Chapter Ten: Care as a Cause- Framing the 21st century Mother’s Movement

When reading this chapter I kept thinking of several things: what I have learned throughout the semester in this course, what I have learned throughout the semester in my Work/Family Institutions course, and how I was raised.

This course:

“The normative model” (I do not know if this is the actual name or not) that Hamington and Miller describe, states that a specific quality and quantity of maternal devotion are essential for the optimal growth and development of children. I connected this with the women that we work with at ICIW in which many do not get this chance to have the right quality and quantity of devotion to their children due to incarceration. It brought me to the question- how can this improve for mothers who are incarcerated? I thought that since this is essential for families, and could possibly improve the rehabilitation process of the incarcerated, there needs to be a family center within women’s prisons. With a family center within the prison (including a place for new born babies, a place for toddlers, and a visiting area) this could really improve a family’s bonding time- to the point where the incarcerated may able to keep their children, rather than giving them to foster care or have that connection even though they are a distance apart.

It’s just a thought and I did not go through the details, but I do think it would help the connection between mothers and their children.

Work/Family Institutions

            The Work/Family course basically took this chapter and incorporated it throughout the entire semester! It was great to really see the nitty gritty because a lot of it I thought I knew, but I really did not.  I definitely learned a lot of what was in the chapter through that class, but it was good to see another source back that information up. J

Growing up

As I read this chapter I kept thinking about my mom. She divorced my father when my brother and I were at a young age, basically making her a single mom. She made sure we had the world, but I never realized what she had to do to make that happen until I was older…She worked her tail off to make sure that we had everything we wanted, were in everything we wanted to be in, and had all of the things that went along with each age. But I never realized that that was the impossible that some mothers couldn’t do. She made sure that she: had a career, dated, found time to be with friends, and enjoyed her life…all with two elementary age kids! Although, as I have seen that others can/do struggle with motherhood, I respect her and look up to her far more than anyone else in my life because of what she sacrificed for to have the best family she could!