On what bases should childrearing rights and resources be allocated to different individuals? Criticising child-centred responses to this question, this chapter sets out a dual interest conception that takes into account the interests of parents as well as children. First, it offers a liberal defence of accommodating the interests of parents when deciding who should rear children. Dworkin’s hypothetical insurance scheme is extended to defend a conception of justice in childrearing in which resources are diverted to those who (...) lack valuable parenting assets, or to parents whose children are difficult or costly to raise. The use of hypothetical insurance to theorize childrearing issues is defended against several objections. Finally, more detail is provided with respect to the nature of the rights that issue from the particular dual interest conception of childrearing that is defended. (shrink)

The question, what is it like to be a child?, is one that most of us, in our capacity as parents and/or educators, have probably asked ourselves already at some point. Perhaps one might go further and suggest that it is a question we ought to ask ourselves, insofar as the attempt to provide a meaningful response has a significant bearing on childrearing and education. It is a question that presumably frames the processes of cognitive and moral education – (...) i.e. showing respect for the child's point of view and inducting the child into respecting the points of view of others. After briefly discussing the idea of empathy and relating it to ideas such as sympathy or compassion, this paper focuses on epistemic empathy in particular. The relevant characteristics in this regard are knowledge of another's internal state, including her thoughts and feelings; understanding how another is thinking and feeling and imagining how one would think and feel in the other's place. Regarding childrearing and.. (shrink)

In light of recent successful uterus transplantations, it is reasonable to expect that womb transplants will become more commonplace in the future. If this happens, important questions emerge about who should receive the donated wombs. Some arguments have been advanced that suggest that potential recipients should be screened for their anticipated childrearing capacity, as one component of a comprehensive process for determining eligibility. The main arguments provided in support of this position have to do with the presumed responsibility of (...) the state to protect future children from harm, and with avoiding complicity for any resulting harm experienced by the child born through the transplanted uterus. The purpose of this paper is to reject this position, based on two main criticisms: (1) screening potential uterus recipients for anticipated childrearing ability, but not also screening other kinds of morally equal family builders, is unjustly discriminatory; and (2) with respect to actions performed in good faith (e.g. providing a transplantable uterus to someone for the purpose of having a child), one is not morally blameworthy for the consequences of those actions (a) that one did not intend, and (b) that were directly caused by someone else, and (c) where others are directly responsible for making sure that those consequences do not come about. These criticisms are sufficient for concluding that the state is not justified in assessing the anticipated childrearing capacity of potential uterus recipients, and this is so regardless of whether or not there is a scarcity of transplantable uteruses available. (shrink)

Scholars have long puzzled about how to reconcile the proposal in Republic V that women should share the education and work of men, including ruling, with the deeply misogynistic comments found in the Republic and throughout Plato’s corpus. Even those who doubt that the proposal represents a sincere recognition of the women’s equality with men must provide a plausible explanation for this radical departure from the norms of Plato’s day. Taking inspiration from Annie Larivée’s application of Michèle Le Doeuff’s notion (...) of déshérence to the Republic and the Politicus, I argue that a new appreciation of the importance of childrearing motivates the reimagination of women’s work in the Republic. On this reading, the transformation of childrearing from a private undertaking of mostly women to a shared responsibility of the city as a whole protects young children from moral corruption at the hands of uneducated and morally inferior mothers and nurses. (shrink)

We argue that the fragility of contemporary marriages—and the corresponding high rates of divorce—can be explained (in large part) by a three-part mismatch: between our relationship values, our evolved psychobiological natures, and our modern social, physical, and technological environment. “Love drugs” could help address this mismatch by boosting our psychobiologies while keeping our values and our environment intact. While individual couples should be free to use pharmacological interventions to sustain and improve their romantic connection, we suggest that they may have (...) an obligation to do so as well, in certain cases. Specifically, we argue that couples with offspring may have a special responsibility to enhance their relationships for the sake of their children. We outline an evolutionarily informed research program for identifying promising biomedical enhancements of love and commitment. (shrink)

This article explores the maternal experiences of a heterogeneous group of 26 mothers from Granada. The aim is to analyse the needs and demands that these women express with regard to childrearing, using a qualitative methodology. The authors conducted in-depth interviews and analysed the discourses of the mothers following the hermeneutical method. The variables used for sample selection and the themes that emerged during the interviews revealed that the discourses of the mothers revolve around three dimensions: indifference, demands and (...) resignation regarding support for childrearing. The lack of paternal involvement in childrearing appears as a transversal dimension. This article shows that the material conditions of existence marked the differences in the responses of the women regarding support for childrearing, while the sexual division of labour and gender inequalities unified their discourses. (shrink)

This article brings into relief two desiderata in childrearing, the importance of which the pandemic has made clearer than ever. The first is to ensure that, in schools as well as outside them, children have ample opportunities to enjoy goods that are particular to childhood: unstructured time, to be spent playing with other children, discovering the world in company or alone, or indeed pursuing any of the creative activities that make children happy and help them learn. I refer to (...) these as “special goods of childhood.” The second desiderata is to turn childrearing into a more communal practice, with lesser parental monopoly of care. For this, we need to give children access to multiple caring adults, and thus more opportunities to form secure and protected relationships. (shrink)

What rights and duties do adults have with respect to raising children? Who, for example, has the right to decide how and where a particular child will live, be educated, receive health care, and spend recreational time? I argue that neither biological (gene-provider) nor..

