Amanda's Place

2007-03-25T10:48:00.000-07:00

In her article From Rods To Reasoning, Sharon Hayes outlines the progression that mothering has experienced through the centuries. During the puritan period, mothers were looked upon as moral leaders. Their job was to raise children, (the community's future) to be upstanding, ethical citizens. The home was a concentrated area of values and support, and the mother was in charge of nurturing her small brood of children. Next in history came the devide between the middle class mother and the working mother. Middle class mothers were allowed the luxury of a serving class, and were therefore removed from much of the labor of child rearing. Working class mothers, on the other hand, had to spend much of their time at their jobs, and were therefore unable to spend the majority of their time with their children. Sceience began to creep into mothering at the end of the 19th century as society pressed upon mothers the idea that there were specific answers involved in parenting. Because children were no longer considered to be completely innocent, much of this shift involved punishment. The rise in immigration effected this movement, since society was trying to make parenting a consistent activity in order to unify a country with so many overlapping cultures. By the 1920's and 30's, strict parenting was out, and the focus returned to nurturing the child as an inherintly good creature. It is at this time that parenting became focused on the good of the child.
Intensive mothering is a very passive form of mothering that includes allowing children to set their own sleep and feeding schedules. I have not experienced this form of mothering, but at the very liberal church I attend, I have witnessed many parents who feel as though their children can do no wrong, and that whatever their children do is right, and they can and should be in charge of their own lives. I think that this view on parenting has short term benefits, but in the long run, can make it difficult for the child to get along in society.

Ann Crittenden describes the importance of motherhood and how valuable proper mothering can be both for children and society. But she has found examples of ways in which mothers are not fully valued as much as she feels they should be. First, workplaces are inflexible, and their refusal to allow mothers to easily balance raising children and having a career force many mothers to quit their job. Second, when mothers stay at home to raise children, they are not entitled to an equal protion of the family's financial assets. Lastly, when a mother stays at home to care for her children, this is not considered work, and therefore the woman is not eligable for working benefits. I completely agree that all of these issues hold mothers back. As a future mother, I am anxious of how my career will balance with my family. Hopefully I will have a felxible career that will allow me to continue to do both, but that seems to be more and more difficult to find.

The article Black Women and Motherhood discusses the ways in which black women approach mothering. Some black women view childrearing as a process that inhibits their creativity, forces them to work and behave in certain ways, and in this way, highlights their oppression. Other women see childrearing as a chance to raise socially conscious children who can grow up to become educated activists. Through parenting, black mothers gain identity and self definition. This empowerment goes hand in hand to helping black mothers discover more about themselves.

Unmarried With Children outlines the experience of the poor in raising children and what can be done to assist the issues that arise. In poor, urban settings, relationships tend to develop quite quickly. Couples talk about having children together, and then when the woman becomes pregnant, they must get their financial situation together, which often does not happen. Politicians argue that these poor, single mothers need only to get married, but they argue that they are not against marriage, they are simply looking for the right match. When poor women are able to hold jobs that can allow them to become financially dependent, they will be on their way to securing stable environments in which to raise their children. I agree with this article that marriage should not be pinned onto the poor as a solution, for rushing into marriages that are not grounded in anything can lead to countless divorces.

2007-03-19T00:15:00.000-07:00

The article "Balancing Individual Freedoms and Protection of the Public Health" discusses the rise in womens' wishes to have their babies at home with the assistance of midwives, and how a common ground must be found between a woman's right to decide how here baby should be born and the responsibilities felt by the government to ensure that children are coming into the world safely. Women in favor of at-home births see the midwife process as more intimate, and that a midwife can fully attend to the woman on a personal level and meet both her mental and physical needs during the labor process. These women view birth as a normal occurrence and attribute much of the complications found in hospitals to the strange and foreign environment created by the hospitals. I have never personally felt the need to have my child at home, because I think I would feel much more comfortable knowing that if there were any emergency during labor, there would be a vast array of medical care that could be offered to me, but more importantly to my child. However, I maintain that every woman should have the right to chose for herself the manner in which she will give birth.

Friedman claims that the changes in the legal ties of families have changed over time so that the parents rights are sacred and the state has less and less effect on how parents raise their children. Only parents can decide where and if their child attends church, and what their children wear and eat. The state is having less and less say in child rearing.
Adoption laws have changed worldwide. The US and England did not fully recognize adoption until the 1920's. This was shocking to me at first, but I then considered all of the children who were taken on as farm hands and factory workers, and not really made part of a family. The adoption laws also morphed from blood related to non blood related. One reason for this increase in adoption laws and abilities lies in economics, specifically inheritance. Historically speaking, estates and other possessions that had no heir were then left to an adopted child so that the parents could chose where this family property ended up. In the 1930's, adopted children could not inherit from extended family members. Today, adopted children are treated as if they were natural children.

