Reading 1: Traver, A. Ch. 6 "Parenting"

6Parenting7 Parenting is the process of nurturing, caring for, socializing, and preparing one's children for their eventual adult statuses and roles. Parenting is a universal family experience that spans across the history of the human family and every culture in the world. 6.1 Becoming a Parent Most women and men in the United States become parents at some point in their adult lives. This might include parenting a birth child, adopted child, step child, foster child, or unrelated child. Studies indicate that the majority of 18- to 29-year-olds want to have children, believing that being a good parent is one of the most important things in life {Wang and Taylor 2011). Yet, while research indicates that parenting is one of the most fulfilling things a person can do (Gallup and Newport 1990), having children also seem to reduce American parents' emotional well-being. A recent review summarized this evidence: Parents in the United States experience depression and emotional distress more often than their childless adult counterparts. Parents of young children report far more depression, emotional distress and other negative emotions than non-parents, and parents of grown children have no better well-being than adults who never had children (Simon 2008: 41). One reason for this is that parenting can be both stressful and expensive. Depending on household income, the average child costs parents between $134,000 and $270,000 from birth until age 18. A child's college education can cost parents tens of thousands of dollars beyond that, as well. Robin W. Simon {2008) argues that American parents' stress would be reduced if the government provided better and more affordable day care and after-school options, flexible work schedules, and tax credits for various parenting costs. She also thinks that the expectations Americans have of the joy of parenthood are unrealistically positive and that parental stress would be reduced if expectations became more realistic. Birth Over the last few decades, nearly four million live births were recorded annually in the United States. About 40% of those are first births to a mother, and about 60% of all births in the United States are to mothers aged 15-29 years old. 7 This chapter integrates text from Laff and Ruiz (2021), Lang (2020), OpenStax (2017), Sociology (2016], and Boundless Sociology [n.d.). 43 Today, women in the United States have fewer children than they did before. In the early 1900s, the average fertility rate of women in the United States was about seven children; this average has declined significantly, remaining relatively stable at 2.1 since the 1970s (Hamilton, Martin, and Ventura 2011; Martinez, Daniels, and Chandra 2012}. Americans are having children at older ages, too. For this reason, and others, some people require medical help to achieve pregnancy. The number of Americans who become parents through assisted reproductive technology (methods that utilize medical technology to achieve conception and birth} is thus increasing, as well. FosterCare Foster care is a system in which a minor is placed into a group home (residential child care community, treatment center, etc.), private home of a state-certified caregiver (referred to as a \"foster parent\"), or with a family member approved by the state. The placement of the child is normally arranged through the government or a social service agency. The group home or foster/approved parent is typically compensated for expenses related to this care. In the United States, on any given day, there are more than 400,000 youth living in foster care primarily due to abuse and/or neglect. Many of these children will eventually be reunited with their parents, reestablishing custody. Adopon Adoption, the legal transfer of parental rights of a child to another person, can occur in many ways and elicit a wide variety of family types. In the United States, adoption statistics and estimates are based on U.S. Census data and other sources, and they indicate that approximately 2-4% of all Americans are adopted. In the United States, children tend to be adopted through private arrangements, foster care, or international adoption (Adopted Children 2012). In the case of private adoption, it is common for birth parents to choose their basz adoptive parents; in some cases, adoptive and birth family members maintain some contact with each other after the adoption. Across the American foster care system, 100,000 youth are eligible for adoption given their biological parents' loss of permanent legal rights and custody. The average age of youth waiting to be adopted from foster care is eight years old. In an international adoption, 3 child who is born in one country is adopted by a family who lives in another country. Often, that child was decreed an orphan before their adoption. Children can also be adopted by a relative, such as an aunt, uncle, sister, brother, grandparent, or other relation. Additionally, after a divorce or in the case of same-sex marriages, children can be adopted by one parent's spouse, if that spouse agrees to take full responsibility for the child. Adoption might also be required in situations utilizing assisted reproductive technology, as well. In most American states, the legal transfer of parental rights is required when Americans become parents through the sperm and egg of another couple and/or when a surrogate mother carries a fertilized egg in utero. In both cases, the intended parent(s) adopt(s) the child after birth. 