Cet important ouvrage de l’historienne Sasha Turner porte sur la période de 1780 à 1834 à la Jamaïque, période pendant laquelle la perspective de l’abolition de la traite (qui interviendra en 1807), puis de l’esclavage lui-même, conduisit, là comme ailleurs, les différents acteurs du système esclavagiste à réviser la politique jusqu’alors menée en matière de reproduction de la main d’œuvre et à adopter, bon gré mal gré, une politique nataliste. La connaissance des conditions de vie des femmes...

This paper discusses Merleau-Ponty’s use of idea of ambivalence and its role in psychological conflicts. Merleau-Ponty affirms ambivalent conflicts as lived and social rather than biologically determined, as one might have in some developmental accounts, or hidden, as in some psychoanalytic accounts. With this concept, the paper takes up feminist considerations of the conflicts experienced by mothers in breastfeeding. It argues that the Merleau-Pontian and feminist approach to considering breastfeeding provides a nuanced model for thinking about development that is better (...) suited to cases where both the child and the parent are co-evolving. (shrink)

This paper examines maternal trade-offs between subsistence/economic activities and caregiving, and it explores the effect of allomaternal investment on maternal time allocation and child care. I examine how nonmaternal investment in two multiple caregiving populations may offset possible risk factors associated with reductions in maternal caregiving. Behavioral observations were conducted on 8- to 12-month-old infants and their caregivers among the Aka tropical forest foragers and Ngandu farmers of Central Africa. Analysis demonstrates that mothers face trade-offs between subsistence/economic activities and infant (...) care. Infants receive less investment when their mothers engage in subsistence/economic activities, indicating a potential risk to those infants. However, results indicate that allomothers target their assistance during times when mothers are engaged in work activities, partially offsetting potential risks associated with the maternal trade-off. The effects of intercultural variability on maternal time allocation and allomaternal investment are also explored as a means of examining the potential impact of their behaviors on infant care. (shrink)

This article develops the argument that the state must provide parental subsidies if, and to the extent that, individuals would, under certain specified hypothetical conditions, purchase ‘insurance cover’ that would provide the funds they need for adequate childrearing. I argue that most citizens would sign up to an insurance scheme, in which they receive a guarantee of a means-tested parental subsidy in return for an obligation to pay a progressive income tax to fund the scheme. This argument from insurance (...) bolsters the weaker case that proponents of parental subsidies might offer were they to rely exclusively on arguments from fair play and efficiency. (shrink)

Women continue to be in charge of most childrearing; men continue to be responsible for most breadwinning. There is no consensus on whether this state of affairs, and the informal norms that encourage it, are matters of justice to be tackled by state action. Feminists have criticized political liberalism for its alleged inability to embrace a full feminist agenda, inability explained by political liberals’ commitment to the ideal of state neutrality. The debate continues on whether neutral states can accommodate (...) two feminist demands: to enact policies aimed at dismantling the feminization of caregiving, especially childrearing, and to compensate women for some of the disadvantages they incur by being primary care-givers. I contribute to this debate with three arguments in support of policies meant to de-gender care-giving and compensate care-givers. The first appeals to equality of opportunity to positions of advantage and justifies policies that prevent or mitigate statistical discrimination and implicit biases. The second draws attention to a possible causal relationship between the specialization of women in early childcare and misogyny; since the latter is incompatible with political liberal justice, it yields the conclusion that political liberals ought to further investigate the causal hypothesis with the aim of establishing or refuting it. The third argument concludes that legitimate childrearing prohibits adults from socializing children or, at least girls, into gender norms; it justifies duties of justice on the side of parents, educators, and economic agents, and state policies meant to offset foreseeable breaches of some of these duties. (shrink)

