Marriage and family (SOC 40) Parenting Module 4

Abortion

refers to the premature termination of a pregnancy before the fetus can survive on its own - This can occur involuntarily through a miscarriage or be induced through a variety of methods

Parenting trends in the United States

- people are having children at later ages - people are having fewer children - out of wedlock births are decreasing among teens but increasing among women in their 30's and 40's. - more couples are choosing to be child free - people are living longer lives, more people are experiencing the roles of grandparents and great grandparents.

What does he mean by the term "the isolated family"?

The 'isolated family' refers to the financial and emotional resources that were once exchanged with extended kin, neighbors, religious institutions, and friends but have now become increasingly concentrated in the nuclear family.

Parental Leave (Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993)

The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 requires companies, that employ 50 or more workers, to provide these workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for a birth or adoption or to care for seriously ill family members. - This comes with job security for up to 12 weeks. - you must work for the company for at least one year - specific policies can vary by company but must meet the minimum requirements above.

Diane Baumrind typology of parenting styles

parenting behavior has two main dimensions: - responsiveness: refers to the extent to which parents respond to and meet the needs of their children. Aspects of responsiveness include warmth, reciprocity, communication, and attachment - Demandingness: this is the manner in which parents place demands on their children in regards to expectations and discipline. Aspects of demandingness include monitoring, structure, and confrontation.

Authoritarian

parents are high on demandingness and low on responsiveness. They tend to provide a great deal of structure and expect obedience without giving much warmth. (eg. rise of the tiger mom)

Authoritative

parents are high on responsiveness and high on demandingness. They tend to impose limits and structure on their children's behavior but also emphasize reasoning and communication. This is a balance of warmth and control.

Permissiveness

parents are high on responsiveness and low on demandingness. They tend to be very warm and communicative but allow their children to regulate their own behavior (eg. parents are friends with kids).

Uninvolved

parents are low on responsiveness and low on demandingness. They do not offer structure or warmth and tend to have little investment in their children's lives.

What forces both at work and at home are simultaneously reinforcing this reversal?

This reversal is being helped by the company's work ethic and staring changing. This lure of work has been enhanced by company engineering which makes the worker feel more valued. Holding ceremonies and workshops helps the person feel welcomed by the company, and these bonuses are not present at home as parents are rarely even appreciated or acknowledged. - The corporate world has created a sense of community and neighborhood that some people don't get at home as more broken families are becoming common. - The shifting balance between employees being more stable with their jobs than relationships may be the most powerful reason why tired parents flee a world of unresolved quarrels and unwashed laundry for the orderliness and harmony of work.

Pronatalism

all of the beliefs and behaviors that promote the idea that everyone should have children.

Birth Rate

refers to the number of births per 1,00 women of child-bearing age (~15-44 years old). As of 2013 the birth rate in the US is 13.66

Baby Boom

refers to the rapid increase in fertility after World War II. - The TFR went from 2.5 in 1945 to 3.8 in 1957

What does she mean when she says American parents deal with this reversal by emotionally downsizing their lives?

we are devoting less time to children and using quality time to combat this. Instead of nine hours with ones child, we make office appointments with our children and it holds out the hope that intense periods of togetherness can compensate for an overall loss of time but with no loss of quality. We transfer the cult of efficiency from work to home. Parents speak of time as a threatened capital that they must manage and invest.

What does it mean to have a 'soul-mate parent'?

- A 'soul-mate parent' refers to the combination of democratization of the family form, fewer opportunities after children leave home, a culture that blames parents for child outcomes, a more dangerous world, and an increase in parental guilt and anxiety have together created an environment where parents believe that they have to be everything for their children. - From this perspective, the parent has turned into a soul-mate. Some soul mate parents suffer from fundamental problems: 1) most individuals don't have all the traits to bring to the relationship, 2) what we want and need from one person in time is often different from what we may want and need from him at another and 3) our own character flaws, genetics, and moods may cause us to unwittingly shut down or greatly inhibit the capacity of the other to provide the interactions we crave.

What is Denmark's 'non-school' model and how does it differ from the French system?