6.2 Parenting Outside of Marriage In all of its forms of becoming, parenting does not require marriage. In fact, one recent trend that illustrates the changing nature of American families is the rise in single-parent households. The 1960 US. Census reported that 9% of children were dependent on a single parent; in contrast, the 2000 US. Census reported that 28% of children were dependent on a single parent. This spike was caused by an increase in unmarried pregnancies (36% of all births occur to unmarried women), as well as the increasing rate of divorce. The proportion of families with children under 18 that have only one pa rent varies significantly by race and ethnicity: Hispanic/Latino American and African American families are more likely than white and Asian American households to be headed by only one parent. It also varies signicantly by education, with college-educated women more likely to be married upon the birth of a child. The prevalence of mother as primary caregiver in a single-parent household is consistent across these differences, however, as are the financial ramifications of households headed by single mothers. In the United States, 27% of single mothers live below the poverty line, and, while the public is largely sympathetic to low-wage-earning single mothers, government benefits accorded them are fairly low. As a result, many single mothers seek assistance by living with another adult, such as a relative, fictive kin, or significant other. Sociologists are also interested in childbearing/rearing trends among cohabiters. While roughly 55% of cohabiting couples have no biological children, approximately 45% live with a biological child of one of the partners and 21% live with their own biological child. (These figures add up to more than 100% because many couples live with their own child and a child ofjust one of the partners.) About 5% of children live with biological parents who are cohabiting. Recent research has begun to compare the attitudes and behavior of children whose biological parent or parents are cohabiting ratherthan married (Apel and Kaukinen 2008; Brown 2005). In comparison to children of married parents, the children of cohabiting parents tend to exhibit lower well-being of various types: they are more likely to engage in delinquency and other antisocial behavior, and they have lower academic performance and worse emotional adjustment. The reasons for these differences need to be clarified, but they may stem more from parental characteristics than cohabitation. 6.3 SameSex Parents The number of same-sex couples has grown significantly in the past decade. The United States Census Bureau recently reported 594,000 same-sex-couple households in the United States, a 50% increase from 2000. Approximately 31% of same-sex couples are raising children, which is not far from the 43% of opposite-sex couples raising children (U.S. Census 2009). Of the children in same-sexcouple households, 73% are the biological children of one of the parents, 21% are adopted, and 5% are a combination of biological and adopted (US. Census 2009). 45 0 Provision of socioemotional support, including the presence of warm and positive responsivity, affection, communication, expectations, afrmations, encouragement, emotional regulation, guidance, discipline, and modeling of appropriate behaviors 0 Provision of stimulation/instruction, including encouragement of achievement and learning through exposure to developmentallya ppropriate and culturallyenriching experiences 0 Provision of supervision, including the monitoring of whereabouts, communications, and activities, the collection of information from various sources, and the maintenance of ongoing and reciprocal communication with children - Provision of structure, including support for connections to communities, relatives, friends, peers, and institutions Socialization By functioning as caregivers of the next generation of adults, parents also play a crucial role in a society's endurance and success. More specifically, parents function as agents of socialization for their children. As defined in an earlier chapter, socialization is the process by which people learn to be a member of a culture. Through socialization, a child comes to understand social norms and learn/accept their society's ideologies and values. Children also learn that they belong to and can depend on others to meet their needs, and that privileges and obligations accompany their membership in a family and community. For the average American child, it is safe to say that the most important period of socialization takes place early in life, beginning at birth and moving forward until the beginning of school. PrimaLy socialization includes all of the ways a child is molded into a social being capable of interacting in and meeting the expectations of society. On a practical level, primary socialization includes instruction on hygiene skills, manners, exercise, work, entertainment, sleep, eating patterns, study skills, and more. It also includes all of the ways in which parents show children how to use objects {such as clothes, computers, eating utensils, books, bikes); relate to others {some as "family,\" others as "friends,\" still others as "strangers\" or "teachers\" or "neighbors\"}; and perceive and navigate the world {what is \"real\" and what is \"imagined\"}. In childhood, children