A temática do trabalho é a situação da mulher diante de uma gravidez que é interrompida por um parto prematuro, ou seja, aquele que acontece entre a 20ª a 36ª semana de gestação. Nestes casos, o recém-nascido tem que ser internado em uma Unidade de Terapia Intensiva Neonatal (UTIN) para a salvaguarda de sua vida. A pesquisa é um estudo qualitativo e tem como objetivo geral discutir como as puérperas que passaram pelo parto prematuro e estão com seus recém-nascidos em UTI Neonatal experienciam este momento. E como objetivos específicos, procura identificar essa experiência, averiguando como abordam o parto, a situação de UTIN, o significado do ser mãe e a relação com o bebê. Para isso, foram realizadas entrevistas semi-estruturadas e um grupo focal em um hospital estadual no Estado de Rondônia. Foram feitas 10 entrevistas com mulheres que estavam com seus recém-nascidos internados na UTIN, que tinham mais de 18 anos e passavam por uma primeira experiência de parto prematuro. Destas mulheres, quatro participaram do grupo. As entrevistas e o trabalho em grupo foram analisados por categorias criadas dentro de eixos temáticos, na proposta de processamento simbólico arquetípico. Os eixos foram tomados de acordo com os objetivos específicos, assim se configurando as categorias dentro de cada um deles: o parto (o inesperado; a busca de explicação; duas vidas em jogo; o tremendum e o majestas; os apoios); a situação de UTIN (os sentimentos pela ida do bebê para a UTIN; entre o viver e o morrer; a comunicação da equipe com a família; a rotina difícil; a esperança; buscando forças); o significado do ser mãe (o numinoso; as dificuldades; a ambivalência); a relação mãe-bebê (o rápido primeiro encontro; a imagem do bebê: real e idealizada; o desejo de pegar o filho no colo; a ausência do filho; o contato; as reações do filho). O embasamento teórico constitui-se principalmente na psicologia analítica de Carl Gustav Jung e seus sucessores. Verificou-se que a experiência da maternidade, quando acontece o parto prematuro, é marcada pela ambivalência de sentimentos: ao mesmo tempo em que, por um lado, é bom que o bebê tenha nascido com vida e possa ao menos ser tocado, por outro lado, é também pesaroso ter um filho com que não se possa estar durante todo o tempo, sequer pegá-lo nos braços e levá-lo para casa, precisando ir todo o dia ao hospital e lidar com a ansiedade gerada pela notícia de sua evolução clínica. A esperança ajuda a superar cada dia, assim como o apoio da família, da equipe, e a proximidade ao filho, percebendo suas reações e participando dos cuidados. Práticas institucionais acolhedoras mostram-se imprescindíveis para minimizar o sofrimento da mulher / The subject of this work is the womans condition whenever facing the interruption of her pregnancy by premature birth, in other words, that one which happens between the 20th and the 36st gestation weeks. In these cases, her baby is interned in a Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in order to save his life. This research is a qualitative study and has the general objective of discussing how the puerperal mothers who had a newborn due to premature birth and whose newborns are interned in Newborn ICU do experience this moment. And, as specific objectives, this work aims to identify such experience, by verifying how they discuss the parturition, the situation of NICU, the meaning of to be mother and their relation with their babies. For this purpose, half-structured interviews and a focal group in a state hospital at Rondonia State were carried out with them: 10 interviews took place with women who were over 18 years old and were in their first experience of premature birth, with their newborns interned at NICU. Four of those women also participated on the focal group. Both the interviews and group work were analyzed through categories created on thematic axes, within the approach of archetypal symbolic processing. These axes were taken in accordance with the specific objectives, with the categories arranged in each one them as following: the parturition (the unexpected; the search for an explanation; two lives at stake; the tremendum and the majestas; the supports); the situation at the NICU (the feelings for the babys internment at the NICU; between life and death; the communication between the staff and the family; the difficult daily routine; the hope; finding strength); the meaning of to be mother (the numinous; the difficulties, the ambivalence); the relation mother-baby (the slight first encounter; the babys image: real and idealized; the desire to hold the baby in the arms; the contact; the babys reactions). The theoretical basement is principally settled on the analytical