California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Latest update: March 31, 2000
jeanne
Susan

Go to Parents' Child Care Preferences: Patterns among Welfare Mothers. Find this paragraph of interpretation under the heading: Characteristics of Care Predicting Mother's Satisfaction with Arrangement, a little more than halfway down the file.

"Mothers with children between the ages of 3 and 5 are significantly more satisfied with their child care when they think that their child feels happy about the arrangement and has an opportunity to learn new things. They are also more satisfied with their care when they think the caregiver has less experience caring for children, These dimensions of care are not significant independent predictors of mothers' satisfaction with care for children under 3. While the first two findings appear consistent with the developmental growth of children, the finding about the negative effect of a caregiver's experience seems counterintuitive. Perhaps caregiver's experience is masking the effect of an unmeasured variable like enthusiasm, but'we can only speculate why this unusual pattern emerges."

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Read also this quote from the California Wellness Foundation's Program on Teenage Pregancy Prevention:

"Although adolescents must be responsible for their own behavior, they are largely powerless to control their own environment including education, economic and family circumstances, and availability of health services. Adults continue to create and contribute to the specific circumstances that allow teen pregnancy to flourish by failing to resolve their own ambivalence about sexuality. This adult ambivalence, in turn, transmits confusing messages about healthy sexuality resulting in a failure to provide teens comprehensive sexuality education and easy, affordable access to reproductive health care.

"Existing data confirm the extent and intransigence of the teen pregnancy problem in California and the complex range of issues that must be addressed if we expect to make a difference. California children grow up surrounded by mixed messages. Sexuality is expressed through adult-driven commercialism, politics and pathology rather than as normal and positive aspects of human development."

1. What kind of stereotypical image do we have of the young girl who experiences a teenage pregnancy?

Answer: The teenage mother is labelled as deviant or delinquent, "too young" for the serious role of motherhood. By and large negative value judgments are made.

2. Does the California Wellness Foundation see teenage pregnancy as a juvenile problem or an adult problem? Why?

Answer: The California Wellness Foundation views teenage pregnancy as an adult problem. The foundation's Teenage Pregancy Prevention Program attributes the high rate of teenage pregnancy in California to the fact that the Califonia cultural environment confronts teenagers with adults who are ambivalent about their own attitudes towards sexuality.

3. Does the California Wellness Foundation suggest that teenagers are not responsible for their own sexuality?

Answer: No, the foundation makes very clear its position that teenagers are responsible for their own actions, but that they are not responsible for an adult-created environment that they cannot control. Notice that the California Wellness Foundation's position on this issue reflects the need to view the issue from a number of perspectives.

4. How do you think the teenage mother feels about her child? Do you think that she is more interested in fun and popularity, or do you think she, like the welfare mothers in the study above, would be concerned for her child's happiness above all?

Answer: No, the mothers' concern for the child's satisfaction with the situation is inconsistent with the stereotypical image of the convicted felon as "bad," and therefore deserving of incarceration, no matter its social costs.

5. Can you see a parallel here to our "cheating as magic" discussion?

Answer: Yes, there is a parallel: motherhood as magic. The magi in this case is that it is a culturally accepted value for mother/child love to be strong. The child who, for whatever reason, cannot find the loving bonds it seeks, may see motherhood as the acquiring of a real person to love and be loved by. Also, as in the case of cheating, the process of copying or taking someone else's work and he process of having a baby or deviant and negatively viewed actions. But the prize may be worth the risk of labelling to some.

BACK to Question and Choices.

Figurine by Rudiger Appel. Notice that you can see three effects in the animation. Either the Variation on the Kandinsky figurine appears to turn in a clockwise direction, or in a counterclockwise direction, or it appears to open and close. Can you see all three effects? Try. Fascinated? Link to Appel's site and then link to the background he provides. Scroll down until you find a link to background.

Chantessy's Page Chantessy's Mardi Gras Alphabet was originally used on this page. We changed it because it was too distracting as eye candy. Chantessy was the first contributor to our Kids' Site when we began Dear Habermas. Visit her page. Check out the sliders puzzles on her fun page. Or check out her candy box and send a friend a posty. Non-violent ways to respond to structural violence in the academy! It's great fun.