides the accounts of a couple different women to explain why women do not neccessarily just get up and leave if they have been battered and abused by their husbands. A lot of women are only familiar with abusive husbands and have inevitably became dependent on them. It is easier for the outsider to just say "just leave him and escape!" but it does not prove to be that easy in the mind of a battered woman. Their confusion is deeply rooted and many of them do not know whether to blame their abusive husband or themselves. In the story of Tracy Thurman, she was badly beaten to the point of disfigurement, and still did not want to move out of the town that she was from. When asked, "why don't you just leave?" she answered, "Why should I? I grew up here. My family is here, my support is here. I can go to another state, but even if I was in Hawaii...he's going to find me no matter where I go." Tracy is clearly demonstrating a sense of helplessness, which a majority of women suffer from after being battered and abused.

This article is using the gender perspective to highlight the reasons for violence agaist women. A lot of the abuse and violence stems from a man's urge to feel dominant over women. A lot of women become helpless because they are naturally physically weaker than a man, which inevitably fuels a man's sense of superiority.

3. Ptacek observed right away that batterers were more inclined to make up excuses rather than justify their actions. Their most common excuse for their actions was that they "lost control" and in some cases, they were affected by drugs and/or alcohol. Other excuses that they used involved blaming the victim. More disturbingly, they regarded verbal aggressiveness as the equivalent to physical aggressiveness. In others words, if the wife instigated verbal abuse on her husband, it gave the husband an excuse to retaliate with physical violence. As for actual justifications, many men utilize the denial of injury claim. They minimize their injuries and say that "women bruise easily." Also , a lot of men have a sense of male entitlement in which they use to further justify their actions. The problem with these justifications is that there are a lot of inconsistencies. For example, men are likely to deny their actions, but then eventually accept responsibility of their actions and downplay the wrongness. Some men then proceed to deny their actions once again, as if they are caught in a vicious circle. Loss of control and provocation cannot explain the violence. They are merely contradictions that attempt to excuse men from their actions.

This article most definitely supports the gender perspective (as opposed to the violence perspective). The main focus in this article is clearly violence against women and maintaining dominance over them. As I had stated above, a lot of men have a sense of male entitlement, which directly supports the gender perspective. They undermine their physical force and in a lot of cases, don't even accept responsibility for their actions. Most of these men featured in the article were not really committing any other crimes (which would support the violence perspective). These were men that mostly just battered their wives.