psychology of Carl Gustav Jung and his successors. It was positively established that the experience of motherhood, when the premature birth happens, is marked by the ambivalence of feelings: if, on one hand, it is good to know that the baby was born alive and the mother at least can touch him, on the other hand, it is sorrowful for her to have a baby with whom she cant be all the time, that she cant hold him in her arms and take him home, besides having to go every day to the hospital and dealing with the anxiety caused by the expectation of her babys clinic evolution. Hope helps her to surpass every day, as well as the support of the family, of the staff, and the proximity with her baby, realizing his reactions and participating in his caretaking. The sheltering institutional practices turned out to be indispensable to decrease womans suffering

Certaines femmes alcooliques consultent pour leur problème d'alcool quand leurs enfants, grands adolescents ou jeunes adultes, prennent leur indépendance. Elles interrogent donc une problématique de dépendance – leur dépendance à un produit – quand leurs enfants prennent leur autonomie.L'hypothèse générale de cette recherche est que pour les femmes alcooliques, la séparation avec les enfants quittant le domicile familial réactiverait les enjeux de séparation-individuation impliqués également dans la dépendance à l'alcool. La concomitance des demandes d'arrêt d'alcool et d'aide pour se séparer des enfants serait due à un soi indifférencié, conséquence de processus de séparation-individuation entravés précocement. Le soi de la femme alcoolique est un soi peu différencié de sa famille d'origine, un « soi-famille » en lieu et place d'un soi individuel, qui se réactualise dans la famille actuelle.La méthode de cette recherche repose sur trois cas cliniques issus de prises en charge sur plusieurs années en addictologie, ainsi que sur l’utilisation de dessins libres de l'arbre généalogique, de données d'une recherche hospitalière et d'un matériel littéraire. Un premier axe d'analyse du matériel clinique porte sur le type de relations que la femme alcoolique a avec ses parents, avec son conjoint et avec ses enfants. Un deuxième axe étudie la fonction de la consommation d'alcool pour la mère alcoolique dans les enjeux de séparation-individuation. Un troisième axe analyse les manifestations d’un « soi-famille » chez la patiente, en lieu et place d'un soi individuel. Cette étude montre les différentes formes que peut prendre le « soi-famille » chez la femme alcoolique lors du départ des enfants du domicile familial, et l'intérêt de l'approche familiale quand une mère souffre d'alcoolisme.Les résultats de cette recherche mettent en évidence l'aspect indifférencié du soi des mères alcooliques, qui tend vers une lente différenciation, et vers l'émergence d'une position féminine. / Certain alcoholic women consult for their drinking problem when their children, old teenagers or young adults,take their independence. Thus they question a problem of dependence - their dependence on one product - when their children achieve their independence.The general hypothesis of this research is that for alcoholic women, the separation with the children leaving the family home would reactivate the issues of separation-individuation also implied in alcohol addiction. The concomitance of their desire to stop alcohol and their need for help to part from their children would be due to a self undifferentiated, consequence of the process of separation-individuation hindered prematurely. The self of the alcoholic woman is a self little differentiated from her family of origin, one "family self" instead of an individualself, which revives itself into the current family.The method of this research is based on the analysis of three clinical cases stemming of many years care in addictology, free drawings of the family tree, data of a hospital research and some literary material. A first axis of analysis concerns the type of relations whom the alcoholic woman has with her parents, with her spouse and with her children. The second axis studies the function of alcohol consumption for the alcoholic mother in the issue of separation-individuation. The third axis analyzes the expression of one "family self" in the patient, instead of an individual self. This study shows the different aspects which the "family self" in alcoholic women as their children leave then family home can take, and the benefit of the family approach when a mother suffers from alcoholism.The results of this research highlight the undifferentiated aspect of the self of the alcoholic mothers, who aims towards a slow differentiation, and towards an emergence of a feminine position.