Sharon Hays feels that the US welfare reform is in many ways a reflection of the countries compliance with the government and its wishes and regulations. What our society sees to be normal and what we value and believe in the case of welfare is strongly linked to the views of politicians. Conservatives say that welfare recipients are lazy, promiscuous, and dependent and that the welfare system encourages this behavior. Liberals feel that the issues of impoverished families do not cause economic problems, and that the welfare system should be strengthened.
Welfare as we know it came about during the depression as an effort to allow mothers to continue caring for their children despite financial difficulties. Through the 1960's, mothers were using this welfare collection to be able to stay at home and care for their children. But only those deemed "virtuous" were able to collect. In 1996, legislation was passed that not only forced women into the workforce, but also removed the "virtuous" requirement. It was also stressed that welfare was temporary assistance and not to be depended on as a long term solution.
This new system seems to contradict the purpose of welfare however, since mothers must now go to work and are not able to spend time raising their children. Furthermore, with mothers at work, paying for childcare then becomes an issue. The stress of the mother's time commitments is leading to a rise in divorce and separation rates. I think that welfare is such a broad service that has to assist so many specific situations, and that the only fair way to handle it is to look at the average situation. However, when doing so, one must keep in mind that there are many family situations on either extreme of the spectrum.

The Compassion Gap in American Poverty discusses the difference that many Americans have between the feelings we have for people in poverty and the actions we actually take to assist them. In countries such as Norway, the government assumes that poverty is caused by economic factors and not just the "bad behavior" of single mothers or irresponsible teenagers. Therefore, there is greater assistance for the poor of such countries. I agree with liberal countries that poverty is not entirely to be blamed on the individual, but on the country's economic ebb and flow. In the United States, people are thought to be poor because of who they are, or what mistakes they have made to get them to where they are. They are therefore treated as second class citizens, and it is extremely difficult for them to rise out of this stereotype. Various programs for the poor have various complicated rules, some of which must be broken from time to time, but that come with consequences. This puts those on welfare in another negative light, and they are seen as rule breakers who will never learn to follow the system.
The authors feel that to bring the American Dream to the poor, the government needs to create more programs, all the while ensuring their quality. They call for universal health insurance, schooling that implies a higher education to follow, and higher quality childcare. They feel that if we directly target the poor with true compassion for their situation, that assistance to impoverished Americans will finally help them reach the American Dream.

Clawson and Gerstel feel that American child care centers should be more like those in France. The French do not target particular families financially, but rather demographic areas. A greater focus is placed on academics, helping the children to learn and keep up with their school work. In France, child care is a social responsibility, whereas in the US, parents pay for their child's daycare. They feel that the staff should be better educated and better paid. Finally, if you raise the quality of the daycare centers, parents' interest and support are raised as well, a point which I completely agree with, since parents tend to become more invested in things they feel are going well.

2007-03-14T07:48:00.000-07:00

In his article, Felson explains the difference between the gender perspective and the violence perspective. The gender perspective approaches violence involving women as an act against women that often goes unreported and unaddressed due to women's aprehension in reporting crimes of violence against themselves. Felson says that the gender perspective is widely accepted in the sociology world. He then brings up another approach, the violence perspective. This perspective considers the fact that violence against women may just be due to the fact that women make up half of the population, and that men who perform violence against women are likely to perform many other violent acts and that their aggression is not directly targeted at women. He points out the differences between these two views, which center on motivation of violence and whether it is more likely for men to be violent toward women, or if the case is the other way around. He points out that women are just as likely to hit their husbands, and that only ten percent of homocide cases in which wives killed their husbands were cases of self defense. Felson makes the case that rapists are not out to dominate women, but that they are sexual animals who perform lots of other sexual acts, not just rape.
It is hard for me to listen to a man speak on this issue, just as it is difficult for me to listen to stuffy male politicians discuss the abortion controversey. I couldn't help but feel like he was making excuses the whole time. While statistics are statistics, you can't argue the fact that the gender perspective doesn't exist at all. There are many cases in which males are agressive toward females for power and sexist reasons, and to discount those reasons is adding to the problem.

