The Psychohistory of Child Maltreatment Among Antebellum Slaveholders.

Examining the inner workings of the slaveholder family, including slave caretakers, this article probes the psychodynamics of slaveholder development to assess the extent of child abuse in the Old South. Childcare was haphazard and premised on paternal absence, maternal ambivalence, and the exigencies of slave surrogacy. Corporal punishment, sanctified by southern religion, was the rule. The likelihood of slave negligence and retaliatory attacks against slaveholder children are addressed. Childrearing practices such as swaddling, aunt adoption, and maternal incest are considered, as well as the possible usage of a West African cleansing ritual. The article classifies planter families within the Ambivalent Mode of parent-child relations and suggests the restaging of childhood trauma as the underlying dynamic in the march to civil war.

Sacrifice, the Bush Way: From Self to Others.

The Walker Bush dynasty has marked the last American century, promoting "corporate democracy" as a means to expand its wealth. As 43rd President of the United States, George Walker Bush's biography illustrates how the members of our powerful elite sacrifice the inner self of their own children for the sake of political success. In his case, the childrearing violence and emotional neglect he experienced created the psychological basis for his later re-enactments as commander-in-chief in the wake of 9/11. From that standpoint, his intergenerational legacy of trauma bears strong affinities with that of the nation as a whole. This paper examines George W. Bush's paternal inheritance, the problem of maternal abuse and its subsequent psychic wounds, as well as the impact of an unresolved grief after the loss of his younger sister, Robin. Restaging childhood traumas as a vengeful young adult at Yale, before getting involved in dirty politics, Bush supported unlawful hazing practices. Then, as Governor of Texas he promoted the death penalty and a zero-tolerance approach to juvenile offenders. Controversial decisions of the Bush administration regarding the Enhanced Interrogation Program, the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and many others are further scrutinized as collective re-enactments of abuse deeply engrained in American society.

Análisis de la mortalidad expósita de la inclusa de Toledo y sus condicionantes (1900-1930) / Analysis of the mortality experience among the abandoned children in the foundling hospital of Toledo and its determinants (1900-1930)

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la mortalidad expósita y sus causas en una cohorte de niños abandonados en la inclusa toledana, aquellos que nacieron en la Maternidad aneja, como grupo homogéneo que partía de unas condiciones de alumbramiento similares y fueron institucionalizados al nacer. Ello permite comparar esta mortalidad expósita con la de otras inclusas españolas y con la mortalidad poblacional, a la vez que explica los distintos factores que pudieron condicionarla (AU)

The aim of this work is to analyze the mortality and its causes in the abandoned children of the Children’s home of Toledo, who were born in the Maternity House, because it was a homogeneous group which had the same conditions in their delivery and they were abandoned at the moment of their birth. It allows us to compare the mortality of this group of foundlings with the mortality of the general population and with the mortality of those abandoned in other Charity Institutions. This paper explains the different factors which could determine the mortality (AU)

A Narrative of Fear: Advice to Mothers.

Taking present-day research into so-called new momism and intense mothering as a starting point, this article argues that the current mothering discourse, rather than articulating a new phenomenon, perpetuates a regulative discourse developed in the nineteenth century, in advice books written by medical doctors for pregnant women and new mothers. Both the Victorian and the present-day texts play on feelings of guilt and inadequacy in order to control the actions and emotions of mothers, although the threatened outcome differs: present-day mothers are warned that their children may become obese or develop neuropsychological disorders, whereas Victorian mothers are warned that their children might die.

Childbirth and women's healthcare in pre-modern societies: an assessment

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One where the kid actually is "all right": the queering of Iva in Marilyn Hacker's Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons.

This article explores Marilyn Hacker's 1986 sonnet sequence, Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons, for its depiction of lesbian parenting. Hacker moves beyond the simply erotic to focus on a truly subversive act present within the queer community, namely that of child-rearing. Lesbian parenting is a private world, one not subject to the male gaze in the ways that other seemingly private worlds (like sex) are still commodified. The daughter character of Iva exemplifies the construction of self in a queer environment. Children of queer parents have the unique subject position of being "queered" themselves regardless of their ultimate sexual orientation. While this queering would seem to primarily affect their understandings of gender and sexuality, this article argues that such early "othering" serves to deconstruct one's understanding of binaries and social conformity on a large scale, thereby encouraging qualities of acceptance and compassion and increasing the intimate family bond.

Perigosas amas de leite: aleitamento materno, ciência e escravidão em A Mãi de Familia / Dangerous wet nurses: breastfeeding, science, and slavery in A Mãi de Familia

Examina de que modo, em A Mãi de Familia, jornal veiculado na Corte (1879-1888), a defesa do aleitamento materno esteve imbricada com questões relativas à escravidão. São analisados, em especial, artigos assinados pelo médico Carlos Costa, principal redator e fundador do periódico. Começando por apresentar o jornal, destaca-se a luta em prol do aleitamento materno como tema de grande relevância, visando educar a mulher para desempenhar satisfatoriamente a maternidade dentro dos parâmetros higiênicos. Discute-se, em seguida, como o fato de a maioria das amas de leite ser escrava influenciou na argumentação contra o aleitamento mercenário. Por fim, analisa-se um conto publicado no jornal, no qual são narradas as desventuras de uma ama de leite cativa.

The article examines how the defense of breastfeeding was intertwined with slavery-related issues in 'A Mãi de Familia', a newspaper that circulated in the city of Rio de Janeiro (1879-1888). A special focus of analysis are the articles signed by physician Carlos Costa, main editor and founder of the periodical. After introducing the newspaper, the text goes on to highlight the fight in favor of breastfeeding, which was a highly notable topic aimed at educating women to fulfill their maternal roles in accordance with hygienic parameters. It then discusses how the fact that most wet nurses were slaves influenced arguments against mercenary breastfeeding. Lastly, it analyzes a story published in the newspaper, which narrates the misfortunes of a captive wet nurse.