Stereotypes and myths are created by media to simplify and mystify reality. The two are used to form negative stereotypical images that are used as tools of social oppression in today’s white patriarchy. This essay will focus on how Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye depicts black womanhood and motherhood and resists the reductive images of black women through the narrative technique. In the text we find the stereotypical images of the Mammy and the Matriarch in the character Pauline "Polly" Breedlove, both simplifying and mystifying black motherhood but also condescending towards African-American family constellations. The text resists these images by making readers inhabit Polly who at first fits in to the two archetypes, only to then give us additional information and use an engaging narrative technique that invites the reader to decide if Polly really is the Mammy and the Matriarch.

The dissertation explores the Swedish child welfare officer system (barnavårdsmannainstitutionen) using gender as an analytical tool. The child welfare officer system was a public program designed to support single mothers and monitor the welfare of children born out of wedlock. The study concentrates on the first half of the 20th century, and particularly covers the introduction of this system in 1917/18 and the changes it underwent in 1938, after an income maintenance law (bidragsförskott) for children of unwed mothers was introduced. In 1917, Sweden was one of the first countries in Europe to introduce legislation that formalized men’s obligations towards children born out of wedlock. Consequently, state officials, called child welfare officers, were required to perform mandatory investigations of paternity. Their task was also to make sure that fathers provided economic support and mothers carried out sufficient care. The 1938 income maintenance law was one of the social policy initiatives of the 1930s. Single mothers were assured payment from the state for child support and the child welfare officers then sought to reclaim the money from the absent father. The history of the child welfare officer system is used as a case to investigate the power dynamics of gender and class, and the relationship between the state, the social work professionals and the individual citizen, concurrent with the birth of the Swedish welfare state. The political debates, the institutional arrangements and the practices connected to this policy area have been analyzed. Thus, politicians, social workers and unwed mothers and fathers are all brought into focus. An analytical point of departure is that the welfare state ”does gender”, i.e. that the welfare state regulates and directs the relation between men and women. However, the state is also treated as a complex and changeable entity, where state and welfare policy also functions as a means to change gender relations. Thus, the study argues that the introduction of the child welfare officer system opened up a new public arena for women – as politicians, social workers and as mothers – in which they were able to renegotiate the meaning of gender and their relation to the state. Prevalent ideas of gender were questioned and challenged in the public sphere of politics and labor as well as in the private sphere of the family. The study consists of a number of empirical chapters in which this social bureaucracy is scrutinized from various perspectives. The child welfare officer system is analyzed both on a national and local level. The latter is done through a case study of the local work in Stockholm. Gender was a vital component to all these levels.

Inledning: Övergången till att bli mor belyses i denna studie utifrån fem ensamstående mödrars subjektiva upplevelse av sitt moderskap.  Frågeställningar: Hur upplever den ensamstående kvinnan moderskapet? Vilken inverkan har moderskapet på hennes självuppfattning? Vad upplevs hjälpsamt respektive begränsande för övergången till att bli mor? Metod: Studien baseras på intervjudata från narrativt inriktade intervjuer med fem ensamstående förstagångsmödrar med barn, 9-15 månader gamla. Data har analyserats med tolkande fenomenologisk analys. Resultat: Tre framträdande teman framkom. Det första temat fokuserar på barnet som en brytpunkt i kvinnans liv. Det andra temat illustrerar att det ur mor-barn-relationen som en jag-du-relation kan växa fram ett vi i relationen, vilken såväl utmanar som berikar moderns själv. Det tredje temat fokuserar på att den ensamstående modern brottas med frågor som rör tillräcklighet i sitt föräldraskap, vilket här ses som både ett resultat av det ensamma ansvaret och att den ensamstående modern tycks utmana såväl en tvåsamhetsnorm inom föräldraskapet som ett internaliserat kärnfamiljsideal.  