This study explores the effects of family structure (single mother by choice/partnered mother), pathway to motherhood (adoption/assisted reproduction techniques or ART), and parenting style on ...children's psychological adjustment and social competence. Ninety-eight families participated: 45 single mothers by choice (29 adoptive, 16 by ART); and 53 partnered mothers (27 adoptive, 26 by ART). Ninety-eight children were evaluated (Age = 5.36) by their teachers. As regards family structure, children of single mothers by choice (both adopted and conceived by ART) showed good psychological adjustment and good social competence. No significant differences were observed between them and those living with two parents when all were conceived by ART. However, children adopted by single mothers had higher hyperactivity and lower self-control than those living with two adoptive parents. No differences were observed in terms of nurturing parenting style, either between single and partnered mothers, or between adoptive and ART mothers. The nurturing parenting style significantly predicted better psychological adjustment and social competence among children. The results are discussed in connection with the debate regarding the effect of structure versus family processes on children's psychosocial adjustment. The implications for interventions with single mothers by choice are also explored.
Full text
Available for:
CEKLJ, FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PEFLJ, UPUK
Fifty-one solo mother families were compared with 52 two-parent families all with a 4-9-year-old child conceived by donor insemination. Standardized interview, observational and questionnaire ...measures of maternal wellbeing, mother-child relationships and child adjustment were administered to mothers, children and teachers. There were no differences in parenting quality between family types apart from lower mother-child conflict in solo mother families. Neither were there differences in child adjustment. Perceived financial difficulties, child's gender, and parenting stress were associated with children's adjustment problems in both family types. The findings suggest that solo motherhood, in itself, does not result in psychological problems for children.
Full text
Available for:
CEKLJ, FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PEFLJ, UPUK
Being a Good Mom Elliott, Sinikka; Powell, Rachel; Brenton, Joslyn
Journal of family issues,
02/2015, Volume:
36, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The tenacity of the intensive mothering ideology—the notion that good mothers should invest vast amounts of time, money, energy, and emotional labor in mothering—is well documented, particularly ...among affluent White mothers. Drawing on 16 interviews with low-income, Black single mothers, we analyze how gender, race, class, and the ideology of intensive mothering intersect to shape these mothers’ parenting. Mothers repeatedly emphasized the importance of sacrifice, self-reliance, and protection. In short, good mothers sacrifice for their children; they are self-reliant and teach their children to be this way too; and they protect their children. We argue that low-income mothers embrace and perform intensive mothering in the absence of larger social supports for their children’s upbringing and at a cost to their own emotional and physical well-being.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VSZLJ
Single motherhood in Morocco often refers to a difficult experience marked by social exclusion. Indeed, pre-established legal, religious and social norms prohibit sexuality and reproduction outside ...of marriage. In a context marked by social control of reproduction and the repression of transgressive sexualities, particularly sexual relations outside of marriage, single mothers find themselves alone to take care for a child born out of wedlock, and to face an experience marked by social stigmatization and precariousness. The aim of this article is to understand how single mothers act in the face of an excluding social environment. How do they manage to adapt and reorganize their lives around the experience of single motherhood? What are the strategies and resources deployed to achieve this? The hypothesis put forward here consists in assuming that single mothers do not go through the path of exclusion without showing resistance and an ability to reorganize their new life. Based on a qualitative survey conducted as part of a doctoral thesis in Sociology, the analysis aims to account for the adaptations of single mothers and the strategies put in place to deal with the repercussions of stigma in everyday social interactions.
In Ensuring Poverty, Felicia Kornbluh and Gwendolyn Mink assess the gendered history of welfare reform. They foreground arguments advanced by feminists for a welfare policy that would respect single ...mothers' rights while advancing their opportunities and assuring economic security for their families. Kornbluh and Mink consider welfare policy in the broad intersectional context of gender, race, poverty, and inequality. They argue that the subject of welfare reform always has been single mothers, the animus always has been race, and the currency always has been inequality. Yet public conversations about poverty and welfare, even today, rarely acknowledge the nexus between racialized gender inequality and the economic vulnerability of single-mother families.Since passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) by a Republican Congress and the Clinton administration, the gendered dimensions of antipoverty policy have receded from debate. Mink and Kornbluh explore the narrowing of discussion that has occurred in recent decades and the path charted by social justice feminists in the 1990s and early 2000s, a course rejected by policy makers. They advocate a return to the social justice approach built on the equality of mothers, especially mothers of color, in policies aimed at poor families.