Intensive motherhood (IM) has become an established social norm in many countries, especially Western ones. Centred upon the mother providing lengthy full-time, intensive care focused on the child’s needs, these social norms can be seen in the actions of mothers in diverse social locations. However, recent research has demonstrated that women’s ability to engage in IM is affected by factors like education, race, ethnicity, religion or socioeconomic status as well as by cultural and structural conditions. The goal of this paper (...) is to analyse IM in the Czech context by focusing on factors that most affect a mother’s ability to engage in IM. Biographical interviews were held with 17 mothers, and the following three areas were discussed most in their narratives: (a) use of information on childrearing, (b) attitude to paid employment and juggling family and work, and (c) the financial, mental and emotional costs of motherhood. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue against any state intrusion and interference that amounts to scrutiny of parents based on their decision to separate. The state, to my mind, ought not to be involved in childrearing decisions in cases of divorce unless there is a sufficient reason, and, as I will argue, divorce per se does not present a level of risk to children that justifies state intervention. The claims I am about to make apply not only to parental capability (...) tests but also to the entire process of legal divorce, which allows the courts to decide who they believe is a better parent—a decision that, in my view, the state is not capable of (and should not be) making. I do not claim that states ought not to interfere at all but rather that, unless parents fail to do what they are morally required to do, state interference should not be permitted. To make this case, I present two claims: claim A, that only a risk reaching a certain level (which I will call level H) justifies state intervention; claim B, that the act of divorce does not meet level H; and therefore C, there is no justification for state intervention in divorce. (shrink)

Keith Haartman argues that childrearing practices distinctive of the English middle class in the 18th century produced a type of personality structure characterized by excessive splitting. Methodism proved popular because the Methodist experience providing a way of confronting and working through the conflicts generated by this sort of personality structure. Unfortunately, although Haartman's argument is plausible, there is little or no evidence to support his central contention: that the individuals who found Methodism most appealing were associated with the childhood (...) experiences he posits. A somewhat different psychoanalytic interpretation of the same data that Haartman presents emerges when we pay attention to things, like the orality that pervaded the Methodist experience and the intended goal of the Methodist conversion experience, that Haartman ignores. This article concludes by suggesting that when psychoanalytic investigators study large-scale historical patterns, they would do well to recognize the limits of psychoanalytic explanation in this area. (shrink)

Because families disrupt fair patterns of distribution and, in particular, equality of opportunity, egalitarians believe that the institution of the family needs to be defended at the bar of justice. In their recent book, Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift have argued that the moral gains of preserving the family outweigh its moral costs. Yet, I claim that the egalitarian case for abolishing the family has been over-stated due to a failure to consider how alternatives to the family would also disturb (...) fair distributions and, in particular, equality of opportunity. Absent the family, children would continue to be exposed to care-givers of different levels of ability, investment in childrearing and beneficial partiality. In addition, social mechanisms other than the family would lead to the accumulation of economic inequalities. Any kind of upbringing will fail to realise equality for reasons that go deeper than the family: our partiality and unequal abilities to nurture. (shrink)

What gives someone a moral right to parent? What role should the liberal state play in the creation of families? Are prospective parents allowed to create a child in a world facing a changing climate and full of parentless children? -/- In this book, Luara Ferracioli defends a new theory of the moral right to parent by focusing on the special role of parents in creating the conditions for the flourishing of their children irrespective of whether there is a biological (...) connection between them, and by explaining why the parent-child relationship remains valuable even after the child reaches the age of majority. Ferracioli also argues that although procreative and adoptive parenting enjoy equal moral standing, justice towards children requires that the liberal state make adoption more desirable and feasible for its citizens. Finally, the book provides a partial theory of childrearing which focuses on the goods of childhood that parents are primarily responsible for fostering: carefreeness, enjoyment-driven or curiosity-driven achievement, and friendship. (shrink)

In this article we focus on how the language of developmental psychology shapes our conceptualisations and understandings of childrearing and of the parent-child relationship. By analysing some examples of contemporary research, policy and popular literature on parenting and parenting support in the UK and Flanders, we explore some of the ways in which normative assumptions about parenthood and upbringing are imported into these areas through the language of developmental psychology. We go on to address the particular attraction of developmental (...) psychology in the field of parenting and upbringing within our current cultural context. Drawing on the work of (among others) Zygmunt Bauman, we will show how developmental psychology, as one of the instruments that contributes to a breaking down of our existential condition into a series of well-defined, and thus apparently manageable, tasks and categories, displaces rather than confronts the possibly limitless depth of the enormity of the reality of ‘being a parent’. (shrink)

The evolution of cooperative breeding is complex, and particularly so in humans because many other life history traits likely evolved at the same time. While cooperative childrearing is often presumed ancient, the transition from maternal self-reliance to dependence on allocare leaves no known empirical record. In this paper, an exploratory model is developed that incorporates probable evolutionary changes in birth intervals, juvenile dependence, and dispersal age to predict under what life history conditions mothers are unable to raise children without (...) adult cooperation. The model’s outcome variable (net balance) integrates dependent children’s production and consumption as a function of varying life history parameters to estimate the investment mothers or others have to spend subsidizing children. Results suggest that maternal-juvenile cooperation can support the early transition toward a reduction in birth intervals, a longer period of juvenile dependence, and having overlapping young. The need for adult cooperation is most evident when birth intervals are short and age at net production is late. Findings suggest that the needs of juveniles would not have been an early selective force for adult cooperation. Rather, an age-graded division of labor and the mutual benefits of maternal-juvenile cooperation could be an important, but overlooked step in the evolution of cooperative breeding. (shrink)