Anne Jones claims that the question "why didn't she leave?" is not a real question. She says that it's a judgement, and that by asking that question, people are not really thinking of the reasons why a battered woman wouldn't leave her husband, they are judging her and by doing so, somewhat placing blame on the woman. By using examples of women who were battered, some who left and some who didn't, Jones illustrates the fact that even if a woman leaves the immediate home situation with the man who is beating her, she should not have to leave her community, for that is taking away freedom and choice from the woman. And as one victim points out, if her husband wanted to find her, it wouldn't matter where she was. I think it's awful that battered women have to go to shelters when their husbands are the ones mistreating them. In this case, not only are they mistreated, but they have to pack up live in a shelter. The ideal case would be strict and reliable punishment for domestic abuse that would get these violent husbands out of the house. I am 100 percent positive that Jones would disagree with Felson, and would support the idea of gender perspective.

James Ptacek studied men who have beaten their wives in a search to figure out why men beat women. He conducted 18 indepth interviews where he discovered various motivations for domestic abuse. These men gave excuses and justifcations for their actions which are discussed in Ptacek's article. The prominent excuse men gave for beating their wives was a loss of control. This loss of control was provoked sometimes by alcohol and sometimes by frustration or pressure. Another exucse is victim blaming, in which the husband claims that his actions were in response to a woman's verbal abuse. But these men are considering verbal and physical abuse to be of the same calibar, and they are not. One justification men use is thinking that the woman was not really injured. The second justification is "failure to obligations of a good wife" in which the husbands found problems in their relationships and took their anger over these issues out on the wives who were part of these problems. Examples include lack of sex, and a woman not knowing when to be quiet. These men contradicted themselves by denying resopnsibility, then turning around and taking responsibility by minimalizing the severity of the issue, then denying it again. Another contradiction lies in the fact that these men claimed loss of control, but in their testimonies, they show clear signs of motivation to silence their wives. While it was interesting to read what these men had to say, it was also interesting to see how they seemed to be talking in circles around themselves in their exuse-making. Ptacek would agree with Jones and disagree with Felson in thinking that gender perspective takes the front seat to violence perspective.

2007-02-26T07:54:00.000-08:00

The egalitarian myth under which the Holt family is living creates a situation in which the husband and wife find it acceptable and fair for the husband to take care of the "downstairs" section of the house and the wife to take care of the "upstairs" section. The catch is, that them, "downstairs" includes only the garage and basement (where the husbands hobbies are conveinently located). This leaves the wife with all the rest of the living space, and respoinsibility for their child, mainly getting him to bed. This myth is accepted by both, and Hochschild speculates that perhaps they both know that this will be the only way their marriage will work. The wife was forced to go along with a plan that she knew was unfair knowing that if she took the blow as far as house chores, she would be able to smooth over the marital issues she and her husband were experiencing.

Emotion work is trying very hard to make everything seem "fine" or "ok." This concentrated effort, Hochschild says, often stands in between marriages that are holding together by a thread, and broken marriages. The wife in this article certainly excersies lots of emotion work. I think that emotion work can lead to the difference between talking about things and pretending things are alright.

I live on a farm with a 4 acre lawn that needs to be mowed and managed. Both of my parents enjoy outdoor work, and I am the Martha Stewart of the house who does not mind doing the kitchen and other indoor work. When I am at home, I take on lots of those tasks in exchange for not having to go outside. This works wonderfully, because my mom gets more time in her garden. When I am not home, however, my father naggs my mother about the inside of the house saying that it's messy. My mother hates doing it, and my father feels it's not his job. It causes many arguments. We used to have a housecleaner come every other week, but my father had her stop coming because he felt my mother could take care of it. My father recently lost his job and can no longer use the "I'm working" excuse, so it will be intersting in the next few months to see how the housework becomes devided between the two of them.
In my apartment, my roommates like to have everything extremely clean and because of my schedule, I'm not there nearly as much as they are. Therefore, I don't feel I should have to do 1/3 of the dishes because I only dirty about 1/8 of them. We have gotten into multiple fights because I feel the tasks they ask of me are unneccessary, or things that I didn't make a mess of in the first place, so why should I have to clean it up?!

The ideology of domesticity, according to Williams, states that men belong in the marketplace because they are natrually more inclined to be competative, and that women belong in the house, because they are naturally more inclined to be nurturing.

Domesticity can lead to impovirshment when working mothers struggle to raise their families and hold down jobs. Additionaly, domesticity can prevent fathers from having strong relationships with their children. And domesticity brings child rearing into the house, and does not let society have a part in the upbringing of the future generations.