Existing food insecurity instruments are focused largely on the financial constraints associated with acquiring sufficient amounts of food. This narrow focus has resulted in underestimating the true ...prevalence of food poverty, particularly in high-income countries. Food poverty needs to be defined as capability deprivation, extending from the nutritional to the temporal, spatial, qualitative and affective aspects of eating. In this article, the Alkire-Foster counting approach is evaluated and an alternative method for measuring such multidimensional food poverty is proposed. The method is demonstrated by using evidence from interviews with 53 single mothers, the most high-risk social group in Japan. On the basis of an operational definition of food deprivation and poverty cut-offs, 16 mothers (30%) were identified as living in food poverty, followed by a qualitative analysis of their deprivation profiles. The results show that the economically-poor were highly likely to fall into food poverty, but that food poverty also occurred without economic deprivation, notably among the mental or physical illness carriers and long-hour workers. This multidimensional and decomposable measurement tool is effective for identifying food-poor populations not reflected in traditional food insecurity measurement instruments.
Full text
Available for:
FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, UL, UM, UPUK
The topic of school bullying has become an important issue over the world. Being in disadvantaged situations of fathers’ absence, prior research suggested that left-behind children (LBC) with absent ...fathers in China are more vulnerable to get involved in school bullying (bullying or being bullied). In addition, fathers’ absence brings much pressure to single stay-at-home mothers, leading to more maternal psychologically controlling parenting. Following a three-wave longitudinal design, this study aimed to examine the developmental relationship between maternal psychological control and father-absent LBC’s bullying/victimization as well as its mechanism. A total of 348 father-absent LBC aged 7–11 years in China completed a battery of questionnaires at three-time points. The results indicated that there are reciprocal effects between maternal psychological control and father-absent LBC’s bullying/victimization. Specifically, maternal psychological control at T1 predicted father-absent LBC’s victimization at T2; children’s victimization at T2 predicted maternal psychological control at T3; maternal psychological control predicted later children’s bullying perpetration stably from T1 to T2 and from T2 to T3; children’s bullying at T2 predicted maternal psychological control at T3. Two vicious circles happened in the above relationships. Current findings highlight the stronger effects of mothers’ negative parenting on children’s school bullying, which bring inspiration for future family education and school intervention.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VSZLJ
Objective: In view of the heightened stress that might accompany a woman's decision to have a child on her own, we examined the experience of personal growth following the transition to motherhood of ...single mothers by choice and a comparison group of mothers in a couple relationship. We also examined the contribution of attachment style, resilience, and perceived social support to mothers' personal growth.
Method: The sample consisted of 152 first-time Israeli mothers aged 28-48 whose children were no older than two. Of them, 76 were single mothers by choice and 76 were in a couple relationship.
Results: Single mothers reported higher personal growth and less support from a significant other than mothers in a relationship. In addition, higher age, better economic status, and being a single mother contributed significantly to personal growth. Furthermore, among mothers in a relationship, higher growth was associated with more perceived support from the family, whereas among single mothers, it was associated with more perceived support from a significant other.
Conclusion: The results highlight the potential of single mothers by choice to experience personal growth in the transition to motherhood, and the prominent role of support from a significant other in facilitating this experience.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VSZLJ
Grandparental support may protect mothers from depression, particularly mothers who separate and enter single parenthood. Using longitudinal Finnish register data on 116,917 separating and 371,703 ...non-separating mothers with young children, we examined differences in mothers' antidepressant purchases by grandparental characteristics related to provision of support. Grandparents' younger age (<70 years), employment, and lack of severe health problems predicted a lower probability of maternal depression. Depression was also less common if grandparents lived close to the mother and if the maternal grandparents' union was intact. Differences in maternal depression by grandparental characteristics were larger among separating than among non-separating mothers, particularly during the years before separation. Overall, maternal grandmothers' characteristics appeared to matter most, while the role of paternal grandparents was smaller. The findings suggest that grandparental characteristics associated with increased potential for providing support and decreased need of receiving support predict a lower likelihood of maternal depression, particularly among separating mothers.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
PDF