- Denmark's child care model is a daycare in a non-school setting. It is an unstructured curriculum and the teachers, called pedagogues are paid teachers wages but do not have master's degrees like in France, instead, they care for very young children (from birth to three and up until the child is six years of age). - The French preschool model applies only to children older than three if younger they go to creche, where high school educated teachers take care of them. - Second, the Danish preschools are available only to working parents because it is not meant to educate them, but rather help working parents. - Danish preschools receive most of their income from public funding but each center is decentralized and parents contribute ⅕ of the total cost. Adults are always present around the kids, but they do not lead or play with the kids.

Abortion Laws over time

- Early American law reflected the English tradition that abortion was permissible until quickening, which was around the 4th month of pregnancy when the pregnant women can feel the fetus moving in the womb. It was believed that the fetus wasn't alive until quickening and thus abortions were allowed prior to this time. - By 1900, abortion was illegal in the US, except when a doctor felt it was necessary to save a women's life. - In 1973, the Supreme Court struck down all anti-abortion laws as a violation of women's rights to privacy in the famous Roe Vs. Wade case.

Policies to help balance work and family

- Flextime: allows workers to arrange their work hours to accommodate other time commitments - working from home: allows workers to get work done off the premises. This is more applicable to office jobs where work is done on computers - Job sharing: this is where two workers split a single full-time job. each worker is employed part-time. - Dependent Care: this refers to child care or any help to caring for elderly parents. The US does not provide any publically funded child care, but some companies have dependent care programs. - Parental Leave: the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 requires companies, that employ 50 or more workers, to provide these workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for a birth or adoption or to care for seriously ill family members.

According to Dan Clawson and Naomi Gerstel, in the article "Caring for your Young: Child Care in Europe and the United States" what are the differences between the French and US daycare centers?

- French child care is intended primarily as early education. All children are part of the same curriculum staffed by teachers paid good wages by the same national ministry. - participation in the preschools is voluntary, but a place is guaranteed to every child three to six years old. - The service is free to parents even though it costs the government almost as much as it does in America. School is from 8:30 to 4:30 with a break and an option available to hold the child for extended periods after school at a modest cost. - When extra assistance is offered, additional resources are provided to geographical areas, in order to reduce class sizes, give teachers extra training and bonuses, and employ special teachers. Poor children are not singled out. Teachers have master's degrees and are paid teachers wages.

According to Joshua Coleman, in the article "Parenting Adult Children in the Twenty-First Century" how have perceptions of children changed over time?

- In prior generations, the children were expected to prepare themselves for adult work by following the instructions appropriate for their class, gender, and race. - However, America's parenting view shifted from believing it was the obligation of the child to meet the family's needs to believing that the family should meet the child's needs. - We now perceive children as fragile and requiring 'hothouse parenting' in order to thrive. - Some factors that have led to these recent changes in perception of childhood is the increased psychology books and media.

How else do American working parents try to evade the time bind?

- Some parents try to evade the time bind by minimizing how much care a child, a partner or themselves need and make do with less time, attention, understanding and less support at home than they once imagined possible. They emotionally downsize life. - They deny the needs of family members and they themselves become emotional ascetics. They are now fine without time together. Some try to evade the time bind by buying themselves out of it as women absorb the family-work speed up far more than they resist it. - Parents also develop 'potential selves' which are fantasy creations of time-poor parents who dreamed of living as time millionaires. Banished to garages and attics, items are bought with wages that took time to earn and are to them a substitute for time and a reminder of the potential self.

Fertility Rates have declined over time

- The TFR was estimated to be at about 7.7 in 1790 and more recently has dropped to around replacement level

What are the ideological strategies used by stay-at-home moms versus working moms?

- The ways mothers explain their decisions to stay at home or work in the paid labor force like the pushes and pull they feel, run in opposite directions. But the way they attempt to resolve the ambivalence they experience as a result of those decisions run in the same direction - Stay at home mothers reaffirm their commitment to their kids and good mothering - while working moms maintain that they are good mothers even though they work. - If you are a mother, although the logic of the workforce and the logic of motherhood operate in your life, the logic of intensive mothering has a stronger claim.

How do working mothers respond to the pull toward home?