The hunter-gatherer societies did not have a strong sense of domesticity. They were extremely communal in that there were not strictly defined families, and they had no permenant homes to maintain. They moved as a group, and besides the hunting aspect, the chores were not exactly "masculine" or "feminine". The colonists had permenant homes, but the fathers were working in or around the family land, and therefore could bring their children into their work and teach them. This prevented the father/child alienation phenomenon. Chores were broken up into male and female, and by this time in history there was a strong sense of family (needed to survive in the agricultural society) so there was a clear sense of domesticity, but not one that took the father away from the household.

Sex discrimination in the workplace occurs when the high powered and desired positions are given to men because they are able to be flexible in their travel availablities, etc. When women choose not to take on those high powered jobs, they are not additionally choosing to be marginalized. Willimas feels that women should have the right to choose to not work as ideal workers, but should not therefore suffer the consequences of poor health benefits or other job perks. I agree that if a woman is trying to make matters work with her job and with a family, that she is doing herself, her family, and her employers a favor, and should not be looked upon as someone who is not committed fully to one thing, but as someone who is trying to do what is best for everyone.

Carrington opens by stating that in all families whether they be lesbigay or heterosexual, most family members seem to feel that family matters are broken up evenly with "everyone doing their fair share," but that both groups also form egalitarian myths.

One clear difference between heterosexual and gay households is that there are no clear gender related tasks in a gay household. Lesbians delegate chores, and are quick to cover for the partner who doesn't do as much housework. With an absence of gender roles, it is sometimes hard for the gay partner who wants more help around the house to ask for it. In may gay families, one person will specialize in the household work, while other gay households are urban based and require very little housework and domestic tasks. Some chose a domestic path, but more often, gays and lesbians come face to face with glass ceilings and other promotional issues at work and are then left to lead domestic lives. Often times, career and domestic agreements must be met between couples to maintain healthy relationships.

2007-02-19T07:55:00.000-08:00

In The Future of Marriage, the institution of marriage is defined as a mechanism used to control sexuality, relationships between spouses, economics, and child rearing. Some want to return marriage to its origional state, as a legal relationship that can only occur between a man and a woman. They feel that there should be privladges for married couples, and consequences for those trying to raise children out of wedlock, in hopes to stigmatize divorce and single parenthood. The author sees many problems with this approach.

The overall percentage of American households that are living as families has dropped from 90 percent in 1940 to 70 percent in 1990. This is a result of divorce, cohabitation, single motherhood, but also elderly widows and widowers as well as singles living alone. To solve this deinstitutionalization, one would have to shorten the life span of the elderly, force young adults to live at home before marriage, and lower the age of marriage rates. All of these procedures are unthinkable, and would have extremely negative effects on society.

Looking at divorce, one must be aware of the fact that the trend for womem in the work place allows divorce, but does not cause it, and that women who work are more likely to be able to support themselves should divorce occur.

When looking at single parenthood, especially young and even unwated pregnancy, the author feels that educational campaigns, birth control, and improved job opportunities can make a difference, but also feels strongly that welfare does not cause unwanted motherhood among African Americans as most believe, and that when welfare and unwanted motherhood are connected, it is with white mothers.

The conculsion reinforces the problems that would arise if reinstitutionalization were to occur. Those appauled by the deinstitutionalization are trying to find ways to prevent single motherhood, divorce, single life- all of which are such a large part of today's society. It will take a lot of repression to completely turn matters around and reinstitutionalize marriage. And these changes would have a negative, rather than a positive affect on Americans.

In his article, Can Marriage be Saved?, Elise Harris reported the pro marriage opintions of Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher. These two women feel that marriage provides favorable bennefits for both men and women, and that the intstitution of marriage should be maintained, protected, and strengthened. Waite found a connection between men's physical health and marriage, and that married men are less likely to drink and commit suicide. Married women enjoy health bennefits as well through health care plans. Men and women are less likely to suffer from anxiety and clincial depression, and while cohabitants have more sex, married men and women enjoy the sex they have more than others. Financially speaking, married men earn more money than single men, and married women are given more flexibility in balancing work and family. One downside for working families is that less attention is paid to the children.