What constitutes enjoyment of life? Optimal Experience: Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness offers a comprehensive survey of theoretical and empirical investigations of the "flow" experience, a desirable or optimal state of consciousness that enhances a person's psychic state. "Flow" can be said to occur when people are able to meet the challenges of their environment with appropriate skills, and accordingly feel a sense of well-being, a sense of mastery, and a heightened sense of self-esteem. The authors show the diverse (...) contexts and circumstances in which flow is reported in different cultures (e.g. Japan, Korea, Australia, Italy), and describe its positive emotional impacts. They reflect on the concept of flow vis-à-vis modern social structures, historical phenomena, and evolutionary biocultural selection. The ways in which the ability to experience flow affects work satisfaction, academic success, and the overall quality of life are suggested; and the childrearing practices that result in the ability to derive enjoyment from life, considered. (shrink)

This highly original book argues for increased recognition of pregnancy, birthing and childrearing as social activities demanding simultaneously physical, intellectual, emotional and moral work from those who undertake them. Amy Mullin considers both parenting and paid childcare, and examines the impact of disability on this work. The first chapters contest misconceptions about pregnancy and birth such as the idea that pregnancy is only valued for its end result, and not also for the process. Following chapters focus on childcare provided (...) in different circumstances and on the needs of both providers and receivers of care. The book challenges the assumption that isolated self-sacrifice should be the norm in either pregnancy or childcare. Instead reproductive labor requires greater social support. Written from the perspective of a feminist philosopher, the book draws on the work of, and seeks to increase dialogue between, philosophers and childcare professionals, disability theorists, nurses and sociologists. (shrink)

Meyers examines the question of personal autonomy. She observes the effects of childrearing practices and sexual biases, and reflects upon the results in women. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

There is increasing resistance to gendering in contemporary society, seen in gender-neutral childrearing and pronouns, expansion of legal sex categories and intersex rights, and queer and genderqueer movements. This timely book considers the utopian question of whether, and how, gender could be eradicated and how we might understand identity and relationships without it. It considers the implications of arguments from 'new materialism' about the malleability of biological sex, and of queer theory and gender deconstruction, for social change and political (...) practice. The original theoretical and practical argument is for an androgynous, reciprocal ethic or way of being in the world that transcends both sex/gender and some of the debates plaguing gender studies. It takes inspiration from real-world queer and post-gender practices, for example by being written using gender-neutral pronouns, and also considers the reality of implementing such an ethic in a highly gendered world, especially in cross-cultural contexts. (shrink)

There is a broad philosophical consensus that both children’s and prospective parents’ interests are relevant to the justification of a right to parent. Against this view, I argue that it is impermissible to sacrifice children’s interests for the sake of advancing adults’ interest in childrearing. Therefore, the allocation of the moral right to parent should track the child’s, and not the potential parent’s, interest. This revisionary thesis is moderated by two additional qualifications. First, parents lack the moral right to (...) exclude others from associating with the child. Second, children usually come into the world as part of a relationship with their gestational mother; often, this relationship deserves protection. (shrink)

Analytic philosophers tend to agree that intentional parental genetic shaping and intentional parental environmental shaping for the same feature are, normatively, on a par. I challenge this view by advancing a novel argument, grounded in the value of fair relationships between parents and children: Parental genetic shaping is morally objectionable because it unjustifiably exacerbates the asymmetry between parent and child with respect to the voluntariness of their entrance into the parent–child relationship. Parental genetic shaping is, for this reason, different from (...) and more objectionable than parental environmental shaping. I introduce a distinction between procreative decisions one makes qua mere procreator—that is, without the intention to rear the resulting child—and procreative decisions one makes qua procreator-and-future childrearer. Genetic shaping is objectionable when undertaken in the latter capacity: Both selection and enhancement are objectionable because they introduce an unnecessary and avoidable inequality in the parent–child relationship; in the case of enhancement, this also results in harm to the future child. (shrink)