"It just kind of like falls in your hands": factors that influence black aunts' decisions to parent their nieces and nephews.

Using a modified grounded theory method and Black feminist theory, the author explored the factors that influence the decision-making processes of Black aunts parenting nieces and nephews. Analysis revealed six themes that facilitated beliefs in a lack of agency in the decision-making process: perceptions of a crisis, fulfillment of family obligations, personal identities, faith in God, gendered expectations, and the role of the Black aunt. Findings emphasized the impact of cultural traditions and gendered expectations on the meanings that Black aunts attach to familial roles and the influence of past and current racism on their definitions of the situation.

Changes in union status during the transition to parenthood in eleven European countries, 1970s to early 2000s.

Couples who have children are increasingly likely to have lived together without being married at some point in their relationship. Some couples begin their unions with cohabitation and marry before first conception, some marry during pregnancy or directly after the first birth, while others remain unmarried 3 years after the first birth. Using union and fertility histories since the 1970s for eleven countries, we examine whether women who have children in unions marry, and if so, at what stage in family formation. We also examine whether women who conceive when cohabiting are more likely to marry or separate. We find that patterns of union formation and childbearing develop along different trajectories across countries. In all countries, however, less than 40 per cent of women remained in cohabitation up to 3 years after the first birth, suggesting that marriage remains the predominant institution for raising children.

Help for all parents?: Child-rearing advice in English Canada in the 1960s and 1970s.

Changes occurring in Canadian society during the 1960s and 1970s were poorly reflected in the child-rearing advice directed to English-Canadian parents. Despite the rise in the number of women working outside the home and feminist calls for a more equitable division of child care, experts only sometimes modified their advice to acknowledge this reality. In addition, the creation of the welfare state seemed to encourage child-rearing advisors to ignore class disparities. Finally, experts in this period rarely acknowledged any racial diversity in the Canadian population, despite an increasingly multicultural society. They continued to presume as the norm a white, Anglo-Saxon, middle-class family in which mothers remained the primary caregivers.

Stratified familialism: the care regime in India through the lens of childcare.

This article explores the political and social economy of care in India through a focus on childcare practices, from the viewpoint of the care giver ­ a perspective frequently ignored or touched on only generally in earlier discussions on development or social policy. It is argued that the care regime is an ad hoc summation of informal, stratified practices. It is shaped by the institutional context, in particular the economic and social inequalities of work and livelihoods, as well as trends and absences in state economic and social policy. Central to the dynamics of care practices in India is the ideology of gendered familialism in public discourse and policy, which reiterates care as a familial and female responsibility and works to devalue and diminish the dimensions of care. By delineating the range of institutions through which everyday childcare practices are organized, this contribution draws out the differentiations and actualities of stratified familialism and care. At one end of the spectrum are those who have the possibility to retain familial carers at home and supplement them with paid and other institutional carers; at the other are those who are neither able to retain family members at home nor fill the care gap through formal institutions.

Tensions between work and home: job quality and working conditions in the institutional contexts of Germany and Spain.

Good jobs can generate capabilities that allow employees to avoid tensions between work and family/home. Following the conceptual framework of Amartya Sen, we examine how job-related demands and resources are related to the level of interference, as well as satisfaction with managing work and home in Spanish and German employees, using three different large-scale European surveys: European Quality of Life Survey and two waves of the European Social Survey. We find that long working hours systematically increase tensions between work and home, as do time pressure, job-related stress, and working hard. Job control or autonomy at work, which is hypothesized to expand individuals' capabilities and agency, tends to increase work­home interference rather than alleviate it. Family responsibilities and household demands do not seem relevant to the tensions employees experience at the work­home interface. This also holds true for women, which is a surprising result in view of the "double burden" hypothesis. Employed mothers in Germany and Spain are a select group of women, as combining employment with raising children in conservative­corporatist and conservative­familialist states may be particularly problematic. Thus while the institutional contexts of Germany and Spain curtail women's ability to reconcile employment and parenthood, the mothers (and fathers) who are employed do not experience significantly higher levels of work­family/home tensions than nonparents.

Social policies related to parenthood and capabilities of Slovenian parents.

We apply Sen's capability approach to evaluate the capabilities of Slovenian parents to reconcile paid work and family in the context of the transition to a market economy. We examine how different levels of capabilities together affect the work­life balance (WLB) of employed parents. We combine both quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches. The results of our quantitative and qualitative research show that increased precariousness of employment and intensification of work create gaps between the legal and normative possibilities for successful reconciliation strategies and actual use of such arrangements in Slovenia. The existing social policies and the acceptance of gender equality in the sphere of paid work enhance capabilities for reconciliation of paid work and parenthood, whereas the intensification of working lives, the dominance of paid work over other parts of life, and the acceptance of gender inequalities in parental and household responsibilities limit parents' capabilities to achieve WLB.

Look-normal: the colonized child of developmental science.

This article provides an analysis of the techniques, methods, materials, and discourses of child study observation to illuminate its role in the sociohistorical colonization of childhood. Through analysis of key texts it explains how early 20th-century child study provided for the transcendence of historical, racial, and social contexts for understanding human development. The colonizing project of child study promoted the advancement of Eurocentric culture through a generic "White" development. What a child is and can be, and the meaning of childhood has been disembodied through observation, record keeping, and analytical processes in which time and space are abstracted from behavior, and development symbolized as a universal ideal.