Download or read book Mothers on Trial written by Phyllis Chesler and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Updated and revised with seven new chapters, a new introduction, and a new resources section, this landmark book is invaluable for women facing a custody battle. It was the first to break the myth that mothers receive preferential treatment over fathers in custody disputes. Although mothers generally retain custody when fathers choose not to fight for it, fathers who seek custody often win—not because the mother is unfit or the father has been the primary caregiver but because, as Phyllis Chesler argues, women are held to a much higher standard of parenting. Incorporating findings from years of research, hundreds of interviews, and international surveys about child-custody arrangements, Chesler argues for new guidelines to resolve custody disputes and to prevent the continued oppression of mothers in custody situations. This book provides a philosophical and psychological perspective as well as practical advice from one of the country’s leading matrimonial lawyers. Both an indictment of a discriminatory system and a call to action over motherhood under siege, Mothers on Trial is essential reading for anyone concerned either personally or professionally with custody rights and the well-being of the children involved.
Download or read book In Defense of Single Parent Families written by Nancy E Dowd and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 1999-05-01 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Single-parent families succeed. Within these families children thrive, develop, and grow, just as they do in a variety of family structures. Tragically, they must do so in the face of powerful legal and social stigma that works to undermine them. As Nancy E. Dowd argues in this bold and original book, the justifications for stigmatizing single-parent families are founded largely on myths, myths used to rationalize harshly punitive social policies. Children, in increasing numbers, bear the brunt of those policies. In this generation, more than two-thirds of all children will spend some time in a single-parent family before reaching age 18. The damage done in the name of justified stigma, therefore, harms a great many children. Dowd details the primary justifications for stigmatizing single-parent families, marshalling an impressive array of resources about single parents that portray a very different picture of these families. She describes them in all their forms, with particular attention to the differential treatment given never-married and divorced single parents, and to the impact of gender, race, and class. Emphasizing that all families face significant conflicts between work and family responsibilities, Dowd argues many two-parent families, in fact, function as single-parent caregiving households. The success or failure of families, she contends, has little to do with form. Many of the problems faced by single-parent families mirror problems faced by all families. Illustrating the harmful impact of current laws concerning divorce, welfare, and employment, Dowd makes a powerful case for centering policy around the welfare and equality of all children. A thought-provoking examination of the stereotypes, realities and possibilities of single-parent families, In Defense of Single-Parent Families asks us to consider the true purpose or goal of a family.
Download or read book How We Live Now written by Bella M. DePaulo and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-08-25 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A close-up examination and exploration, How We Live Now challenges our old concepts of what it means to be a family and have a home, opening the door to the many diverse and thriving experiments of living in twenty-first century America. Across America and around the world, in cities and suburbs and small towns, people from all walks of life are redefining our “lifespaces”—the way we live and who we live with. The traditional nuclear family in their single-family home on a suburban lot has lost its place of prominence in contemporary life. Today, Americans have more choices than ever before in creating new ways to live and meet their personal needs and desires. Social scientist, researcher, and writer Bella DePaulo has traveled across America to interview people experimenting with the paradigm of how we live. In How We Live Now, she explores everything from multi-generational homes to cohousing communities where one’s “family” is made up of friends and neighbors to couples “living apart together” to single-living, and ultimately uncovers a pioneering landscape for living that throws the old blueprint out the window. Through personal interviews and stories, media accounts, and in-depth research, How We Live Now explores thriving lifespaces, and offers the reader choices that are freer, more diverse, and more attuned to our modern needs for the twenty-first century and beyond.