Parental substance use is a major risk factor for child development, heightening the risk of drug problems in adolescence and young adulthood, and exposing offspring to several types of traumatic event. First, prenatal drug exposure can be considered a form of trauma itself, with subtle but long-lasting sequalae at the neuro-behavioural level. Second, parents’ addiction often entails a childrearing environment characterised by poor parenting skills, disadvantaged contexts and adverse childhood experiences, leading to dysfunctional outcomes. Young adults born from/raised by (...) parents with drug problems and who develop a Substance Used Disorder (SUD) themselves might display a particularly severe condition in terms of cognitive deficits and impaired personality function. This preliminary study aims to investigate the role of early exposure to drugs as a traumatic event, capable of affecting the psychological status of young drug addicts. In particular, it intends to examine the neuropsychological functioning and personality profile of young adults with severe SUDs who were exposed to drugs early in their family context. The research involved 3 groups each consisting of 15 young adults (aged 18-24): a group of inpatients diagnosed with SUDs and exposed to drugs early, a comparison group of non-exposed inpatients and a group of non-exposed youth without SUDs. A neuropsychological battery (Esame Neuropsicologico Breve-2), an assessment procedure for personality disorders (Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure-200) and the Symptom CheckList-90-Revised were administered. According to present preliminary results, young drug addicts exposed to drugs during their developmental age were characterised by elevated rates of neuropsychological impairments, especially at the expense of attentive and executive functions; personality disorders were also common but did not differentiate them from non-exposed young people with SUDs. Alternative multi-focused prevention and intervention programs are needed for children of drug-misusing parents, addressing executive functions and adopting a trauma-focused approach. (shrink)

Parenting has an ambiguous place within the liberal tradition. On the one hand, liberal theorists have traditionally portrayed it as a private activity. On the other hand, they have also acknowledged the need for some public regulation of parenting in order to protect children’s interests. Some theorists have suggested that this ambiguity within liberalism can be best resolved by implementing parental licensing plans that would limit childrearing opportunities strictly to individuals who could prove their psychological, moral, and financial competency (...) to raise children well. In this article, I critique parental licensing schemes from a liberal perspective and argue that public parenting support, including paid parenting leaves, public childcare subsidies, and the like, is more consistent with liberal values and, in fact, a necessary component of any coherent liberal theory of justice. (shrink)

This Article sets out to initiate the development of a theory about the financial obligations that joint parenthood imposes. It considers what joint parents owe one another, separate and apart from any obligation they may or may not have as former spouses or partners. The Article suggests that parenthood is not merely a vertical relationship between an adult parent and a child, but also a horizontal relationship between adults who share it. It is further suggested that the relationship created by (...) joint parenthood should be a significant factor in defining adult family relationships and their legal implications. This proposal intends to contribute to promoting caregiving as a value, in law in general and in family law in particular. This Article focuses on the financial obligations joint parenthood imposes, based on the premise that caring for children and the costs of such care are the joint responsibility of a child’s parents. Childrearing costs as defined in this article refer not only to the actual money spent on providing children with food, healthcare, education, clothing, and the like, but also, and even primarily, to the personal costs that parenthood exacts from parents in terms of the impairment of earning capacity or career progress, and the loss of leisure time. The Article suggests that when co-parents do not share a relationship, either because they have separated or because they never had one, there are good reasons to be concerned about the way the costs of raising children are allocated between them. The Article addresses the failure of existing legal frameworks of property division, alimony, and child support to adequately deal with the concerns over the allocation of childrearing costs between parents, and calls for a new legal framework to be defined to address this issue. (shrink)

This paper aims to contribute to recent critical work on the current parenting culture. It does so by a critical reading of the individual words/parts of the sentence ?Parents need to become independent problem solvers? ? a characteristic phrase of ?Triple P?, a parenting programme that has recently been implemented as a form of parenting support in a number of countries. The paper aims (1) to bring out and expose some of the worrying features of the current parenting culture, (2) (...) criticise its narrow conceptions of what a parent is and what childrearing is, (3) by doing so give a sense of the oddness of implementing Triple P as a form of parenting support and, finally, (4) tentatively suggest alternative routes of thinking for and about childrearing as well as ?grafting points? to start reconstructing parenting support practices. (shrink)

At the beginning of the twentieth century the high mortality rates of both mothers and babies during childbirth became a predominant concern in Britain and its empire, provoking outcries from medical and nursing professionals as well as politicians and the wider public. Infant mortality became the new marker of the vitality of the nation and a widely used indicator of general standards of health. Efforts to improve maternal and infant welfare were part of a broader shift in Britain towards public (...) health as a government responsibility. Measures taken to reduce mortality rates emphasized state-run initiatives in maternal education and antenatal care, the medicalization of childbirth, and scientific infant feeding and childrearing practices. This shift in health care policies resulted in profound changes to the experience of childbirth and to the role of the state in the area of social welfare... (shrink)

Pronatalism—the social bias toward having children—is at the core of much violence against women. Its chief characteristic, and its moral Achilles heel, is that it undermines autonomous decision-making about childbearing. Together with its soulmates misogyny and geneticism, it harms children, male partners, and humanity as a whole, given the serious environmental challenges now facing us. But, of course, biology requires women to gestate offspring, and women are generally expected to be responsible for childrearing. Female gender roles incorporate these facts, (...) and thus pronatalism’s negative impact on women—both their bodies and their lives—is of another order of magnitude. Yet, this state of affairs is so taken for granted that it is almost invisible, and is therefore especially hard to eradicate. Attempts to do so are also often erroneously confused with, and undermined by, negativism about having children. (shrink)