Gerstel and Sarkisian offer a rebuttle in their article Marriage: the Good, the Bad and the Greedy in which they discuss the challenges marriage poses to communities and individuals. After marriage, housework increases for women and decreases for men. Waite argues that marriages are healthy, but Gerstel and Sarkisian argue that this is only true in happy, funcitioning marriages. Unhappy marriages often contain physical and mental abuse that go unconfronted. Additionally, married couples are less involved both with extended family memebers and thier community of friends and neighbors. Marriage is a greedy institution that is self-centered and self promoting, and that can have negative effects on community relationships.

Cohabitation has become a common occurance in American society. The reasons for cohabitation and it's effects on the well being of participants are discussed in Brown's article How Cohabitation is reshaping American Families. The birth control pill caused premarital sex to be a common practice so that couples can live together and engage in sex without feeling a need to be married. Additionally, when monely is not available to a couple, cohabitation is an answer to those who are waiting for financial stability and money for a wedding. As for its effects on well being, those cohabitating are more likely to experince emotional distress, enjoy sex less than married couples, have financial issues, and experience difficulties raising children.

When reading these articles, one must think of sampling and how it can effect such opinions and statistics. Waite must have been asking, for the most part, some happily married couples thier opinions on marriage, and using data to prove her arguments. Gerstel and Sarkisian, on the other hand, played the devils advocate to Waite's argument and found evidence to prove otherwise.

2007-02-12T07:26:00.000-08:00

The Risman/Schwartz article covered the general decline in sexual activity among teenagers. With this decline in sexual activity has come a decline in teenage pregnancy and abortion as well. However, this relation may not be as strong as one would think, taking into account the rise in effective birth control.

Reasons for the decline in sexual activity may include abstinence education, comprehensive education, the cultural backlash of the sexual revolution, or a fear of STD's.

One major trend difference shows that males are becoming less sexually active on average, and, specifically in caucasian sexual activity, the number of males and females who practice teenage sex is slowly becoming equal. This may mean that women, who are waiting until they are securly in a relationship, are consequently forcing men to do the same, thus evening the numbers of male/female teenage sex. This, however, does not mean that men and women are completely equal when it comes to teenage sex. Girls today who practice sex outside of a relationship are still at risk of being labled "sluts," while men who practice casual sex do not suffer social consequences.

The article goes on to explain how much the media effects teenage sexuality, and how young teens can easily recieve mixed messages from viewing the media and then being told not to engage in sexual activity so young.

Abstinance education is also covered in this article, and the point is made that although abstinence programs recieve press and attention, they do not always work as well as they are said to, and more importantly, that when young women who were under an abstanince pledge finally do decide to have sex, they are much less likely to use condoms.

England and Thomas' article, Courtship and Marriage, covers the college social scene, and discusses the fact that young adults no longer date, but rather "hookup." Students now use the word "dating" to refer to couples who are already in a relationship, since the physical act of going out on a traditional date usually happens after the couple decides to be in a relationship (which happens usually after a series of "hookups"). The process is typically that after a few hookups, the girl will want to have a talk with the boy about where the relationship is going, (girls are more likely to want a relationship that boys) and then the boy will either reciprocate the wish for a relationship or tell the girl that he is only interested in physical pleasure and that he will not become part of a relationship. This is the huge difference between boys and girls in regard to hookups. It is much more likely that a boy will continue hooking up with a girl just for the sake of sexual activity. But girls are far more likely to continue hooking up with the hopes of a relationship in mind. Girls looking for a relationship in this hookup culture are not likely to become involved in one unless they take part in hookups. It is almost unheard of these days for a girl to wait around to be asked out on a formal date, because all of the boys are busy looking for girls they can hook up with without having to pay for a dinner or a movie.

One argument is that this new sexual scene would lead women to feel liberated, but the stigma still exists for girls who hook up "too much" or with too many people.

When reading the first article, I could not stop thinking about my dissagreement with abstinance education. As a middle school and high school student at public schools, I was given a sexual education that covered various forms of birth control, but stressed abstinence as the only way to completely prevent STD's and pregnancy. While this of course is true, I was so glad to have the information on the other forms of birth control and disese prevention. I feel strongly that abstinence only education is an immediate solution that has extremely negative long term effects. It is a policy created by adults for a generation that they do not understand. The article states that girls who pledge abstinence are more likely to then have sex without a condom, proving that when you are told nothing else but abstinence, that when you stray from that path (as many normal teenagers do) you will not know what do yourself, and will clearly have nobody to talk to.