Download or read book Marriage Markets written by June Carbone and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There was a time when the phrase "American family" conjured up a single, specific image: a breadwinner dad, a homemaker mom, and their 2.5 kids living comfortable lives in a middle-class suburb. Today, that image has been shattered, due in part to skyrocketing divorce rates, single parenthood, and increased out-of-wedlock births. But whether it is conservatives bewailing the wages of moral decline and women's liberation, or progressives celebrating the result of women's greater freedom and changing sexual mores, most Americans fail to identify the root factor driving the changes: economic inequality that is remaking the American family along class lines. In Marriage Markets, June Carbone and Naomi Cahn examine how macroeconomic forces are transforming our most intimate and important spheres, and how working class and lower income families have paid the highest price. Just like health, education, and seemingly every other advantage in life, a stable two-parent home has become a luxury that only the well-off can afford. The best educated and most prosperous have the most stable families, while working class families have seen the greatest increase in relationship instability. Why is this so? The book provides the answer: greater economic inequality has profoundly changed marriage markets, the way men and women match up when they search for a life partner. It has produced a larger group of high-income men than women; written off the men at the bottom because of chronic unemployment, incarceration, and substance abuse; and left a larger group of women with a smaller group of comparable men in the middle. The failure to see marriage as a market affected by supply and demand has obscured any meaningful analysis of the way that societal changes influence culture. Only policies that redress the balance between men and women through greater access to education, stable employment, and opportunities for social mobility can produce a culture that encourages commitment and investment in family life. A rigorous and enlightening account of why American families have changed so much in recent decades, Marriage Markets cuts through the ideological and moralistic rhetoric that drives our current debate. It offers critically needed solutions for a problem that will haunt America for generations to come.
Download or read book Blaming Mothers written by Linda C. Fentiman and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2019-05-01 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gripping explanation of the biases that lead to the blaming of pregnant women and mothers. Are mothers truly a danger to their children’s health? In 2004, a mentally disabled young woman in Utah was charged by prosecutors with murder after she declined to have a Caesarian section and subsequently delivered a stillborn child. In 2010, a pregnant woman who attempted suicide when the baby’s father abandoned her was charged with murder and attempted feticide after the daughter she delivered prematurely died. These are just two of the many cases that portray mothers as the major source of health risk for their children. The American legal system is deeply shaped by unconscious risk perception that distorts core legal principles to punish mothers who “fail to protect” their children. In Blaming Mothers, Professor Fentiman explores how mothers became legal targets. She explains the psychological processes we use to confront tragic events and the unconscious race, class, and gender biases that affect our perceptions and influence the decisions of prosecutors, judges, and jurors. Fentiman examines legal actions taken against pregnant women in the name of “fetal protection” including court ordered C-sections and maintaining brain-dead pregnant women on life support to gestate a fetus, as well as charges brought against mothers who fail to protect their children from an abusive male partner. She considers the claims of physicians and policymakers that refusing to breastfeed is risky to children’s health. And she explores the legal treatment of lead-poisoned children, in which landlords and lead paint manufacturers are not held responsible for exposing children to high levels of lead, while mothers are blamed for their children’s injuries. Blaming Mothers is a powerful call to reexamine who - and what - we consider risky to children’s health. Fentiman offers an important framework for evaluating childhood risk that, rather than scapegoating mothers, provides concrete solutions that promote the health of all of America’s children. Read a piece by Linda Fentiman on shaming and blaming mothers under the law on The Gender Policy Report.
Download or read book All In written by Josh Levs and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-05-12 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When journalist Josh Levs was denied fair parental leave by his employer after his child was born, he fought back—and won. Since then, he’s become an advocate for modern families and working fathers. In All In, he explores the changing face of fatherhood and what it means for our individual lives, families, workplaces, and society. Fatherhood today is far different from previous generations. Stay-at-home dads are increasingly common, and growing numbers of men are working part-time or flextime schedules to spend more time with their children. Even the traditional breadwinner-dad is being transformed. Dads today are more emotionally and physically involved on the home front. They are “all in” and—like mothers—they are struggling with work-life balance and doing it all. Journalist and “dad columnist” Josh Levs explains that despite these unprecedented changes, our laws, corporate policies, and gender-based expectations in the workplace remain rigid. They are preventing both women and men from living out the equality we believe in—and hurting businesses in the process. Women have done a great job of speaking out about this, Levs—whose fight for parental leave made front page news across the country—argues. It’s now time for men to join in. Combining Levs’ personal experiences with investigative reporting and frank conversations with fathers about everything from work life to money to sex, All In busts popular myths, lays out facts, uncovers the forces holding all of us back, and shows how we can all join together to change them.