The purpose of the present systematic and critical review was to assess the findings and to identify the gaps in the literature concerning gay and bisexual fathers. A comprehensive search of relevant literature using electronic databases and reference lists for articles published until December 2016 was conducted. A total of 63 studies, spanning from 1979 to 2016, were collected. More than half of the studies were published after 2011 and the overwhelming majority were conducted in the United States. Nine themes (...) were identified in the studies reviewed: (1) Pathways to fatherhood; (2) Motivations for fatherhood; (3) Parenting experiences and childrearing; (4) Family life and relationship quality; (5) Gender and father identities and gender-role orientation; (6) Disclosure of sexual identity; (7) Social climate; (8) Father’s psychosocial adjustment; and (9) Children’s psychosocial adjustment. It was found that research on gay fatherhood appears to be more heterogeneous than on lesbian motherhood, perhaps because of the variety of pathways to parenthood (via co-parenting, adoption, fostering, or surrogacy). Two-father families are becoming more visible in research on sexual minority parenting and gradually transforming the conceptualization of parenting in family research. (shrink)

A common argument in favor of using reprogenetic technologies to enhance children goes like this: parents have always aimed at enhancing their children through upbringing and education, so why not use new tools to accomplish the same goal? But reprogenetics differs significantly from good childrearing and education, in its means, if not its ends.

ABSTRACT: Simon Baron-Cohen has argued that autism and related developmental disorders (sometimes called “autism spectrum conditions” or “autism spectrum disorders”) can be usefully thought of as the condition of possessing an “extreme male brain.” The impetus for regarding autism spectrum disorders (ASD) this way has been the accepted science regarding the etiology of autism, as developed over that past several decades. Three important features of this etiology ground the Extreme Male Brain theory. First, ASD is disproportionately male (approximately 10:1 in (...) the case of Asperger’s Syndrome or high-functioning autism (HFA) and approximately 4:1 in the case of autistic disorder). Second, ASD is not psychogenic but biological in origin, and hence is not the product of sexist conditioning or childrearing practices, although these may affect the development of the disorder. Third, ASD is regarded as a spectrum developmental disorder, unlike other disorders such as Down Syndrome that are diagnosed by a (nearly) binary criterion. Down Syndrome, for example, is diagnosed by the presence in all or most cells within a given individual of an extra copy of Chromosome 21. Autism, on the other hand, is diagnosed by the presence of a set of symptoms that vary in their intensity and in their milder forms seem to conform to purported sex differences in cognitive, emotional, and social functioning. -/- In this paper, I do not challenge accepted science regarding the etiology of autism, and I do not challenge the idea of ASD as a disorder. Nor do I wish to offer an alternative account of what autism is. Instead, I focus on the usefulness of thinking of a disorder as an extreme version of ordinary sex differences. Does it follow from the fact that a disorder is more often found in men that we should think of it as an extreme form of maleness? If not, what other conditions must be met in order to warrant this way of thinking about ASD? What does it mean to say that ASD is a form of “extreme male brain”? Feminists are rightly skeptical of theories that make claims about male and female brains, so how should we respond to the clear evidence that the differences between typical and ASD individuals are not caused by childrearing practices? I explain what I take to be Baron-Cohen’s central argument that autism should be seen as the extreme male brain, and critique that argument. I conclude that there is no good argument that autistic symptoms should be regarded as an extreme form of male mental traits, and that Baron-Cohen’s claim does not help us to understand autism, women, or men. His claim is a speculative thesis that is readily mobilized for sexist practices. As such it requires a higher threshold for evidentiary support and rigorous argumentation—support and argumentation that does not exist. -/- KEYWORDS: autism, brain, gender, neuroscience, feminism, male . (shrink)

According to Objectivist David Kelley, financier Michael Milken has done more for mankind than humanitarian Mother Teresa. Working from this statement, Then Athena Said examines Objectivism, a philosophy founded by Ayn Rand, and ultimately concludes, in opposition to essential claims of Objectivism, that other people are a fundamental part of reality. Relying, in part, upon economic theory, decision theory under uncertainty, and game theory, Then Athena Said examines unilateral transfers—including charity, childrearing, bequests, retribution, gifts, favors, forgiveness, and various infringements (...) against persons or property—within the Objectivist framework. (shrink)