also experience anticipatogg socialization. wherein they acquire the cultural content needed for future social positions. For example, in \"playing pretend,\" children prepare to be doctors or lawyers and to set up homes and dress accordingly. Parents often occupy a signicant place in such play. Sociologists recognize that class, race, gender, religion, and other categorical social variables mediate parents' socialization of children. For instance, sociologist Melvin Kohn found that working-class and middle-class parents tend to socialize their children very differently. According to Kohn (1969), working- class parents tend to hold jobs in which they have little autonomy and are told what to do and how to do it. In such jobs, obedience is an important value, lest the workers be punished for not doing their jobs correctly. Thus, working-class parents often emphasize obedience and respect for authority as they raise their children. In contrast, as middle-class parents tend to hold white-collar jobs where autonomy, creativity, and independent judgment are valued, they tend to emphasize children's development of independence. Scholars have also studied parents' racial socialization of their children. One interesting finding is that African American parents differ in the degree of racial socialization they practice: some parents emphasize African American identity and racial prejudice to a considerable degree, while other parents mention these topics to their children only occasionally. Sociologist Jason E. Shelton (2008) analyzed data from a 47 national random sample of African Americans to determine the reason for these differences. Significantly, Shelton found that African Americans were more likely to engage in racial socialization if they: were older, female, and living outside the American south; perceived that racial discrimination was a growing problem and were members of civil rights organizations aimed at helping African Americans; had higher incomes. While Shelton's study helps us to understand the factors that account for differences in racial socialization by African American parents, it also allows us to see that parents who do attempt to make their children aware of race relations are merely trying, as most parents do, to help their children get ahead. Gender also matters to childhood socialization. For example, many studies find that parents raise their daughters and sons quite differently: parents are often gentler with their daughters and rougher with their sons, giving their girls dolls to play with and their boys guns. Parents' gender also matters to processes of childhood socialization. In Sweden, where government policy provides subsidized maternal/paternal leave, stay-at-home fathers are an accepted part of the social landscape: close to 90 percent of Swedish fathers use their paternity leave (about 340,000 dads), taking, on average, seven weeks of leave per birth (The Economist 2014). How do you think American policiesand our society's expected gender rolescompare? How will Swedish children be socialized to parental gender norms differently, as a result of this policy? As these examples indicate, parents do not socialize their children in a vacuum. In fact, many social factors affect the way parents raise their children. Additionally, children are also socialized by agents other than their parents, like peers, media, sports teams, and more. 6.5 Parenting Adult Children Just because children grow up does not mean that their parents stop parenting them. That said, while the concept of family persists across the entire lifespan, the specic statuses and roles of its members change over time. One major change comes when a child reaches adulthood and moves away. When, exactly, children leave home varies greatly depending on societal norms and expectations, as well as on economic conditions such as employment opportunities and affordable housing options. Some parents may experience sadness when their adult children leave the homea situation known as the empty nest. Around the world today, many parents find that their grown children are struggling to achieve independence. It's an increasingly common story: a child goes off to college and, upon graduation, is unable to nd steady employment. In such instances, a frequent outcome is for the child to return home, becoming a \"boomerang kid.\" The boomerang generation. as the phenomenon has come to be known, refers to young adults, mostly between the ages of 25 and 34, who return home to live with their parents while they strive to achieve stability in their lives. These boomerang kids can be both good and bad for families. Within American families, 48% of boomerang kids report having paid rent to their parents, and 89% say they help out with household expensesa win for everyone involved (Parker 2012). On the other hand, 24% of boomerang kids report that returning home hurt their relationship with their parents (Parker 2012i In addition to middle-aged parents spending more time, money, and energy taking care of their adult children, they are also increasingly responsible for their own aging and ailing parents. Middle-aged people in this set of circumstances are commonly referred to as the sandwich generation (Dukhovnov and Zagheni 2015). Of course, cultural norms and practices again come into play. In some Asian and Hispanic/Latino cultures, the expectation is that the adult children will take care of aging parents and 48 parents-in-law. In other culturesparticularly Western cultures that emphasize individuality and self- sustainabilitythe expectation has historically been that elders either age in place, modifying their home and receiving services to allow them to continue to live independently, or enter long-term care facilities. However, given financial constraints, many families find themselves taking in and caring for their aging parents, increasing the number of extended-family households around the world. 