Single motherhood by choice: A parenting alternative

The experience of single motherhood by choice has become more prevalent in the last twenty years and yet the literature reveals a dirth of information about this parenting style. This article delineates the experience of choosing single motherhood utilizing artificial insemination by donor. Several issues are examined: (a) emotional factors and personality characteristics of the mother, (b) physiological factors related to artificial insemination, (c) ethical and legal considerations of artificial insemination and single motherhood, and (d) various economic concerns related to single motherhood.Ann Potter completed her Ph.D. in counseling psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and is Assistant Professor of Nursing at Clarkson College of Nursing, 333 South 44th Street, Omaha, NE 68131. Her current research interests are children and families of alcoholics, nontraditional families including single motherhood by choice, and incest survivors.Patricia Knaub is Associate Dean of the College of Home Economics and Associate Professor of Human Development and the Family at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her address is 105 Home Economics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68583-0800. She completed her Ph.D. at Nebraska and current research interests include stress and coping strategies of farm families, successful remarriages, and issues related to conception, including transference of myths and artificial insemination.     

Parental health and children's economic well-being

The life course perspective emphasizes that past economic experiences and stage in the life course influence a family's ability to cope with negative life events such as poor health. However, traditional analytic approaches are not well-suited to examine how the impact of negative life events differs based on a family's past economic experiences, nor do they typically account for the potentially spurious association between negative life events and family economic well-being. We use finite mixture modeling to examine how changes in parental health affect children's exposure to poverty. We find that for some children the association between family head's health and children's exposure to poverty is spurious, while for other children family head's poor health is associated with increased risk of economic deprivation. The extent to which a family head's poor health alters children's economic well-being depends on a child's family's underlying economic trajectory and past history of exposure to disadvantage.     

Outcomes for children's health and well‐being

Health outcomes are implicit in the government's major policies on reducing poverty, unemployment and social exclusion, and in environmental regeneration, as well as in explicitly targeted policies for modernising the National Health Service. The impact of policies in childhood are regarded as a key feature in determining socioeconomic outcomes in many domains, among which mental health plays a particularly important part. But although early intervention is recognised as crucial in the achievement of socioeconomic and health policy aims, outcomes in children and for children have only recently received full recognition. This article outlines the impact that government policies may have on health outcomes for children. However, the assessment of changes in health status is difficult and mostly relies on proxy measures. The evidence that any changes can be related to policy is extremely limited and mostly based on small‐scale and locally specific projects. What can be learnt from these and from collective analysis of linked projects, such as those funded through the CAMHS Innovation Grant, is discussed. Because of the attention paid by the government to evidence‐based policy, outcomes in all domains will become known before long for major national children's policy initiatives such as the Sure Start programme, highlighting the crucial and continuing need for evaluation of the ways in which policies are implemented. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Accuracy of parents' perceptions of their college student children's health and health risk behaviors

The authors compared parents' perceptions of their college student children's health and health risk behaviors with the college students' own reports. One hundred sixty-four parent-college student child dyads completed questionnaires regarding the students' health, illness status, and health risk behaviors. Parents tended to be overoptimistic about their children's health and health risk behaviors, underestimating the frequency of their children's alcohol, smoking, marijuana, and sex-related behaviors, and overestimating the students' self-reports of general health. Such misperceptions may inhibit parent-student conversations about health and risky health behavior, ultimately putting the student at greater health risk.     

The relationship between motherhood and re-incarceration

Using matched administrative records from the Illinois Department of Corrections and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, this paper finds that mothers' rates of re-incarceration are higher than those of women without children. It is also found that incarcerated mothers whose children have been in foster care have a higher re-incarceration rate than do women without children. The re-incarceration rate is particularly higher among mothers whose children were placed in foster care at the time of their first incarceration and mothers who had children in foster care but lost their custody before their first incarceration. These findings are more pronounced among white women with records of drug-related offenses or drug addiction than among their African-American counterparts.     

Promoting children's interest in health: an evaluation of the child health profile

The child health profile was developed as an extension for older children of the personal child health record, which has normally been kept by mothers. The profile was introduced in three health board areas in Scotland. A questionnaire survey of young people revealed a mixed response concerning the usage and value of the profile. A small number had used it fully as a means of recording or communicating about personal health‐related matters, but a majority had not actively used the profile and two fifths said they had lost their copy. Children reported that doctors and nurses rarely asked to see the profile. Many respondents wanted more extensive and detailed health information. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Referrals, language proficiency, and enrolment for children's mental health services

Alberta Health Services maintains a database of children, adolescents and adults referred to the child and adolescent mental health and psychiatry intake service. In this study, we sought to systematically assess the impact, if any, of English language proficiency on enrolment of children for mental health services. Specifically, we assessed the extent to which children referred for mental health services were enrolled. In doing so, we categorized our sample (12,143) as English Proficient (EP), or Less English Proficient (LEP). Overall, we found that LEP children were significantly less likely to be enrolled compared to EP children. This disparity in enrolment was only present when other variables were not taken into account. English Proficiency is an important factor for some subgroups.     