The second article, I felt, was right on the money as far as the college scene. Personally, the typical situation described in the article is exactly what happened to me. After a series of hookups, my current boyfriend and I decided to be in a relationship (although in our case he wanted to have the relationship talk). I am one of the women who is sad that traditional dating is a thing of the past, and am jealous when friends of mine are taken out to romantic dinners. In college, when you have a boyfriend, you just "hang out" and spend time together, and it is rare that you ever go out and do anything special (in my case at least). However, when you don't have a boyfriend, you are not asked out either, you are just subject to random hookups. I say, boys should man up, reach into their wallets, and bring back the traditional date. They could gain a lot of respect from women.

2007-02-05T07:39:00.000-08:00

The article Family Life and the Regulation of Deviance, by John D'Emilio, discusses the ideals and norms of colonial sexuality, and the penalties that arose when these ideals were not met.

The puritans viewed sex as an acitivty that should be enjoyed and appreciated only within the bonds of marriage. More important than the symbolic meaning of love between the husband and wife, sex lead to procreation- an extremely important aspect in an agricultural society. The sexual system was extremely family oriented, and this ideal was supported both by religion and the economic system of the colonial society.

Children learned about sex by observing family members and other colonists. They could see the punishments that others faced when performing banned acts such as beastiality. These offenders were publically humiliated, teaching a lesson to onlookers not to behave similarly. Additionally, due to the exremely small sizes of most colonial homes, it was easy for children to observe their parents taking part in sexual activities.
Children aslo listened to the teachings of moral instructors. Clergy (most famous was the New England Puritan clergy) and those responsible for creating the laws worked together with religious leaders such as ministers, (both Quaker and Anglican), and Catholic priests. These officials punished women for dressing indecently, as they claimed that these women were attempting to lead men towards sinful behavior. They also aimed to inforce in children the idea that sexual acitivity must wait until marriage.
Few were exposed to literature, although it did exist. Books such as The Oeconomy of Love, The Art of Preserving Health, and Aristotle's Masterpiece covered gynecology and marital advice.

Sexual deviance was not taken lightly. Those guilty of adultery, sodomly, incest, rape, or bearing bastard children were severely punished. Some suffered public humiliation such as castration (most typically in cases involving a black man attempting to rape a white woman), whipping, or being placed in the stocks. Men sometimes had to pay a fine, leaving the physical punishment for the women who did not own money or property. In other cases when public humiliation did not seem severe enough, the death penalty was used. In many beastiality cases, the offender was forced to watch as the animal was killed before being executed.

The article Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality, also by John D'Emilio, provides D'Emilio's argument that gays and lesbians are a product of a capatalist society.

He begins stating the relationship between capitalism and the family, arguing that the expansion of capital has effected the traditional nuclear family and caused a shift in the meaning of heterosexual relationships. Beginning with the colonists, he describes the early American families who depended on the nuclear structure to survive in their agricultural society. During the Industrial Revolution, the family was no longer an independent unit, as workers were needed in factories to earn wages to buy other goods instead of individual families producing all that they would need. With this lack of family labor came a driop in birth rates. D'Emilio later states that there is a contradictory relationship between capitalism and family, for with this movement away from lots of children and interdependance, families were able to turn within themselves for love and support rather than simply for economic survival. The paradox, therefore, is that the family unit is no longer nearly as important as it was during the agricultural society, which is the fault of capitalism, but that capitalism has allowed for families to take time to express feelings of love and caring that they otherwise had not had time for.

D'Emilio goes on to point out as individuals were able to support themselves without the need of a nuclear family, homosexual feelings were then able to be interpreted into homosexual idenities. With these gay identities came the creation of gay meeting places. These meeting places centralized in cities, and lead to the rise of the urban gay communities. D'Emilio describes gays and lesbians of the 1940's pioneers, leading the way for future homosexuals to feel comfortable coming out in society.

I disagree. Yes it was difficult if not impossible for homosexuals of past decades and centuries to express and act upon their sexual desires, but that does not mean that they did not exist, they were simply oppressed. With the oppression lifted, those who would otherwise have had a heartwrenching life of pretending and disguising were then able to chose the lifestyle that best fit their sexual orientation. But to say that there were no gays or homosexuals in the past is ignoring the fact that not everything that is part of a human being is always expressed for many different external reasons and circumstances.