Parental burnout is a specific syndrome resulting from enduring exposure to chronic parenting stress. But why do some parents burn out while others, facing the same stressors, do not? The main aim of this paper was to propose a theory of parental burnout capable of predicting who is at risk of burnout, explaining why a particular parent burned out and why at that specific point in time, and providing directions for intervention. The secondary goal was to operationalize this theory in (...) a tool that would be easy to use for both researchers and clinicians. The results of this two-wave longitudinal study conducted on 923 parents suggest that the Balance between Risks and Resources (BR 2 ) theory proposed here is a relevant framework to predict and explain parental burnout. More specifically, the results show that (1) the BR 2 instrument reliably measures parents' balance between risks (parental stress-enhancing factors) and resources (parental stress-alleviating factors), (2) there is a strong linear relationship between BR 2 score and parental burnout, (3) parental burnout results from a chronic imbalance of risks over resources, (4) BR 2 predicts parental burnout better than job burnout and (5) among the risk and resource factors measured in BR 2, risks and resources non-specific to parenting (e.g., low stress-management abilities, perfectionism) equally predict parental and job burnout, while risks and resources specific to parenting (e.g., childrearing practices, coparenting) uniquely predict parental burnout. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Mother-Daughter Relations and the Maternal in Irigaray and ChodorowAlison StoneGod the Father and Jesus the Son; Abraham and Isaac; Uranus, Cronus, and Zeus; Zeus and Dionysus; Hamlet and his father; Fyodor Karamazov and his three sons—representations of and fantasies about father-son relationships are central to Western culture and philosophy. Within philosophy, one thinks of Hegel’s conception of the dialectic in terms of the divine trinity, Nietzsche’s preoccupation with Christ (...) and Dionysus, or Kierkegaard’s meditations on Abraham’s near-murder of Isaac. In contrast, mother-daughter relationships have been shrouded in near-universal silence—much more so than representations of either mothers and sons (Oedipus and Jocasta; Mary and Jesus) or fathers and daughters (Agamemnon and Iphigenia; Lear and Cordelia). Female and feminist theorists, writers, and artists have done much to bring mother-daughter relationships into representation and to reimagine the maternal beyond its traditional subservience to father-son dynasties.Amongst continental feminists, Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva have, of course, made major contributions to this task. Within Anglophone feminism, too, feminist psychoanalytic thinkers have sought to rectify Freud’s overemphasis on the paternal and on father-son relations. Nancy Chodorow’s important work in this area paints a portrait of contemporary mother-daughter relations which seems, at first sight, strikingly similar to Irigaray’s. Both thinkers suggest that mothers and their infant daughters experience a unique level of mutual identification. But under patriarchy—specifically, given exclusively female childrearing for Chodorow and given the absence of any symbolization of female subjectivity for Irigaray—daughters are forced to turn to the father [End Page 45] to achieve any psychical independence from their mothers. The independence that daughters thus attain coexists with ongoing psychical identification with their mothers, so that women oscillate endlessly between separation from and mergence with their mothers. If the dominant template for father-son relations involves violent rivalry followed by guilt-ridden father-worship as the cement of fraternal society, as Freud described in Totem and Taboo (Freud 2001), the template for mother-daughter relations involves hostile separation constantly undone by ongoing fusion. This difference in templates maps the social-symbolic difference between the paternal position of power/authority/law and the maternal position of powerlessness/silence/body.However, the manifest similarities between Irigaray’s and Chodorow’s pictures are embedded in deep theoretical differences. The details of their descriptions of mother-daughter relations differ, and they give different explanations for why these relations follow a logic of separation and fusion: female mothering for Chodorow, the paternal symbolic order for Irigaray. They make different proposals for how to change these relations: shared parenting for Chodorow versus symbolic transformation for Irigaray. They hold conflicting conceptions of the self and of language, reflecting their heterogeneous psychoanalytic backgrounds in Anglo-American object relations versus French Lacanianism and poststructuralism. These deep differences raise questions about whether Chodorow and Irigaray are discussing mother-daughter relations in the same sense at all.Bringing Irigaray and Chodorow together across their different intellectual contexts, this article compares and partially synthesizes their visions of the maternal and of mother-daughter relations. By integrating their perspectives, we can move beyond the “impasse” between Lacanian and object-relations feminisms that dominated psychoanalytic feminist debates in the 1980s and 1990s (Brennan 1991)—debates that have crucially shaped continental feminists’ orientation towards questions of sexual difference, language and representation, and the embodied psyche.The impasse in question has at least two strands. First, for object-relations feminists such as Chodorow, our pre-Oedipal relations with our mothers shape us so that we acquire “core” selves with a fairly stable gender. This approach elevates the mother in importance (compared to classical psychoanalysis with its emphasis on the father), but it loses sight of psychic and gender instability. This can make Chodorow’s views seem rather dated given the impact of Judith Butler’s work and her emphasis on the unstable, shifting nature of gender. Lacanian feminists such as Jacquelyn Rose (Rose 1986) reemphasize psychic instability, but they do so by stressing that the subject is split between paternal language and the pre-Oedipal maternal realm, which means that these theorists also... (shrink)