Diskussion: Med utgångspunkt i relationell psykoanalytisk teori analyserades resultatet. Moderskapet visade sig i studien kunna medföra en själv-förändring genom en förändringsprocess i tre steg som för modern visar sig som: själv-uppluckrande, själv-utmanande och själv-förstärkande. Processen ses vila på såväl det praktiska som det etiska ansvar som modern har för barnet, något som i sin tur också genererar ett ansvar för sig själv. Intersubjektiviteten mellan mor och barn ses som en motor i processen. Den ensamstående modern tycks särskilt sårbar under denna process när hennes behov av närhet, stöd och erkännande accentueras. Den ensamstående modern riskerar också att uppleva sig ensam-stående om omgivningens uttryckliga och indirekta budskap går isär när hon genom sitt föräldraskap finner sig utmana vissa normer. Då finns risk att hon upplever sig ensam, utsatt och ifrågasatt. Att erbjuda kvinnan samtalsstöd under graviditet och framväxande moderskap med öppenhet för såväl den kroppsliga, psykologiska, relationella, sociala som existentiella dimensionen är en klinisk implikation som föreslås i studien. / Introduction: In this study, which is based on the interviews concerning the experiences of five single mothers, the transition to motherhood is highlighted. Objectives: How does the single mother experience motherhood? What is the impact of motherhood on her self-perception? In the transition to becoming a mother, what is considered helpful and what is considered limiting? Method: Based on five narrative interviews, with single mothers having children aged in the range 9 to 15 months, a qualitative interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) approach has been used. Results: In the analysis, three themes emerged. In the first theme, the child was seen as a breakpoint in the woman’s life. In the second theme it is acknowledged that, out of the mother-child relationship, like an I and a You relationship, a sense of a We emerged in the relation, which challenges as well as strengthens the mothers’ sense of self. The third theme acknowledges that, the single mother struggles with a feeling of insufficiency as a parent, which is seen as both a result of the sole responsibility and that the single mother seems to challenge both a two-parent norm within the parenthood and an internalized ideal of nuclear family.  Discussion: Starting from relational psychoanalytical theory, the results were analyzed. In the study, the transition to motherhood follows a three-step process of self-changes that initially dissolves the self, then challenges the self and finally strengthens the self. The process is developed from an actual and ethical responsibility of the mother for the child, which in turn also generates a responsibility for herself. Intersubjectivity was seen as a driving force in the process. The single mother seems particularly vulnerable during this process when the need for closeness, support and recognition is accentuated. The single mother seems also at risk of experiencing herself standing alone when she finds that her parenthood might challenge certain norms and the immediate and indirect message of the environment might be divorced. Then there is a risk that she experiences herself questioned, exposed and lonesome. Providing women with therapy support during pregnancy and emerging maternity is a clinical implication suggested in the study.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Bronwyn S. Fees / When compared to adult mothers, adolescent mothers are more prone to parenting challenges (Whitman et al., 2001). Age is considered influential on a mother’s belief in her ability to successfully organize and execute her parenting plan (Bandura, 1999). The purpose of this study was to examine potential predictors of self-efficacy (determinant of parenting) among first-time mothers applying Belsky’s (1984) parenting framework. Maternal age, maternal depression, available social support and infant temperament were all considered to be potential predictors of maternal self-efficacy. A sample of first-time mothers (N = 115) with no other children in the home with an infant between the ages of four and six months was recruited from local alternative high schools, home and center child care facilities, and various other social services agencies and programs that typically serve new mothers. Participants self-reported on the above variables by completing a survey measuring self-efficacy as well as the hypothesized predictors. Responses were analyzed using group mean comparisons between 3 age groups: mothers 19 years and under (23%); mothers 20-26 years of age (29%); and mothers 26 years of age and older (48%). No significant differences in self-efficacy, perceived infant temperament, social support were found between age groups. Age differences in maternal depression fell just below significance. Maternal income level was significantly (and negatively) correlated with maternal depression, therefore was controlled for in additional analyses. Annual income, depression, and self efficacy were significantly correlated to perceived infant temperament. Mothers with lower incomes, who perceived less social support, who reported higher levels of depression, or had lower levels of self-efficacy were found to rate their infants as more temperamentally difficult. Regression analyses demonstrated that level of perceived social support significantly predicted maternal self-efficacy levels across all age groups. Additionally, infant temperament and maternal depression levels predicted self-efficacy. These findings provide evidence to support the importance of equal accessibility and affordability of social support for all new mothers to assist with the positive transition to parenthood.

