Thursday, April 12, 2012

Motherhood-paper #2


 Shanna Larson

GWS-220W

Paper #2

4/2/12



Mothers Around the World




            Since being a mother has always been something that I look forward to, I chose this topic to learn more about the roles, challenges, and responsibilities that mothers take on around the world. The purpose of my writing is to inform and educate about changing trends in motherhood around the world. In this paper I will be discussing religion’s impact on mothering, migration and working mothers, teenage mothers, the problem of HIV and AIDS in Kenya and lastly an encouraging solution to this problem.

            According to The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World women are having fewer children than their grandmothers and mothers did years ago. This trend is related to two main factors; first the increased availability in reproductive health services and improvements being made to increase women’s status and autonomy (Seager, 2009). Now a days’ it is easy to go to the store and buy condoms or get the pill or other forms of birth control from the doctor. There is much more education being done on safe sex instead of just talking about abstinence like was done in the past. We also see sex portrayed in movies, on TV, in music, and in advertisements which makes it more of a common topic and not so taboo. Women are also much more involved in the work force than they were years ago. More and more women around the world are starting to work outside the home (Gorfinkiel, 2011). This also prolongs the age of having sex because more women are getting degrees and not having children until after college or after they have worked in their careers for a few years.


            Religion is a very important part of every culture, it is a central theme for values, norms, and cultural customs. Religion also plays a huge role in parenting practices. A study was conducted which showed a positive correlation between religious affiliation and number of children (Bjorck & Lazar, 2011). Another study also found that mothers who classified their religion as Jewish viewed their large families as obedience to God’s calling had a positive relationship between a sense of coherence and functioning (Bjorck & Lazar, 2011).  Parenting practices in these cultures included labeling the families as “close”, having family dinners and traditions, and having positive relations with extended family members.

            I discussed in my previous paper about the effects on mothers and families when the husbands/fathers migrated for their job. For this paper I decided to look at the opposite approach on the impact of migration was for mothers who had to leave their families. I will focus on two articles at this point and discuss first a study done in Spain looking at the changing norms of motherhood and secondly talk about mothers from Mexico leaving their family to find work in the U.S. The study in Spain looked at three groups; Latin-America, Eastern Europe, and Maghreb and two categories within those groups, upper-middle and lower-middle class. The article states that even though these studies were performed in Madrid, the results can be extrapolated to many different areas in Spain with similar characteristics as well as other cities around the world (Gorfinkiel, 2011). Gorfinkiel brings up the title “Motherhood from a Distance” in the context of mothers who leave their home to find work in other countries to support their children. These mothers leave because of poverty, sanitation problem, and lack of education. They can make more money coming to a different country and send money to their family so their kids can get proper sanitation and nutrition and go to school. When mothers leave, they often leave their children in the care of a grandparent, aunt or uncle, cousin, or older sibling. The children can also be left in the care of another “Mother working from a distance” thus creating a global chain of domestic work (2011).

            In relation to mothers working from a distance, my next article discusses the lives of eight mothers who illegally crossed the border from Mexico to the U.S. to seek a better life for themselves and for their families. Despite new laws and regulations illegal immigration is a continuing problem around the world. In the year 2000 there were over 20 million new immigrants as permanent U.S. Citizens (Sternberg & Barry, 2010). Transnational mothers are defined in the article as “women who migrate from poor to developed nations to escape extreme poverty, political persecution, or other oppressive sociopolitical constructs”(Sternberg & Barry, 2010). Each of the eight women interviewed described their previous life as living in extreme poverty. They suffered from lack of water, food, clothing, sanitation, health care, education, and shelter. One woman talked about the dangerous gangs in her community. She was scared for her children that they would either be hurt by these gangs or get involved in the gang activity so she wanted to earn money to move her family out of that community.