Incorporating children's lives into a life course perspective on stress and mental health

Emerging themes in demography, developmental medicine, and psychiatry suggest that a comprehensive understanding of mental health across the life course requires that we incorporate the lives of children into our research. If we can learn more about the ways in which the stress process unfolds for children, we will gain important insights into the factors that influence initial set points of trajectories of mental health over the life course. This will simultaneously extend the scope of the stress process paradigm and elaborate the life course perspective on mental health. Incorporating children's lives into the sociology of mental health will also extend the intellectual influence of the discipline on sociomedical and biomedical research on mental illness. I contend that sociology's greatest promise in understanding trajectories of mental health across the life course lies in a systematic analysis of the social and social-psychological conditions of children, the stressful experiences that arise out of these conditions, and the processes that mediate and moderate the stress process in childhood. In this regard, there are three major issues that sociologists could begin to address: (1) the identification of structural and institutional factors that pattern children's exposure to stress; (2) the construction of a stress universe for children; and (3) the identification of key elements of the life course perspective that may set or alter trajectories of mental health in childhood and adolescence.     

Collaboration and competition in a children's health initiative coalition: a network analysis

Activating communities to achieve public health change and initiate policy reform usually requires collective action from many entities. This case study analyzes inter-organizational networks among members of a coalition created to expand health insurance coverage to uninsured children in a large metropolitan area. Six networks were measured: collaboration, competition, formal agreements, receive funding from, send funding to, and greater communication. The response rate was 65.8% (50 of the 76 active members). Positive network questions such as “who do you collaborate with” elicited many network choices whereas negative ones such as “who do you compete with” elicited few. The collaboration network had a core–periphery structure and analysis showed that a large network can be reduced to a small set of core organizations one-sixth the size of the whole. Centrality (out- and in-degree) was associated with perceived organizational function and perceived barriers to success. For example, organizations that received many choices as collaboration partners were more likely to perceive the coalition functioned well than those who received few choices. The study suggests that perceptions of organizational performance are associated with position in the network, central members are more likely to perceive the organization performs well than those on the periphery.     

How do we value our children today? as reflected by children's health,health care and policy?

SUMMARY. The importance of children in their own right and of their healthy development for the health of society, have been affirmed at an international level by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989 and by the Children Act 1989 in the United Kingdom. In the UK fifteen years ago, the report of the Court Committee set out a framework for Child Health Services based on the same recognition of the value of children. This paper describes how in spite of the far-reaching recommendations made by the Court Committee, the health of children in this country is far from satisfactory; how health policy and services have failed to meet their health care needs; and how other recent legislation such as the NHS and Community Care Act may well lead to further difficulties in working for the best interests of the child.     

Small-dollar children's savings accounts and children's college outcomes

This is paper one of four in the small-dollar children's savings account series, which, studies the relationship between children's small-dollar savings accounts and college enrollment and graduation. This series of papers uses different subsamples to examine three important research questions: (a) are children with savings of their own more likely to attend or graduate from college? (b) does dose (i.e., having no account, only basic savings, savings designated for school [of less than $1, $1 to $499, or $500 or more]) matter? and (c) is having savings designated for school more predictive than having basic savings alone? Paper one of this series uses aggregate data from the newest wave of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and its supplements. Propensity score weighted findings suggest that children who have a small amount of money (e.g., less than $1 or $1 to $499) designated for school are 3 times and 2.5 times more likely, respectively, to enroll in and graduate from college, respectively, than children with no account. Findings also show that having savings designated for school might have a stronger effect on relationship with children's college outcomes than having basic savings that can be used for any purpose. The paper concludes by explaining how policies that create national children's savings programs might help cue a psychological process in which children form an identities as college-savers.     

The grace of motherhood: disabled women contending with societal denial of intimacy,pregnancy, and motherhood in Ethiopia

This study aimed to provide better understanding of intimacy and marriage, pregnancy, birth, and motherhood experiences of women with disability in Ethiopia. Qualitative, in-depth, and semi-structured interviews along with personal observations were used to explore the full experiences of participants, as told in their own words. The result of the interviews indicated that relationships and motherhood proved a very rewarding option for women with disabilities. They also expressed their need for intimacy regardless of society’s denial. Challenges identified include negative societal attitudes toward women with disabilities regarding relationship, pregnancy, and child-rearing. Accessibility of health centers in addition to the ignorance and negative attitudes of the physicians are also reported to be major challenges for the interviewees. This study highlights how rewarding the experience of motherhood was for the interviewees and also shows that women with disabilities face challenges at every step of their experiences, because of society’s prejudices toward disability.