Download or read book Motherhood and the Law written by Harry Willekens and published by Göttingen University Press. This book was released on 2019 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who is a child’s legal mother? Must a child have exactly one mother, can it have two or three, or can it have two fathers, but no mother? Or has the concept of motherhood become obsolete and should we just talk of parenthood in a gender neutral way? Questions such as these would have appeared esoteric only a few decades ago, but as a result of new social developments (such as frequent family reconstitutions, gay and lesbian emancipation or surrogacy) and of technological innovations (such as egg and embryo donations) they have become issues in a vehement debate. The interdisciplinary contributions to this book focus on the legal definition of motherhood, on the way in which legal conceptions structure the social discourse on motherhood (and vice versa), and on the influence of legal rules on power relations between mothers, fathers, children and the state. Among the issues addressed are - the challenges to our understanding of the legal regulation of motherhood by developments in reproductive medicine; - the challenges to our understanding of the legal regulation of motherhood by parental constellations deviating from the mother-father-model (single motherhood by choice, same-gender parenthood, multiple parenthood); - the exercise of parental rights in case of parental separation and the impact of legal rules on the bargaining positions of mothers and fathers.
Download or read book Child Custody Made Simple written by Webster Watnik and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses a variety of issues concerning child custody, including court structures, living arrangements, recommendations on avoiding court battles, and advice on working with lawyers.
Download or read book The Social History of the American Family written by Marilyn J. Coleman and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2014-09-02 with total page 2111 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American family has come a long way from the days of the idealized family portrayed in iconic television shows of the 1950s and 1960s. The four volumes of The Social History of the American Family explore the vital role of the family as the fundamental social unit across the span of American history. Experiences of family life shape so much of an individual’s development and identity, yet the patterns of family structure, family life, and family transition vary across time, space, and socioeconomic contexts. Both the definition of who or what counts as family and representations of the “ideal” family have changed over time to reflect changing mores, changing living standards and lifestyles, and increased levels of social heterogeneity. Available in both digital and print formats, this carefully balanced academic work chronicles the social, cultural, economic, and political aspects of American families from the colonial period to the present. Key themes include families and culture (including mass media), families and religion, families and the economy, families and social issues, families and social stratification and conflict, family structures (including marriage and divorce, gender roles, parenting and children, and mixed and non-modal family forms), and family law and policy. Features: Approximately 600 articles, richly illustrated with historical photographs and color photos in the digital edition, provide historical context for students. A collection of primary source documents demonstrate themes across time. The signed articles, with cross references and Further Readings, are accompanied by a Reader’s Guide, Chronology of American Families, Resource Guide, Glossary, and thorough index. The Social History of the American Family is an ideal reference for students and researchers who want to explore political and social debates about the importance of the family and its evolving constructions.
Download or read book When Parents Separate written by Children's Legal Centre and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Private Lives written by Lawrence Meir Friedman and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on many revealing and sometimes colorful court cases of the past two centuries, Private Lives offers a lively short history of the complexities of family law and family life--including the tensions between the laws on the books and contemporary arrangements for marriage, divorce, adoption, and child rearing.
