Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Why are mothers who collect welfare stigmatized for not working, while other mothers are vilified for working? What are the legal ramifications of being a mother in a society where "mothering" a child and "fathering" a child mean two very different things? What rights should a lesbian co-mother have if she and her partner separate? What obligations do divorcing parents have to their children?
These and other important questions are explored by the legal theorists, ethicists, and religious thinkers writing in Mother Troubles. Examining the ways in which "mothers" are imagined by family law and state policy, maternal actions that allegedly harm children, and the deep pleasures and conflicts of motherhood, the authors reveal the enormous range of issues facing mothers today. As our changing workforce and evolving mores increasingly clash with the traditional assumptions of our legal system, Mother Troubles is timely reading.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [335]-358).
Table of Contents
"Not my way, Sesha, your way, slowly" : maternal thinking in the raising of a child with profound intellectual disabilities /Eva Feder Kittay --Mothers who fail to protect their children : accounting for private and public responsibility /Dorothy E. Roberts --Child endangerment, parental sacrifice : a reading of the binding of Isaac /Martha Minow --Punishment and prejudice : judging drug-using pregnant women /Lynn M. Paltrow --Cultural stereotype and the legal response to pregnant teens /Nina Perales --Leaving children for work /Carol Sanger --Always connect : toward a parental ethics of divorce /Hilde Lindemann Nelson --Law of the father /Martha Albertson Fineman --Lessons from the Titanic : start with the people in steerage, women and children first /Lisa C. Ikemoto --Lesbian families : dilemmas in grounding legal recognition of parenthood /Mary Lyndon Shanley --Reimagining adoption and family law /Drucilla Cornell --"Ordinary mother" as oxymoron : the collusion of theology, theory and politics in the undermining of mothers /Paula M. Cooey --Reflection on three verbs : to father, to mother, to parent /Peggy Cooper Davis --Ideals and realities of motherhood : a theological perspective /Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore --Dilemmas of passion, privilege, and isolation : reflections on mothering in a white, middle-class nuclear family /Jennifer Nedelsky.