Cette thèse porte sur l’émergence d’une figure hégémonique de « bonne » mère dans les séries télévisées françaises et sur les impératifs à caractère injonctif qui la caractérisent. Cette recherche en sciences de l’information et de la communication adopte une démarche au croisement de la sociologie des médias, des Cultural studies et des études de genre. Elle s’appuie sur un corpus de séries familiales, produites et diffusées par les chaînes historiques françaises entre 1992 et 2012, constitué à l’aide des outils de l’Inathèque. La méthodologie et le cadre théorique fournissent le socle à une analyse des représentations fictionnelles de la parentalité, de ses discours et des politiques de représentations à l’œuvre.L’analyse qualitative du corpus montre que ces fictions mettent en avant une figure valorisée et légitimée de « bonne » mère. Cette figure consensuelle se caractérise par des impératifs de responsabilité, de communication, de disponibilité, d’amour, de réflexivité ou encore de culpabilité. L’articulation des identités féminines et maternelles se fait sous contrainte, tant la maternité vient phagocyter les autres dimensions identitaires des femmes devenues mères. L’exercice du métier de mère renvoie à des performances, de genre comme de parentalité, tant les héroïnes s’attachent à mettre en pratique les attendus d’une « bonne » maternité. Une approche intersectionnelle, enfin, permet de mettre en lumière que la « bonne » mère, de surcroît, est blanche, de classe moyenne ou supérieure, et hétérosexuelle. Cette thèse montre ainsi que les politiques de représentation à l’œuvre viennent réassigner les femmes à leur genre en faisant la promotion d’identités féminines centrées sur la maternité tout en transformant en injonctions les attentes normatives vis-à-vis de la maternité, participant par là à un mouvement de backlash. La maternité construite par ces fictions est hégémonique dans la mesure où elle est ponctuellement discutée et remise en question par des figures humoristiques contre-hégémoniques. Cependant, la transgression que pourrait constituer l’humour – nombre de ces séries sont des comédies – sert finalement une réaffirmation des normes de genre et de parentalité. Ces séries deviennent ainsi les complices de la promotion d’une parentalité policée et de la normalisation de la vie familiale. / This thesis deals with the emergence of a hegemonic mother figure in French TV series and its imperious exhortation. The research is based on a corpus of family TV series, produced and broadcasted by historic TV channels between 1992 and 2012, gathered with help of the INA (Audiovisual National Institute) archives. The qualitative analysis of this material is at the crossroads of information and communication sciences, media studies, sociology, cultural studies and gender studies. The methodology and the theoretical framework make up the basis for an analysis of fictional representations of parenthood, of its discourse and its politics of representation.The qualitative analysis shows a valuable and legitimated figure of « good » mother. This consensual mother is characterized by imperative duties such as duties of communication, responsibility, availability, love, reflexivity or guilt. The articulation between feminine and maternal identities is complex: the maternal dimension swallows up the other ones. The mother’s job becomes a performance of gender and of parenthood. Indeed heroines intend to perform the model of good mother along with the social expectations about motherhood. Intersectionality encourages us to consider the articulation of gender, race, class and parenthood. Thus, the “good” mother is also a White middle or upper class, heterosexual one. This analysis suggests a phenomenon of backlash against mothers. This thesis shows that the ongoing politics of representation reassign mothers to their gender by promoting women’s identities centred on motherhood; they turn normative expectations about motherhood into injunctions. These TV series construct a hegemonic motherhood that is discussed into the margins by counter-hegemonic and comic figures. However, the transgressive opportunity of humour eventually reaffirms the norms of gender and parenthood. These family TV series thus become abled allies for the promotion of a gendered and controlled parenthood. They support the normalization of family life.