Understanding the Lives of Mothers After Incarceration: Moving Beyond Socially Constructed Definitions of Motherhood

In the wake of mass incarceration, an increasing number of women are going through the penal system. A fair number of these women are mothers, yet the intersection of motherhood and prison may contradict conceptions of femininity and challenge traditional views of appropriate mothering. The contradiction between notions of criminality and femininity contributes to stigmatized perceptions of formerly incarcerated mothers, which drastically shapes their ability to reintegrate into society post-incarceration. While reentry efforts tackle gender differences through the implementation of gender-responsive programs that cater to women's needs, failure to adequately account for unique maternal experiences may hinder attempts to address obstacles faced by mothers in particular, such as regaining child custody and paying for day care. This article argues for special attention to the post-incarceration experiences of mothers without imposing socially constructed definitions of motherhood like having custody and living with children, which may not coincide with the realities mothers face after imprisonment. Ideas are also discussed for the inclusive consideration of formerly incarcerated mothers and their post-incarceration experiences...

Employment and financial challenges

Formerly incarcerated individuals often encounter obstacles to obtain and sustain employment, finding themselves with limited opportunities in the low-wage sector (Brown and Bloom 2009; Dodge and Pogrebin 2001; Hagan and Dinovitzer 1999). As a result, they are likely to seek financial assistance from family members to cover daily expenses and outstanding debts, such as court fines (Brown and Bloom 2009). While some receive financial assistance from relatives, this puts a strain on the finances of family members who are less fortunate or also caring for the mothers' children (Dodge and Pogrebin 2001). These employment and financial difficulties may further complicate the act of mothering post-incarceration. Specifically, unstable employment and income can trigger inconsistent routines, financial obstacles to provide for children, difficulties with affordable childcare arrangements, and associated stress that may influence parent–child relationships (Arditti and Few 2008; Brown and Bloom 2009; Edin and Lein 1997; Scott et al. 2004). As written by Brown and Bloom (2009, p. 332): “Reunion with children takes place in situations where the woman is dependent on others and is still not really in control of her own life.” Such financial obstacles can be particularly detrimental for formerly incarcerated mothers, aggravating attempts at reintegrating into society and navigating motherhood amidst desires and expectations to do so.

Living arrangements

Since mothers are likely to have lived with their children and served as primary caretakers pre-incarceration (Glaze and Maruschak 2008; Mumola 2000), they often expect and hope to live with their children upon their release (Baunach, 1985; Brown and Bloom 2009). Yet, mothers face difficulties in finding permanent housing post-incarceration and may encounter unstable housing including homelessness, which presents obstacles as they seek suitable housing for themselves and their children (Roman and Travis 2004). Since the children's fathers are seldom involved or financially stable, mothers are often unable to rely on the fathers and, instead, rely on other family members for the care of their children (Dodge and Pogrebin 2001). They may exhibit gratefulness for family serving as temporary caregivers, but they may also feel jealousy if unable to realistically provide for their children given common difficulties in finding stable, affordable housing post-incarceration (Arditti and Few 2008). Some mothers struggle with attempts to live with their children, yet others decide to leave their children in the care of family to maintain consistency with arrangements made in their physical absence (Michalsen 2011). Some formerly incarcerated mothers may also encounter hostility from their children because of these adjustments, forcing them to balance “their own process of reintegration and the transitions of their loved ones” (Brown and Bloom 2009, p. 325). Thus, changes in mother–child relationships and problems finding stable housing can negatively impact mothers' plans to reside with their children and contribute to preexisting stress after incarceration.