6.6 Voluntary Childlessness Voluntary childlessness is a phenomenon defined by/as: people of childbearing age who are fertile and do not intend to have children; people who have chosen sterilization; and/or people past childbearing age who were fertile but chose not to have children. Individuals can also be \"temporarily childless" but want children in the future. In most societies and for much of human history, choosing not to have children was both difficult and undesirable. Yet, the availability of reliable contraception and abortion, as well as the support provided the elderly by socialsecurity systems, has made voluntary childlessness an appealing option for many people in developed nations. According to 2004 U.S. Census data, the proportion of childless American women 15 to 44 years old was 44.6%, up from 35% in 1976. While younger women are more likely to be childless, older women are more likely to state that they intend to remain childless in the future. Thus, age plays a significant role in the decision to not have children. Likewise, the higher a woman's income, the less likely she is to have children: nearly half of women with annual incomes over $100,000 are childless. Unmarried women are also less likely than married women to be childless. Lastly, the chance of being childless increases with education and is far greater for neverimarried women. Many societies place a high value on parenthood in adult life, so the voluntarily childless are often stereotyped as being "individualistic\" people who avoid social responsibility and are less committed to helping others. That said, with the advent of environmentalism and concerns for the stewardship of the earth, the voluntarily childless are also sometimes recognized as helping reduce the human impact on our world. Childfree social groups rst emerged in the 19705; in North America, the most notable among them are The National Organization for NonParents and No Kidding! To date, numerous books have been written about childfree people, and a range of social positions related to childfree interests have developed along with political and social activism in support of these interests. SIX HOW MOTHERHOOD CHANGED MY LIFE MILLIE AND CARLOS Millie Acevedo is a diminutive, twenty-seven-yearold Puerto Rican mother of three who \"came up\" on Eighth and Indiana, one of the roughest corners in the West Kensington section of Philadelphia. She greets us at the door of her rowhouse with a wellscrubbed lookin a crisp white Tshirt with a face free of makeup and her hair pulled neatly back in a bun. A block and a half away, a bulldozer grinds noisily at the remains of another abandoned neighborhood factory. But Millie's block is relatively well-maintained and peaceful. The telephone poles up and down the street are plastered with advertisements for neighborhood events and give some indication that a community still exists here. At fourteen, Millie believed she had found her future in Carlos, an older boy of nineteen whose best friend lived on her block. Carlos had a job and an apartment of his own. They had been together for a month when Millie moved in with him, and the couple began describing them selves as husband and wife, though they had no legally binding tie. Mil- lie and Carlos were eager to have children but agreed to wait so that she could stay in school. Despite being on birth control and \"taking my pills every day,\" she became a mother before her sixteenth birthday. Though the conception was not planned, the prospect of becoming parents de- 168 lighted them both. The pair shared old-fashioned, Puerto Rican family values, and she willingly dropped out of school to care for their child full time. A year later, they conceived a second son, this one planned, rea- soning that as long as they had started a family, they might as well nish the job. Millie and Carlos enjoyed a fairly stable relationship until she became pregnant at third time, a \"total accident\" in Millie's words, three months after the second child was born. When she told Carlos about die preg- nancy, he \"totally ipped." Though he'd been ecstatic about the rst child and had been the one to push hard for a second, he immediately threatened to leave if she didn't end the third pregnancy. Millie relates the story this way, \"He couldn't deal with [having another child}, and he left. And he was with a couple of other girls out there. Then, after [I went through] the whole pregnancy by myself, he came back after the baby was born. He wanted to be with me again. . . . We tried to stay together for like a whole year after the baby was bom.\" But during this year, which Millie recalls as the worst in her life, Car- los \"had so many jobs it wasn't even funny.