Child birth and rearing

In Hafner-Eaton and Pearce's article they discuss different types of infant delivery, mainly by midwife or physician. They offer a few reasons for why many people prefer delivering their baby at home with the assistance of a midwife rather than in a hospital with a physician's assistance. In general, studies show that planned home deliveries have lower intervention rates, lower complication rates, and lower morbidity and mortality rates than hospital births. Some people argue that midwives do more than simply deliver babies, that they "teach women how to give birth" and care for the mental, emotional and physical well-being of the mother and child. Also, since midwives consider giving birth a normal occurence, they avoid medical interventions like cesarean sections and lithotomy position, which they see as abnormal and that often lead to the necessity of other interventions. Midwives embody a wealth of knowledge about delivery and the female body through experience. They reduce anxiety and build trust between themselves and the client. Many women find midwifery appealing due to their increased control over their bodies during delivery and the low-anxiety and low-intervention environment. Seeing as though I have not yet experienced childbirth, I remain slightly uninformed and indifferent as to which setting is best for childbirth. The more personal and comfortable environment and lower rates of mortality and intervention are appealing in midwifery. I could see how being in your own home with your family and a very experienced midwife would make for an easier, more relaxed delivery. On the other hand, should the need arise for medical intervention, a hospital accompanied by many physicians and sophisticated technology seems appealing.

Lawrence Friedman's article discusses the change in legal ties between parents and their children over time. Overall, Friedman claims that the legal ties parents have over their children have become less over the years and that parental authority has decreased. Society has begun to grant children more and more rights. The state has garnered more power in being able to take a child away from an abusive or bad family and place it with a good family and by dictating what the child learns in school. Friedman, however, maintains that parents still have a very strong influence on their kids, however.
Historically, adoption took place in order to keep the family name going or to provide an heir to a family's property and wealth. In the colonial period the United States didn't acknowledge adoption formally, however, many states passed legislature that allowed the practice of adoption without actually using the term "adoption." Many countries, however, accepted no form of adoption holding that the bloodline was crucial. In many of the states, adoption laws made adoption similar to writing a deed for selling real estate. As time went on a more modern adoption law required court hearings where a judge would decide whether or not the parents were suitable and if the child would benefit from the family. As a result of the initial purpose of adoption having to do with inheritance and continuing the family name, many states provided laws that allowed the adopted child to inherit from the adoptive parents. Some states also allowed the child to inherit from his/her natural relatives. Another common purpose for adoption historically was to assimilate other "primitive" cultures into the white culture. Many Native Americans, African Americans and other ethnic children were kidnapped and placed in white families. As society began to realize the effect this had on diversity and how unfair it was to put an end to certain cultures, some laws were established to prevent transracial adoptions.

In her article, Sharon Hays discusses welfare reform, from both a liberal and conservative perspective. Conservative critics of welfare believe that the old system of welfare perpetuated poverty and even caused it to increase due to it promoting laziness, dependency, and allowing for dysfunctional families. The conservatives focus more on the moral implications that the old welfare system had on the poor and the entire society. On the other hand, liberal critics of the old welfare system focus more on economics. Rather than believing that the poor values of the welfare recipients perpetuated and increased poverty, liberals believe that the recipients weren't receiving enough financial support to allow them to escape economic hardship. In 1996 legislation was passed that renamed welfare as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). Unlike the old welfare system that was heavily criticized, TANF does not offer welfare to mothers that are not in the paid labor force. Once the woman enters the welfare office, she must be finding a job, training for a job, or working a job. Also, after five years welfare recipients are expected to be self-sufficient enough to not need welfare anymore. Regardless of their economic status after five years, even if they are still desperately poor, they are no longer eligible for welfare for the rest of their lives.
The changes enacted by welfare reform reveal dramatic changes in our society's values. The work requirements clearly show how important work is to our society, after all we do strive to obtain the "American Dream." More importantly, by forcing mothers into the workplace, it is clear that our society no longer values the traditional familial roles of a male breadwinner and a female domestic caretaker of the family and its emotional well-being. Classical liberal individualistic values seem to have taken over after the welfare reform of 1996. Women are now expected to abandon her domestic duties within the family to enter the workplace as equals to men. They are no longer expected to rely solely on their husbands incomes, rather they are expected to support themselves and their children on their own incomes. While this new role of individualistic women in the workforce is promoted by many, those same people lament the decline of the family presenting a clear contradiction that reveals the pros and cons of the welfare reform. There are two distinct and contradictory visions that Hays calls the Work Plan and the Family Plan. The Work Plan uses work requirements to rehabilitate mothers and turn them into individualistic, self-reliant workers. The Family plan, however, punishes women for not getting and remaining married, implying that women should rely on their husbands for financial stability while they tend to the children and the home. While many critics of the old welfare system emphasize the necessity of women entering the workforce and becoming self-reliant and individualistic, at the same time those people lament the toll this growing individualism and de-domestication of woman takes on the family. The two contradictory visions reveal the stuggle of our society in deciding between many dichotomous sets of values-whether women should be self-reliant workers or reliant caregivers, of independence and of community, etc. The different arguments in welfare reform shows that our society hasn't decisively chosen which values lead to the best path.

The article about poverty reveals a stark difference between how the U.S. views poverty and how other countries do. According to the article, countries like Norway view poverty as a result of economic and structural factors that can be combatted by government aid, whereas, the United States views poverty as a result of bad, immoral behavior and laziness. The U.S' view of the causes of poverty acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy because by assuming that poverty is caused by bad behavior and laziness influences the enactment of welfare reform that requires work in order to prevent laziness. Often times needy families do not receive enough assistance under this type of welfare system, and out of desperation have to act immorally in order to sustain themselves and their families.

The main reason that the American Dream is no longer as attainable is due to the increasing prices of health care, higher education, higher quality child-care, and housing. While the prices for these indespensable services are increasing, wages and rates of inflation are not increasing in a proportionate rate, preventing the poor from attaining the American Dream. In order to make the American Dream more accessible, the authors argue that compassion needs to replace the war on bad behavior and that government programs and a higher minimum wage needs to be introduced in order to provide the poor with those necessary services that have increasingly become too expensive for them to afford.

The last article cites France and other European countries as examples that could help the U.S. improve its child care system. The system needs to become publicly funded and universally accessible to all, not just to the affluent and the poor. The programs should last a full day allowing parents the time to work. The child-care workers should be trained teachers that receive the same pay as a public school teacher in order to provide better quality child care. Rather than emphasizing maternal care and nurturing, child-care programs, like in France, should be sources of early education. Although systems like these that are in place in France and other European countries are expensive, in the long term they are worth it because they will prevent costly problems along the course of the child's lifetime such as crime, teenage pregnancy and delinquency.