- Working mothers cope with the pull toward home by arguing that their participation in the labor force is ultimately good for their kids. Some say the work ethic they show is an opportunity to show their kids how to work hard. - Another mother suggests that her second child takes just as much time and energy away from her first child as her career does. - Many mothers point out that their paid work provides financial resources necessary for the well being of the child.

Why have fertility rates changed?

- decrease in mortality rate - the industrial revolution and increased cost of children - changing attitudes toward children

Benifits of Marriage

- emotional value: parents feel an intense emotional bond and love that they feel for their children. couples often see the child as a tangible sign of their love. - personal fulfillment: many people see raising a child as a way of achieving adult status and fulfilling your societal duties (family of procreation). it is way for you to pass on your knowledge to the next generation and make a contribution to society - increase social networks: provides connections to other parents as well as family members - Fun: having children helps people relive their childhood and they gain tremendous joy form watching their children learn, grow and play.

Costs of parenting

-financial costs: raising kids in todays society is expensive - time and energy: children are dependent on their parents for their physical and psychological needs - emotional cost: parents often worry about their child's safety and well-being - lifestyle disruption: have children disrupts a couples sleep, and sex lives as well as often being incompatible with work schedules, hobbies and leisure activities.

In the article "The Mommy Wars: Ambivalence, Ideological Work, and the Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood," by Sharon Hays, what are the two cultural images of women?

According to Sharon Hays, the two cultural images of women is: (1) the portrait of the traditional mother who stays at home with the kids and dedicates her energy to the happiness of her family. This mother is focused on attending to the children and ensuring their proper development. (2) on the other side is the image of the successful 'super-mom' who effortlessly juggles work and home, and her children are well mannered with a strong spirit and high self-esteem.

What are the national differences in family leave policies?

European countries provide extensive paid family leave and are usually universal with job protection and substantial income replacement. - In Sweden parents receive a full year and half of paid parental leave with 80% of prior earnings. - The United States provides far less, with a 12-week job-protected leave to workers of covered employers. Most employers (95%) are not covered as are many workers (45%). All federally mandated leave is unpaid. This causes women to pay a wage penalty when they interrupt their career. - In the US, workers on average put in 300 hours more per year than workers in France and four hundred more than people in Sweden.

In the article, "When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work," Arlie Hochschild says "work has become a form of home and home has become work" what does she mean by this statement?

Hochschild means that the worlds of home and work have not begun to blur but to reverse places. - We are used to thinking that most people feel like 'numbers on a spreadsheet' while at work but new management techniques that are pervasive in corporate life have helped transform the workplace into a more appreciative personal sort of social world. - Meanwhile at home the divorce rate has risen and the emotional demands have increased. Also, on top of children, the needs of elderly parents are creating more tasks for the modern family. - Home has begun to feel like work and work feels like home. Some get relief of home from work.

What are some of the benefits of the change in relationships between parents and children?

Some benefits to the change in the relationship between parent and child is that both parties get to spend more time with one another which can create more intimacy in the relationship. The emotional intensification of parents' investment can create deeper ties than in the past.

Infertility

can be defined as the inability to have a child after 12 moths of unprotected sexual intercourse OR the inability to carry a pregnancy to full term. - about 10% of the population are infertile - men and women tend to have equal rates of infertility (40% are women, 40% are men and 20% are either unknown or both)

The four parenting styles

permissiveness, authoritarian, authoritative, and uninvolved

Total Fertility Rate (TFR)

refers to the average number of children a woman will have in her lifetime (provided the current birth rate remains constant). As of 2013 the TFR is 2.06 which is just under the replacement level of 2.1

Reprodcutive technology

there are several new reproductive technologies that can help infertile couples have children.

In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)

this involves surgically removing a women's eggs, fertilizing them in a petri dish with sperm and then implanting them into a woman's uterus.

Embryo Transplant

this is where a fertilized egg from a woman donor is implanted into an infertile woman. This is a form of IVF with egg donors

Surragacy

this is where a women is hired to carry a pregnancy to full term. In some cases, the surrogate is also the egg donor

Artificial Insemination

this is where semen is injected into the vagina of an ovulating woman (least controversial especially if sperm comes from 'father')