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2007-01-28T18:14:00.000-08:00

GAY COUPLES ADOPTION BAN `DESPERATELY SAD', Press Association Newsfile,January 23, 2007 Tuesday 11:19 AM BST, , HOME NEWS, 444 words, Martha Linden, PA

This article described the story of a gay couple in which one member of the partnership is a Anglican priest and the other member is a practicing Catholic. After having served as the foster parents for a severely handicapped boy for over fifteen years, the couple called a Catholic adoption agency in an effort to adopt the boy. Despite the view of the Catholic church that gay couples should not be allowed to raise children, the couple raised the child Catholic. Their phone call with the adoption agency ended with the receptionist. No statistics are cited in this article, but states the fact that "Cardinal William Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and second-in-command at the Vatican," has issued "orders banning same-sex adoption by Catholic agencies in the US." This fact was not gathered scientifically, but is rather a result of a set of values that are shared and passed down through the Catholic church. The article is guided by a couple's distaste in this set of beliefs.

ROMNEY SHIFTS TONE ON GAY ADOPTION, The Boston Globe, March 14, 2006Tuesday, THIRD EDITION, METRO/REGION; Pg. A1, 849 words, BY SCOTT HELMAN,GLOBE STAFF

The fact that Massachusetts was the first state to legalize gay marriage in 2003 is mentioned in this political article discussing Mitt Romney's views on gay couples adopting. Catholic Charities ended it's adoption program, under the platform that they could not morally allow gay couples to adopt. After realizing that this would prevent children to be adopted by straight couples from Catholic Charities, Romney attempted to add an exemption for religious groups from including same-sex couples in their adoption pool. His political staff however, informed him that he could not make such an exemption himself, and that it would have to be done legislatively. Again, as in the first article, the facts about bills and

Court considers Oklahoma law banning gay couples' adoptions, The AssociatedPress State & Local Wire, November 14, 2006 Tuesday 1:12 AM GMT, , STATE ANDREGIONAL, 599 words, By JON SARCHE, Associated Press Writer, DENVER

This article deals with the state of Oklahoma attempting to not recognize adoptions that took place in other states in which same-sex couples adopted children. In Oklahoma, all adoptions are looked upon as if they had occurred in Oklahoma, even if they had taken place in other states. Because it is a law in Oklahoma that single-sex couples can not adopt, any out of state gay couples who have adopted a child can not have that adoption recognized in the state of Oklahoma. The state health department approved this standpoint, but the attorney general's office disagreed, and claimed that out of state adoptions should be recognized. In 2004, Oklahoma law makers tried to create a law that would protect the states right to not recognize gay couples as adoptive parents, but a year later, a US District Judge declared the law unconstitutional. This article shows how the beliefs of some can control the rights of others. The conservative politicians running the state of Oklahoma tried to create a situation that would infringe upon the lifestyle of others so that their beliefs and ideals could be protected.

Archbishop in gay couples adoption row; FAMILY: City cleric defends Catholicstand over same-sex partners and children, Birmingham Evening Mail, January 23,2007, Tuesday, Worcs Edition, NEWS; Pg. 5, 454 words, Mail Reporter

The first sentence in this article is quite jarring, as it states that the archbishop of Birmingham declared that Catholic adoption agencies would never accept gay couples as parents. One incident brought up was that the government has recieved much pressure from the Catholic chruch to exclude them from certain antidiscrimination laws pertaning to child adoption and gay parents. It may be a fact that Catholic adoption agencies can prevent same-sex couples from adopting thorugh their services, but they claim that there are pleanty of other places and ways to adopt, and that by denying thier services to gays, they are not preventing these hopeful parents from recieving a child at all. One statistic thrown in to the article is that by having to wait on the exemption from antidiscrimination laws, there are 4,000 children that could be getting adopted by non-gay parents, but who must wait for the exemption for the adoption to go through. The archbishop is using this fact to prove a point that the exemption needs to be made, so although there might be some truth to this fact, it should be investigated and taken with a grain of salt, for it is a fact thrown into the article to gain support and sympathy.

A CLOSER LOOK; GAY ADOPTIONS, ABC News Transcripts, SHOW: ABC World NewsTonight 6:42 PM EST ABC, June 30, 2006 Friday, 530 words

A news anchor says that each year, there are 126,000 children in the foster care system who are eligible for adoption. This fact was collected by the ABC news team, and because the news segment was not an opinion piece, that immediately gives it credibility. Here is another article dealing with the Catholic church trying to dodge the governments ruling that gay couples can adopt children. While this article is full of opinions (gay couples trying to assert their right to be parents, and conservative legislators trying to assert their opinions that the best place for a child is a home with a mother and a father), the opinions are isolated from the telling of the factual information, and a neutral party is reporting these opinions and statements.