Mothering techniques

Mothers may also struggle to manage motherhood within a correctional system that stresses idealistic notions of femininity and mothering, while penalizing mothers whom diverge from these social constructions (Ferraro and Moe 2003; Haney 2010). For instance, maternal desires to provide for children during financial difficulties are often associated with violations of parole conditions given that mothers are “filled with expectations of caring for others while under the gaze of the state” (Ferraro and Moe 2003, p. 23). In her ethnographic study, Haney (2010) found that some mothers under correctional supervision were deemed “bad mothers” and scolded for treating their children with tough love. However, the mothers deemed tough love as a necessary parenting approach to teach their children survival techniques for the realities faced in their neighborhoods (Haney 2010). Moreover, mothers of color – fraught with racial inequalities in society – often engage in “motherwork” in which they empower children (both biological and non-biological) against the social and structural barriers they collectively confront as racial minorities (Collins 1994; see also O'Reilly 2014). Their tough love parenting serves to protect their children from the dangers in their community and the attention of the police, while the parenting of White middle-class mothers typically places emphasis on the proper education and employment for future success (Brown and Bloom 2009). Formerly incarcerated mothers may also employ discipline and tough love to prevent their children from following in their footsteps and making the same mistakes they made (Hayes 2009). Though mothers justify this parenting approach according to their life circumstances, this approach may not coincide with social constructions of what mothering entails, therefore, exposing them to further stigmatization (Haney 2010). These factors can be particularly problematic for mothers attempting to regain custody of their under-aged children.

  

Full article at:   http://goo.gl/1boU5W

By:  Janet Garcia

Correspondence address: Janet Garcia, School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University, 123 Washington Street, CLJ 5th Floor, Newark, NJ 07102, USA. E-mail: Janet.Garcia@rutgers.edu

More at:  https://twitter.com/hiv insight

And: http://twitter.com/Prison Health

“Out of All of This Mess, I Got a Blessing”: Perceptions & Experiences of Reproduction & Motherhood in African American Women Living with HIV

HIV disproportionately impacts African American women of childbearing age residing in the Southern United States. 

Antiretroviral therapy has increased the quantity and quality of life for people living with HIV and produced viable and safe reproduction possibilities for women living with HIV. However, little is known about reproductive decision-making processes for African American women living with HIV. 

The overall goal of our study was to qualitatively explore perspectives related to reproduction and motherhood in HIV-infected African American women of childbearing capacity. HIV-infected African American women of childbearing capacity in South Carolina (N = 42) participated in in-depth interviews. 

Our respondents held positive views about pregnancy and motherhood, despite non-supportive pregnancy messages from interpersonal influences, including health care providers. 

Study findings uncovered the need for programs and interventions to support women’s reproductive autonomy and focus on reducing conception- and pregnancy-related transmission risks to infants and uninfected sexual partners.

Purchase full article at:   http://goo.gl/04aQKX

By:   Faith Fletcher, PhD, MA (Assistant Professor), Lucy Annang Ingram, PhD, MPH (Assistant Professor), Jelani Kerr, PhD, MSPH (Assistant Professor), Meredith Buchberg, MPH (Regional Coordinator), Donna L. Richter, EdD, FAAHB (Distinguished Professor Emeritus), Richard Sowell, PhD, RN, FAAN (Professor Nursing)

Affiliations

• University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Correspondence

• Corresponding author: Faith Fletcher.

More at:  https://twitter.com/hiv insight

And: http://twitter.com/Prison Health

State Regulation, Family Breakdown, and Lone Motherhood: The Hidden Costs of World War I in Scotland

Using a range of parish records, records from the Registrar General of Scotland, charity organizations, and media reports, this article contributes to the historiography which evaluates the effects of World War I in Britain as well as the history of lone mothers and their children. It highlights how during the war, women, especially lone mothers, made significant gains through the welfare system, changing approaches to illegitimacy and the plentiful nature of women’s work but also how in doing so this brought them under greater surveillance by the state, local parishes, and charity organizations. Moreover, as this article will demonstrate, many of the gains made by women were short-lived and in fact the war contributed to high levels of family breakdown and gendered and intergenerational poverty endured by lone mothers and their children.

...It was not just married women who came under greater surveillance. Among the first women to come under the lens of the state agencies were single women, especially, young working-class women. These young females were among the greatest beneficiaries of women’s wartime economic progress because they were the first to be enlisted to substitute for men who were called to arms and this gave them greater spending power to enjoy the modern leisure pursuits such as dance halls, cafés, cinema-going, and access to new fashions and makeup. Woollacott argues that young women became targets of regulation due to concerns over what the press would label “khaki fever.” This was the idea that young women, especially those who resided near army camps, were attracted by the excitement of war and to men in uniform which it was feared would result in high levels of illegitimacy, prostitution, and venereal disease.³⁷ According to the Registrar General for Scotland in his Annual Report of 1916, there had been serious concerns that the war would lead to an increase in illegitimate births.³⁸ This was not only due to khaki fever, but also related to the notion that departing or returning soldiers, uncertain of their futures, would engage in premarital sex.