\" His frequent conicts with supervisors led to violent confrontations at home. \"And when it got to that point, I was like, 'This is no good for my kids, this is no good for me, either he's gonna hurt me, I'm gonna hurt him, one of us is gonna be dead, one of us is gonna be in jail, and what's gonna happen with my kids rben?' That's when I put an end to it,\" she says. \"I got a restraining order on him, I got him out of the house, and that was the end of it. I never took him back.\" She told him, \" 'That's just it. I'm not taking abuse.' \" Millie is matteroffact when describing her failed relationship with Carlos, but visibly lights up when she talks about being a mother. As Mil- lie imagines what life would be like had she not had children, she tells us her dream was to nish high school and enroll in college. Yet, like so many other mothers we met, Nlillie believes that her children have proved far more of a help than a hindrance. \"My kids, they've matured me a lot. If I hadn't had them and had gone to college, I probably would have gotten introduced to the wrong crowd, and would have gotten lost HOW MOTHERHOOD CHANGED MY LIFE 169 because of the drugs and stuff.\" She believes having children was provi- dence's way of saving her from this fate. \"Maybe I needed my kids [to keep me safe}. They come rst. I've always stayed off ofdrugs for them, and they helped me grow up. . . . I can't picture myself without them.\" Millie's story shares many themes with other stories we heard. She be- lieves that having children is a normal part of life, though she feels she and Carlos got started a year or two too early. Millie and Carlos's rst and third pregnancies were both accidents, but poor women are often more favorably oriented toward having a child than not. Once pregnant. poor mothers pursue parenthood with few of the reservations that middle- class observers assume they must (and should) have about raising chil- dren when they are young, poor, and single. Mothers raising children in the toughest sections of Philadelphia al- most always hope and plan for their children's fathers to be part of their children's lives, just as Millie did. When a man and a woman cannot sur vive as a couple, though, it is an immense disappointment but not the end of the world. As Millie puts it, \"[I've] got a good home for [my kids]. They have everything they need and I give them a lot of love and atten- tion.\" When we ask about Carlos's ongoing role, she replies, \"They don't need anything from himyou know what I'm sayingso I don't ask for nothing.\" MOTHERHOOD AS A TURNING POINT In an America that is profoundly unequal, the poor and rich alike are sup- posed to wait to bear children until they can complete their schooling, nd stable employment, and marry a man who has done the same. Yet poor women realize they may never have children if they hold to this standard.l Middle-class taxpayers see the children born to a young, poor, and unmarried mother as ban'iers to her future achievement, short- circuiting her chances for what might have been a better life, while the mother herself sees children as due best ofwhat life offers. Though some do express regret that an untimely birth robbed them of chances to im- !?O HOW MOTHERHOOD CHANGED MY LIFE prove their lot in life. most do not. Instead, they credit their children for virtually all that they see as positive in their lives.-' Even those who say they might have achieved more if they hadn't become parents when and how they did almost always believe the benets of children far exceed the costs. As Celeste, 3 twenty-one-year-old white mother of a ve-month- old, explains. \"I'd have no direction [if] hadn't had a child]. I could sit here and say, 'Oh, I would have . . . gone to a four-year college,' [but] I probably wouldn't have.\" Like Celeste, many unmarried teens bear chil- dren that are conceived only after they've already experienced academic difculties or dropped out of school} Despite the ascent of feminism and the rapid entry of women into jobs formerly reserved for men, motherhood still offers a powerful source of meaning for American women. This is particularly true for low-income women living in the poorest sections of the Philadelphia area, who have little access to the academic degrees, high-status marriages, and reward- ing professions that provide many middle- and upper-class women with gratifying social identities. Poor youth are driven by a logic that is profoundly counterintuitive to their middle-class critics, who sometimes assume that poor women have children in a twisted competition with their peers to gain status, be- cause they have an insufficient knowledge ofor access tohirth con- trol, or so they can \"milk\" the welfare system. Yet our mothers almost never refer to these motivations. Rather, it is the perceived low costs of early childbearing and the high value that poor women place on chil- drenand motherhoodthat motivate their seemingly inexplicable in- ability to avoid pregnancy:1 These poor young women are not unusually altruistic, though par- enthood certainly requires self-sacrice. What outsiders do not under- stand is that early childbearing does not actually have much effect on a low-skilled young woman's future prospects in the labor market. In fact, her life chances are so limited already that a child or two makes little dif~ ference, as we document in the next chapter. \"What is even less under- stood, though, are the rewards that poor women garner from becoming HOW MOTHCRHOOD CHhNGtD MY LIF 171 mothers. These women rely on their children to bring validation, pur- pose, companionship, and order to their often chaotic livesthings they nd hard to come by in other ways. The absolute centrality of children in the lives of low-income mothers is the reason that so many poor women place motherhood before marriage, even in the face of harsh economic and personal circumstances. For women like Millie, marriage is a longed-for luxury; children are a necessity. A REASON TO GET UP IN THE MORNING Children provide motivation and purpose in a life stalled by uncertainty and failure. As Adlyn. a pregnant nineteen-yearold Puerto Rican mother of a three-yearold and an eight-month-old, exclaims, \"It's what gets [me] going. . . . It's like a bum of energy.