            Each of these women also reported living in extreme poverty when they were children and didn’t want that life for their children. A key factor in their strength while they are in the U.S. is their faith in God that he will provide for them and keep their families safe back home while they were away. Having this solid faith helped the women continue on and reminded them that what they were doing was the right thing for their families. This impacts the mothers because they can pray to God for perseverance and also patience for their families back home, knowing that they are going to be better off because of this tough situation. The women keep in touch by frequent phone calls especially if they had young children because they fear they would forget who they were while they were away. A hard part of the transition for them is adapting to the new culture and traditions (2010).

            Teenage mothers are not only a trend in the U.S., but around the world as well. Young girls lack access to health care because most often they are ashamed to tell their parents that they are sexually active so they do not use protection when having intercourse. There was a study done in the UK to look at the health of its teenage girls who are pregnant. The UK has the highest rate of teenage motherhood among western European countries (Webb, Marshall & Abel, 2011), thus this is a very important topic for them to investigate to take care of the girls and the babies. The author states that “Understanding more about poor health care concerns in this group is more likely to facilitate more effective planning of health-care services, and delivery of better mental health and primary care services”(Webb, Marshall & Abel, 2011). The finding of the study was quite interesting. Teenage mothers in the UK were 60% more likely to die from unnatural causes, where women who became first time mothers from 20-29 were significantly less likely to die from unnatural or natural causes because their bodies were more matured and able to handle the responsibilities of a baby(Webb, Marshall & Abel, 2011). I also think that as a teenage mother, you are not as mature mentally, so getting thrown into a situation like that without the proper knowledge on healthy pregnancy, you are less apt to take care of your body while being pregnant as well as making wise decisions for your baby as they are growing.  Those who became first time mothers as teenagers also had significantly higher instances of death by suicide and by cervical cancer. Living in a deprived area was one of the predictors of premature mortality which a lot of these teenagers came from, resulting in less protection, resulting in higher rates of pregnancy, along with STD’s. Teenage pregnancy is present in every culture. I think it is important as parents and educators to protect our young women and educate them on the risks and give them alternatives and information on safe-sex.

            A stud done in Kenya looked at the epidemic of HIV/AIDS in mothers. There is a lack of health care due to poverty and not a lot of technological advancements in medicine in this area. African women suffer from high levels of unsafe pregnancy and childbirth, the estimated maternal mortality ratio for sub-Saharan Africa was 920 per 100,000 live births in the year 2000. Many women who do have access to medical facilities often avoid them for maternal care because of fear of disclosure, this leads to higher infant mortality rates because treatment is very important from HIV positive women because they are at a greater risk for complications. The article also discusses the lack of education to women during pregnancy or after the baby is born (Turan, Miller, Bukusi, Sande, & Cohen, 2007).

            Lastly, there is some hope for mothers in poverty, and low socioeconomic status. Tina Sharkey is the Chairman and Global President for BabyCenter LLC. She saw a blog posted by a mother who visited Kenya and saw the depravation and lack of medical education that was being taught to new mothers. The women in Kenya did not know the nutritional advantages of breast feeding, vaccinations, vitamins or supplements. BabyCenter is a partner with Johnson and Johnson who provide women around the world with education throughout their maternal journey. With travel and internet access they reach over 25 million every month in 22 regions and 12 languages around the world (Sharkey, 2012). I think this is wonderful for mothers to the access they need to education to do everything we can to save lives and raise healthy and happy children in communities with poor health care.

            In conclusion, I think that it is important to remember that all mothers have one thing in common, they love their children and only want what is best for them. No matter what race, religion, socioeconomic status, mothers around the world need to come together to support each other. We talked about religion, migration, working mothers, teenage mothers as some trends in motherhood and BabyCenter as a solution to help solve these issues, I’m hoping that with more education on health and parenting practices that mortality rates drop and mothers can raise their children in a healthy, safe, and happy environment where they can learn and grow.






References:



Bjorck, J. P., & Lazar, A. (2011). Religious support, motives for having large families, and psychological functioning among religious jewish mothers. J Relig Health, 50, 177-194.