Download or read book Raising My Children Alone written by Shirley Wilson and published by . This book was released on 2004-07-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This true story is so unbelieving it can be mistaken as fiction. The protagonist is the mother of six children. She struggles in a dramatic determination to achieve her lifelong goal to become a teacher, along with trying to find a balance between raising and educating her children. While her children look forward to a better life when their mother completes her education and gets a job, she tries to find ways to help them survive on a meager income. This book tells how the mother was abandoned by the man she married, and how she was uprooted from her extended family. She was left alone to survive with her children on a balding landscape of life. As she draws her strength from her Source of power, she depicts a recreation of an extended family in her present community setting many miles away from her roots. The mother does more than reveal survival skills in her dramatic, captivating story. Reading the book is a mirror. It touches the lives of single parents and married couples with children. The book shows how a family can emerge into a spiritual unity. This is what some critics said about an excerpt or a chapter in the book: "1 was practically on my toes, the story forced me to read every page, hoping and praying that the boy would get the bike for Christmas. The story is so full of drama. That's what good writing is all about! Bravo!" Sandra Horton University Professor of Music "1 read at least 10 to 12 books a month. This one is so different and among the best. I felt like getting inside of the mother and helping her out in her plight. Your ability to combine your literary craft with a true story is just simply remarkable! The part about, "multi-lighted windows of a newly builtsubdivision were staring at me through a wet, misty foggy morning like yellow eyed jungle cats waiting for prey. "I found myself reading it over and over again. What can I say? It's simply didactic. Loved it! Joan Love International Motivational Speaker
Download or read book Rights of Single Parents written by Margaret C. Jasper and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2005 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book Single Mothers Patriarchy and Citizenship in India Rethinking Lone Motherhood through the Lens of Socio legal and Policy Framework written by Adv Dr Shalu Nigam and published by Shalu Nigam . This book was released on 2024-02-18 with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Motherhood is a powerful virtue. However, in a patriarchal society, it is construed narrowly to uphold the heteronormative family norms which prioritize men over women. This traditional framework overlooks the diverse family forms and alienates female-headed households. Rather, families headed by lone mothers are chastened and labelled as broken, pathological, and degenerative. Despite constitutional guarantees of equality and justice, the state and society alienate them, deny them visibility, and absolve themselves of the responsibilities of protecting their citizenship rights. Nevertheless, for ages, single mothers, despite all hardships, have been defying patriarchal norms and are bringing up their children solely, with little support available from their families, society, or the state. Rather, they are challenging the dominant and hegemonic `male breadwinner and provider’ model. This work examines this active and empowered notion of motherhood, or feminist and emancipatory mothering, while focusing on how lone mothers are redefining and reshaping the socio-cultural norms to pave the social transformation through their maternal activism. With the increase in the number of female-headed households, this work recommends the need for an alternative approach to disrupt the dominant themes of victimhood, poverty, destitution, and neglect by deploying the axis of intersectionality. It suggests that the state needs to evolve a comprehensive empowerment framework to specifically recognize the entitlements of single mothers as citizens and take steps to advance their citizenship rights.
Download or read book Single Mothers and the State s Embrace written by Harriet M. Phinney and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the mid-1980s, after the Indochina Wars, a shortage of men meant that many single women in Vietnam found themselves without suitable marital prospects. A number of these women chose to pursue single motherhood by “asking for a child” (xin con)—asking men to get them pregnant out of wedlock. Xin con appeared to be a radical departure from traditional Vietnamese kinship values and practices, which were based in Confucian patriarchal and patrilineal reproductive interests. However, this innovative solution was rooted in both pre- and postwar values, practices, and notions of gender, kinship, love, and sexuality. This ethnography explores the practice of xin con among single mothers in the postwar era and today, and considers the ways their reproductive agency was embraced rather than rejected by the Vietnamese state as it entered the global market economy. Rather than condemning or trying to restrict older single women’s reproductive agency, government officials enacted policies that would accommodate both the women and the state—a strategy that represents an intriguing alignment of Confucian heritage, Communist ideology, and governing tactics and demonstrates the social power of women.
Download or read book In Defense of Single Parent Families written by Nancy E. Dowd and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 1999-05 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dowd (law, U. of Florida) argues that the justifications for stigmatizing single-parent families are founded on myths used to rationalize harshly punitive social policies that hit children hardest. She says that many two-parent families in fact function as single-caregiving environments anyway, that the two kind of families have some unique and some common problems, that the failure or success of a family has little to do with its form, and that single-parent children often grow up with more admirable traits than their more conventional contemporaries. She looks hard at how the laws and other policies lay extra burdens on families, and recommends reforms. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book A Parent Partner Status for American Family Law written by Merle H. Weiner and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-17 with total page 659 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book proposes a new 'parent-partner' legal status emphasizing obligations of parents to each other and to their children.