After reading all five articles, it is clear that there is a debate in existence between the Catholic church and the government over whether the Catholic adoption agencies can be exempt from the anti discriminatory laws. On one side, without an answer, fewer children will be able to be adopted by parents whom the Catholics see fit. On the other hand, allowing all fit parents to adopt from all agencies opens up the adoption pool, making the process faster and more efficient. Because these articles were not written by anyone on either side of the argument, but where instead, were written by neutral parties who, if they had an opinion one way or another did not include it in their articles, it is easy for me to trust the few facts found in these articles. There were dates and laws and bills and decrees cited, as well as a few statistics on adoption numbers. It is difficult on any account to take and manipulate these facts for the purposes of persuasion.

In the case of gay couples and adoption, the media can serve to inform society of the various struggles and debates that arouse, so that the public can give immediate support to the side of the argument for which they agree. This battle is very new and alive at this point, and media articles help keep this issue at the forefront of our minds so that if needed, we could lend support to a petition or meeting of some sort. As for the particular articles I read, they seem to be quite objective in that they were careful not to let the writting take on any one particular opinionated side. Therefore, it is easy to trust them as a neutral party.

1.22

2007-01-22T07:53:00.000-08:00

The first reading by David Popenoe discusses how and why the American family is declining. By noting various aspects of family life that are no longer as they used to be, Popenoe tries to create an argument that families are not functioning as they were in previous decades, and that these changes have caused the American family to lose integrity as a social unit. Three causes of this change, according to Popenoe, are the demographic, institutional, and cultural shifts, meaning that the nuclear family is losing it's percentage hold in respect to all households, that there has been a loss of cohesiveness within families, and that self fulfilment has taken the place of family values culturally speaking. One of his main points is that children are no longer the central focus of the family, and that the focus has shifted to the individuals. He says that he uses the word decline, and that others who disagree must either use the word "strengthened" or "unchanged" and that it is nearly impossible to find evidence to support these views.

I disagree with every opinion found in this reading. There is no disupting the facts and statistics stated here, but unlike Popenoe, I do not think that these numbers add up to disaster. Of course the family dynamic is changing as societies shift and overlap. To say, as he does, that families have been in decline since the beginning for mankind is such a pessamistic way of viewing the world, and makes me feel sorry for him. It is so easy for me to critique his views as they are so far from my own. As far as his thought that children are no longer the center of families due to less children in the families and divorce rates. It is true that there are fewer children per family, and that divorce rates are increasing, but this does not leave children out of the center of the family. In fact, they are in the spotlight more that ever-- in very different ways, but nonetheless in the center. With fewer children per family, a great concentration is placed on the individual children. And when children are devided between divorced parents, the time that each parent gets to spend with their children is greatly coveted. And look at the media in society. Now, more than ever, products and entertaiment for children are not at all hard to find. And as for families focusing on the individual, modern phychology has taught us that until one is able to function as thier own person, they are not completely fit to function with others as a unit. So part of family therapy starts with each individual member focusing on thier mental health for the ultimate bennefit of the group as a whole. Lastly, Popenoe's idea that it is an issue that people who don't want to get married or have kids are creating a problem is obsurd. If someone does not wish to have children, but feels pressured by society to do so, how happy will their family life be?

Stacey challenges Popenoe's defenition of family (unit consisting for an adult and a dependent), and says that there is no viable definition for a family. She also touches on Popenoe's challenge for those who disagree with him to prove how the family has strenthened or remained the same. But Stacey points out that in order to do this, you must go along with his definition of family, which she does not agree with, and therefore is forced to agree with the statement he made using the word decline. Stacey goes on to state that divorce does not harm children as much as Popenoe implied, and that studies have shown that it is more detrimental for children to be raised in a household with tension and abuse than by single parents.

Cowan, on the other hand, feels there is reason to be concerned about the American family. He proposes that we turn to the few surviving familes in an effort to detect what they are doing right. He feels that contemporary familes should be given the guidance they need to function (a point which is hard to argue with). Cowan is pushing in this article for a more scientific approach to the issue. He feels we need to do further research and reevaluate information in order to come to a solid conclusion on the topic. From reading his views, I get the impression that he would like to agree with Popenoe's article, but finds such great flaws in the way in which Popenoe went about discussing the topic. Much of Cowan's work critisizes Popenoe in his lack of supporting evidence. There is no denying that further research on the topic wouldn't hurt antything, but the fact that I got the impression from reading his article, that Cowan is leaning toward what Popenoe feels, only craving more facts to support it, pushes me to Stacey's side of the argument.