Gorfinkiel, M. D. (2011). Migrant domestic work and changes in the ideas of childcare.



Seager, J. (2009). The penguin atlas of women in the world. (4 ed.). London, England : Myriad Editions Limited.



Sharkey, T. (2012). Giving new and expecting mothers power in the palm of their hand. Global Motherhood.

Sternberg, R. M., & Barry, C. (2010). Transnational mother crossing the border and bringing their health care needs. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 43(1), 64-71.

Turan, J. M., Miller, S. S., Bukusi, E. A., Sande, J. J., & Cohen, C. R. (2008). HIV/AIDS and maternity care in Kenya: how fears of stigma and discrimination affect uptake and provision of labor and delivery services. AIDS Care, 20(8), 938-945.

United Nations (2007). World fertility patterns 2007.

Webb, R. T., Marshall, C. E., & Abel, K. M. (2011). Teenage motherhood and risk of premature death: Long-term fallow-up in the ons longitudinal study. Psychology Medicine, 41, 1867-1877.

4 comments:

  1. This paper had many really good points about motherhood around the world, I’m glad you hit all those points so the readers could get a solid understanding of what life is like for mothers all over the world. One idea I recognized from previous articles we have read was mothers migrating to other countries for better paying jobs. I also really liked that you talked about teen pregnancy because I believe that is becoming such a common problem especially in the United States. Over all this paper was really educational, the only thing that could have been added was maybe the alarming numbers of single mothers around the world today.

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  2. I thought this article focused on a lot of the issues surrounding motherhood from different aspects around the world. I thought it was interesting that "religion" can encourage women to have babies and at the sametime, religion or faith holds women together when they leave their children behind in search of better jobs. I would guess on the second instance it isn't so much "religion" that's holding women together but their "faith" that there is a reason behind the struggles they are apart of. I also thought it was interesting that alothough the UK has the highest rate of teens becoming pregant they are also killing them off at an astronmical rate as well, when the article said, "Teenage mothers in the UK were 60% more likely to die from unnatural causes, where women who became first time mothers from 20-29 were significantly less likely to die from unnatural or natural causes because their bodies were more matured and able to handle the responsibilities of a baby(Webb, Marshall & Abel, 2011," as there seems to be a certain amount of responsibility on the part of the country to either educate these young gals, get them protection, or ensure adequate maternity care if they know the problemis out of control rather than allowing these young girls to die. I can undertsand the importance of the body physically being ready to bear children and how that could improve motality but I feel there that the government could help help those girls achieve adequate help rather than just pushing it off as their bodies aren't ready so therefore they die. I was also curious as to the "unnatural causes" factor as I could help but wonder, is that from the child birth process itself or death during pregnancy or suicide? It was a good article. Those were just a few of the questions I thought of as I was reading the article.

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  3. I too am very excited for motherhood and so I was very interested in your topic. I’m so happy to read that the birthing rates are decreasing due to better reproductive education. I am very pro-sex education (good sex-ed). It is sad when teens become mothers have to support themselves and their children and don’t have the means to do so. I think it is extremely sad when mother have to leave their children to work in other countries. Maybe there is a correlation between teenage parenthood and migrant workers. I also agree that when teens have children, they are less likely to be physically and mentally mature enough.
    Great paper! It is very interesting to learn about motherhood in other countries.

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  4. Reading about the rates of high teenage pregnancy in the UK was very interesting. Although I know of the obvious affects teen pregnancies, I never realized that there were higher rates of suicide and cervical cancer among young mothers. Teenagers in our society, I think, recieve the wrong image of teenage pregnancy through shows like "Teen Mom." It gives girls the idea that they could get on TV or like some of the young moms on the show, get engaged or married. The show glamorizes teen pregnancy even if at times it does show the hard times. The reality is that in our society, reality tv is not reality. Even though programs in schools work towards encouraging teens to have safe sex, it is still not as effective as we all wish it could be.

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