These fears were translated into the establishment of women’s patrols across Britain.³⁹ In Scotland, the patrols worked with the police, were sanctioned by the Scottish Office, and were run by the National Union of Women Workers.⁴⁰ In 1915, there were 425 patrols in Scotland based in twenty different locations.⁴¹Edinburgh had thirty women’s patrols by 1916.⁴² Women’s patrols monitored “girls” whose behavior was regarded as unsatisfactory, those who gathered in the vicinity of military camps, who might potentially tempt soldiers into misconduct.⁴³ The Scotsman newspaper called the patrols “an organized chaperone system” to avert the development of “loose and dissolute habits” and increased levels of illegitimacy, especially as the men who were seen as most likely to succumb to the charms of the young women were older married men—so there would be no opportunity of averting illegitimacy through marriage.⁴⁴ To this end, the Defense of the Realm Act was used to regulate women’s behavior. For example, in Cupar, Fife, there was a military curfew which forbade women from leaving their homes after 10 p.m. at night.⁴⁵

Yet for all the fears expressed, illegitimacy did not increase significantly in Scotland during the war. Table 1 below highlights the number of illegitimate births peaked at nearly 9000 in 1912 before falling steadily to a low of 7,295 in 1917. However, the number of births in Scotland also fell during the war period. The average percentage of illegitimate births to total births in the period 1911–13 was 7.32, which remained unchanged for the war years.⁴⁶ Nevertheless, more than 50,000 illegitimate children were born in Scotland between 1914 and 1919…

Full article at: http://goo.gl/5XK6Ac

By: Annmarie Hughes1 and Jeff Meek1

¹University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

Annmarie Hughes, Room 208, Lilybank House, Bute Gardens, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8RT, UK. Email:ku.ca.wogsalg@sehguh.eiramnna

   

More at:  https://twitter.com/hiv_insight

The Adverse Effects of Motherhood on Substance Use Treatment Program Outcomes among Adolescent Women

Adolescent mothers have differing risks and responsibilities compared to adolescent women without children that may impact substance use treatment. This study sought to describe characteristics of adolescent women in a substance use treatment program and determine the effect of adolescent motherhood on treatment program outcomes.

Data were collected from standardized interviews of female adolescents in a case management criminal justice diversion program for substance-using adolescents and adults. Variables included sociodemographic factors (ie, race/ethnicity, age, financial support, education, insurance, marital status, sexual abuse), Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV (DSM-IV) substance use disorder diagnoses, and motherhood (ie, childbirth and residence with a child). Treatment program outcome was documented by case workers at the end of the participants' time in the program. Chi-square analyses and analysis of variances determined associations between variables. Logistic regression was used to assess characteristics associated with negative treatment program outcome.

Data from 1080 adolescent women aged 16-21 years (mean 19.7 years, SD = 1.16) were analyzed; 403 (37%) were mothers. After controlling for sociodemographic factors and substance use disorder diagnoses, adolescent mothers were less likely to successfully complete the treatment program than nonmothers. Adolescent women with reliance on family or friends for financial support, lower education status, and cannabis and cocaine use disorders had worse treatment program outcomes.

Childbirth and parenting adversely affect substance use treatment outcomes for adolescent women in the criminal justice system. Future research should explore tailored substance use treatments for adolescents with children. Job training and educational support may improve outcomes.

Via: http://goo.gl/l6Wt3r  Purchase full article at: http://goo.gl/vf85YP

By: Savage RJ1, Durant N, Clark CB, Nair P, Cropsey K.

• 1Department of Pediatrics (R.J.S., N.D.), University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA; Department of Psychiatry (C.B.C., P.N., K.C.), University of Alabama at Birmingham Sparks Center, Birmingham, Alabama, USA; Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (P.N.), Johns Hopkins. 

More at:  https://twitter.com/hiv_insight