\" Seventeen-yearold African Amer- ican Kyra says her son, nearly two, gives her \"something to look forward to. Like when I don't even have enough energy to get out of bed in the morning . . . I know I have to. 'When I turn over and look at him, it's like I'm trying to give him a better life, so I gotta get up and I gotta do.\" Motherhood offers young women with limited options a valid role and a meaningful set of challenges. Zeyora, a white fteen-yearold with a six-month -old, recalls, \"I wanted a baby to take challenges into my cum bands.\" Allison, twenty-eight and white, was a heroin addict who joined a methadone program when she learned she was pregnant. She says her life was going nowhere before her daughter, now nine months old, was born. \"There was nothing to live for other than the next day getting high- [My life had] no point, there was no jg. I had lost all my friendsmy friends were totally disgusted with meI was about to lose my job, [and] I ended up dropping out of another college. . . . Now I feel like, 'I have a beautiful little girl!' I'm excited when I get up in the morning!\" Amanda, a twenty-yearold Puerto Rican mother of a three-yearold, says dae birth of her son ignited her ambition and drive. She recalls, \"When I had him was when I started thinking, 'Damn, you know, I have to change.\" When you have a kid, you really needI think you should 172 How MOTHERHOOO CHANGED MY Lil-E have an education so that [your kids] can look forward. You can look for- ward to telling him, 'Look, mommy works here.' He can go to school and tell his friends, 'Look my mom is this.\" not 'Oh my mom works in a fac- tory,' or 'We get food stamps every month.' \" Destiny, an eighteen-year- old white mother of two girls, ages two and three, hopes her daughters \"will grow up to be something and not depend on anybody. No man, no welfare, no nothing.\" She's doing her part by \"making [the] kids smart and taking care of them, making them feel good.\" Thirty-year-old T], an African American mother of three, ages four, two, and four months, says that motherhood has completely reoriented her life. \"I'm complete, and I've done what I am supposed to." She adds, \"I don't see myself as being an individual anymore, really. Everything I do is mostly centered around my children, to make their lives better.\" Jen Burke remembers feeling as if she just wanted to disappear into the background before she had her 5011. \"I think about {my life] before I became a mom, what my life was like back then. I [saw] these pictures of me, and I would hide in every picture.\" But the birth of her son set a new goal for her to \"look up to.\" \"Before, I didn't have nothing to go home for. Now I have my son to take care of, I have him to go home for. I don't have to go buy weed or drugs with my money, I could buy my son stuff with my money. I have something to look up to now.\" Aliya, a twenty- seven-yearold African American with a nine-yearold boy, says this about being a mother to her son: \"It is wonderful feeling because this is my child and he can come to me . . . his future is in my hands.\" \"Your children have to come rst,\" declares forty-yearold Carol, a white mother of two teens and a seven-yearold. \"You gotta put your children before your [man], even though he was rst in your life. They didn't ask to be brought into this world, and it's up to you to take care of them and you gotta see to their needs.\" Part of the reason that motherhood breeds such a strong sense of pur- pose is the high cost of failure. Mothers repeatedly offer horric exam- ples of neglectful and abusive mothers from well-publicized child abuse cases as haunting counterpoints to their own mothering. Jennifer, 3 HOWI MOTHERHOOD {MING-ED MY LIFE \"'3 twenty-three-yearold Puerto Rican mother of six children under age seven, told us, \"At least I don't threw my children in the trash or drown them in the bathtub.\" Danielle, a nventy-seven-yearold white mother of two children in elementary school, distinguishes herself from mothers \"who be killing their kids, or doing bad things to their kids, or hittin' them or abusing them, you know.\" Lena, a een-yearold white mother of a thirteen-month-old, draws a damning portrait of the bad mothers she sometimes observes in her Kensington neighborhood, and in doing so marks a clear moral boundary between herself and these failures. \"There are people who just leave their kids laying on the floor with maths: crawling all over the baby. screaming at their kids, shoving bot- tles in their mouth with no will, bringing them around with no sock: and times, leaving them all night so they can just go have fun and party.\" \"They don't bathe their kids and leave 'em covered in dirt. My daughter is bathed every day.