This chapter uses feminist standpoint theory to investigate Diotima’s epistemic advantage in Plato’s Symposium. Scholars have wondered why Diotima – a woman speaking about the role of erōs in gestation, childbirth, and childrearing – voices the view that Plato privileges most among all the symposiasts (Halperin 1990, Evans 2006, Hobbs 2007). Feminist standpoint theory is useful in developing a novel answer to this question; it supposes that oppressed groups, because they occupy different social locations, often develop epistemic privileges over (...) their dominant counterparts, especially with respect to finding lacunae in dominant narratives (cf. Hartsock 1987, Collins 1990, Harding 1987 and 1993, and Intemann 2016). This chapter proposes that Diotima’s unique social location – she is an older, non-Athenian woman, well versed in gestation, childbirth, and childrearing – disposes her to know something about erōs that the dominant group, the Athenian pederasts, do not. What she knows is that having erōs for something does not merely inspire one to pursue or possess it; by attending to how erōs affects women, she argues that it also manifests as a desire to reproduce what is beloved and care for it. Diotima’s standpoint is epistemically revelatory, then, because it establishes that love is far more than the pursuit of beauty; it is a creative and laborious act. Moreover, her standpoint is ethically revelatory, since she argues that the highest form of love entails fostering and nourishing virtue in others. Understood in this way, Diotima is espousing something like a protofeminist ethics of care. (shrink)

During the past four decades, China has gone through rapid urbanization and modernization. As people adapt to dramatic sociodemographic shifts from rural communities to urban centers and as economic level rises, individualistic cultural values in China have increased. Meanwhile, parent and child behavior in early childhood has also evolved accordingly to match a more individualistic society. This mixed-method study investigated how social change in China may have impacted parenting goals and child development in middle childhood, as seen through the eyes (...) of the current generation of mothers. Thirty mothers of fifth-grade elementary school students from Shenzhen, China were recruited and took part in semi-structured interviews. Participants answered questions and provided examples about their children’s life, their own childhood, and the perceived differences between the two generations. Participating mothers were also asked to rate which generation, themselves or their parents, cared more about the childrearing goals of academic competitiveness and socioemotional well-being. Using both qualitative and quantitative analysis, we expected and found an intergenerational increase in the perceived value mothers placed on individualistic traits: current mothers care more about their children’s academic competitiveness, personal happiness, and social adjustment, compared to their experience of their own mothers’ attitudes during their childhood a generation earlier. They also experience conflict between their children’s academic competitiveness and socioemotional well-being. As a function of both urbanization and increased economic means, children’s collectivistic family responsibilities for essential household chores have declined as the importance of schoolwork has increased. (shrink)

Let me begin by thanking the Journal of Medical Ethics editors and the four commentators for taking time to read, reflect and offer thoughtful comments on my paper. The issues they raise warrant careful attention. Regrettably, I am only able to address some of their key concerns due to space constraints. In my paper, ‘Gestation, Equality and Freedom: Ectogenesis as a Political Perspective’, I outline two sets of critiques of liberal defences of ectogenesis and contend that these defences are limited (...) in their reach and scope. Building on Federici’s,1 and Dalla Costa’s and James’2 readings of the of the international feminist campaign ‘Wages for Housework’, I argue that the value of ectogenesis is to similarly advance a political perspective and a provocation. Framing ectogenesis in these terms enables to critically engage with the physical and social burdens of pregnancy, childbirth and childrearing, which all too often are borne by women. It also allows to demand for better medical and social services for mothers and women more generally, as well as better working and living conditions for these and other disadvantaged groups. Lisa Campo-Engelstein thoughtfully broadens my reading of liberal defences of ectogenesis and contextualises them within the history of ‘reproductive advancements and technologies’.3 She illustrates that …. (shrink)

Viewing the Iliad and myth through the lens of modern psychology, Richard Holway exposes sacrificial childrearing practices at the root of competitive, glory-seeking ancient Greek cultures. The Iliad dramatizes and cathartically purges not only strife within and between generations but knowledge of sacrificial parenting. Holway's analysis yields a new reading of the Iliad, from its first word to its last, and a revised account of the family dynamics underlying ancient Greek cultures.

The Dutch government has decided to intervene in parents’ role in bringing up their children by imposing compulsory parenting support. As such an intervention has to be legitimatised as being ‘in the interests of the child’, it is important to take a closer look at this concept. First it is shown that it is not evident that the government has the right to intervene in this way. Within the ‘child–parents–government’ triangle three protective shells of self-determination can be distinguished. One of (...) these three shells protects the freedom of childrearing of the parents. Second, ‘the interests of the child’ are seen from a pedagogical perspective. This concept is explored within the framework of the so-called ‘pedagogical relationship’, a core concept in the continental tradition of educational theory. It is shown that the pedagogical relationship is indeed completely ruled by the interests of the child. Third, the question is raised why the Dutch government is so eager to intervene in the parents’ role given the fact that the UNICEF overview of child well-being shows that the Netherlands leads the world ranking and scores in the top 10 of all measured dimensions. These philosophical and empirical arguments are apparently not considered to be convincing. Hopefully, the decision of the Dutch government will be reconsidered seriously if the results of the interventions prove unsatisfactory in the coming years. (shrink)