\" "MY SON GIVES ME ALL THE LOVE I NEED." Many Americans believe that though the poor don't have much in the way of economic resources, they compensate by forming unusually rich social and emotional ties. But in the neighborhoods we studied, nothing could have been further From the truth. Indeed, many mothers tell us they cannot name one person they would consider a friend, and the tur- moil of adolescence often breeds a sense of alienation from family as well} Thus, mothers often speak poignantly about the strong sense of re- lational poverty they felt in the period before childbearing and believe they have forged those missing attachments through procreation, a self- made community of care. Brielle, a thirty-two-year-old African Amer- ican mother of four children between the ages of three and eleven, says that few outsiders understand how central this motivation is for single mothers like herself. "A lot ofpeople . . . say [young girls have babies] for money from welfare. It's not for that. . . . It's not even to keep the guy. It's just to have somebody . . . to take care of, or somebody to love or what- 174 How MOTHERHOOD CHANGED MY LIFE ever.\" Nineteen-yearold Keisha, an African American mother ofa one- year-old, paints the following picture of her bleak social landscape: \"1 don't have nobody that I can talk to. I don't have no friends, only got my baby. I can't even talk to my mom. I don't have nobody but my child.\" Sonia, a nventy-three-yearold Puerto Rican mother of a three-yearold, says, \"No, no I didn't use no birth control, because I wanted a baby. I guess I needed something to ll up that hole." Aliya offers the following before-and-after portraits of her life. \"The way I was raised, [with] so much violence and canfusion going on around me, I just wanted to love somebody. And . . . then [my child] just filled me up with a lot of stuff that was needed.\" For many, not even a relationship with a man can ll the relational void. \"When I didn't have kids,\" remembers Yolanda, a nventy-six-year old Puerto Rican mother of two, ages three and four, \"me and [my son's father] were together but something was missing. . .. It was like we needed something. And then there were babies, you know, to ll the void we were feeling.\" We ask her, \"Is that the most important thing?\" She replies, \"Kids, I think so. In my life, yes.\" Beatrice, a twenty-yearold Puerto Rican mother ofa three-montlvold, simply states, \"My son gives me all the love I need.\" Children cure relational blues like no other medicine their mothers have known. Jennifer says of her oldest, \"What I like best about being a mother is that my son always keeps me company. I could be in a real bad mood and be real cranky, he'll just look at me and start playing or laugh- ing at me, and he'll just crack me up." Twenty-three-yearold Amber, a legally blind white mother of a four-year-old and a six-month-old, ex claims of her oldest, \"I never imagined that there was any kind of love like that out there, never imagined it! My son . . . knows I have bad eyes, and he always say, 'Mommy, I'm your eyes. I'll help you do it.' It's the love your children can give yOu. Because nobody in the world can give you the love your children can give you. There's no way.\" She concludes, \"1 don't know what I would do without the kids. I don't know where I would be right now if I didn't have them.\" HOW MOTHERHOCD CHANGED MY LifE ITS limelight. Rosita, a twenty-three-yearold Puerto Rican mother ofa two- year old, tells how becoming a mother made her feel \"special.\" \"Well, when I rst became a mom, I got more attention, like everybody was closer to me. After I had her, I was coming out of the room, the hallway was packed with all my friends and family, and everybody was there, and I just felt real special, and everybody used to come every day to see the baby. Then when I went home, they was always around me and the baby all the time.\" \"BEING A MOM IS SOMETHING | KNEW I COULD DO." But simply having a baby is not enough to earn social rewards; rather, a young mother must demonstrate that she has risen to the challenge of her new role. By presenting a clean, healthy, wellbehaved child to the world, a young woman whose life may seem otherwise insignicant can prove her worth. Aliya, mentioned earlier, says that neighbors and kin see her differently now that she has a child and is managing to raise it on her own. \"I guess they respect me more. I am taking care of my son myself.\" There is no greater proof of a young woman's merit than the sponta neous praise of her mothering from a stranger on the street. The well- dressed child transforms the shabbily dressed mother. A child swathed in layers of warm clothing, even in a spring thaw, is testimony that an aim- less teen is now a caring, competent, and responsible adult. The almost obsessive concern she has with her newbom's cleanliness, however, ex poses the fragility of her new claim to respectability. According to Keisha, \"It's bard when you don't have money to take care of your baby. People talk about you whenlike if your child is dirty and stuff. So that's whyI try to keep my child clean and buy . . . for Cheresa before I buy for myself. I don't have no clothes, she has everything.\" Young women whose lives revolve around their children know that others are judging their failure or success at motherhood by these out- side appearances. Santana, a thirty-fouryearold white mother of an eighteen-month-old girl, says, \"When I go out with her, I think [about] HOW MOTHERHOOD CHANGED MY LIFE 1