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This study explored adolescent girls' subjective experiences of being young mothers in school, focusing on their personal and interpersonal relationships within their social contexts. Participants included 15 young black mothers aged between 16 and 19 years from three high schools in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. Conducted within a feminist social constructionist framework, the study adopted an exploratory qualitative structure. Data were collected through life histories that were analysed within a thematic narrative framework. The narratives revealed that the young mothers found motherhood challenging and overly disruptive of school. Although contexts of childcare emerged as pivotal in how young mothers balanced motherhood and schoolwork, these were also presented as characterised by notions of power and control. Because of the gendered nature of care work, the women who supported the young mothers with childcare dominated the mothering spheres. The schools were also experienced as controlled and regulated by authorities in ways that constrained the young mothers balancing of school and parenting. Equally constraining to a number of adolescent mothers were structural challenges, for example, parenting in spaces that lacked resources. These challenges were compounded by the immense stigma attached to adolescent motherhood. The study recommended that the Department of Education work closely with all the parties concerned in ensuring that pregnant learners benefit from the policy. It is necessary that educators are encouraged to shift attitudes so that communication with adolescent mothers is improved. / South Africa

The thesis explores the impact of the new Children’s Act 38 of 2005 on the acquisition of parental responsibilities and rights within a newly proposed framework designed for the purpose of reflecting the various ways in which parental responsibilities and rights can be acquired. The research has shown that the Children’s Act has fundamentally transformed the way in which parental responsibilities and rights are acquired. The transformation has created a scheme for the acquisition of parental responsibilities and rights that is for the most part constitutionally compliant and progressive insofar as it gives recognition to the different family forms found in South Africa. To this end the Children’s Act has considerably expanded the ways in which parental responsibilities and rights can be acquired. Whereas previously exclusively the preserve of heterosexual married parents in a nuclear family, parental responsibilities and rights can now automatically be acquired by a committed biological father and a married lesbian couple conceiving by artificial means. Apart from authorising courts to assign parental responsibilities and rights, the Children’s Act allows any holder of parental responsibilities and rights to confer responsibilities and rights on another by prior approved agreement. The Act also includes specific provisions to regulate the acquisition of parental responsibilities and rights by commissioning parents in the case of a surrogate motherhood agreement. The structure developed for the research topic reflects the transformation of the law in this regard by making the application of the best interests-standard, rather than the marital status of the child’s parents, the distinguishing feature of the subdivision between automatic and assigned acquisition. In this way the structure is an embodiment of the paramountcy of the best interests principle in section 28(2) of the Constitution. Insofar as the law still requires a distinction to be made between biological mothers and fathers, on the one hand, and naturally and artificially conceived children, on the other, the structure also highlights the remaining shortcomings of the law in this regard. The structure is, furthermore, necessarily complicated by the need to distinguish between the acquisition of care, on the one hand, and guardianship, on the other. As far as fathers are still not treated the same as mothers in the automatic allocation of parental responsibilities and rights, the Act is deemed not to have been progressive enough. Conferring full parental responsibilities and rights on both parents based on their biological link to the child would not only be in line with worldwide trends, but would also meet the constitutional demands of substantive sex and gender equality. It will further place the focus on the best interests of the child, which emphasises the importance of both parents for the child. While the research shows that tensions between the biological and social constructs of parenthood may possibly hamper the legal recognition of de facto care-givers or other persons with whom the child has developed a psychological bond, the greatest weakness of the Act would seem to lie in the failure to implement an integrated family court structure. Please cite as follows: Louw, AS 2009, Acquisition of parental responsibilities and rights, PhD thesis, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewedyymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-09102009-170707/ > Copyright / Thesis (LLD)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Private Law / unrestricted

The purpose of this study is to examine the schoolteachers and parents distribution of the responsibilities of the upbringing of children. To do so my aim is to examine what responsibilities was attributed to the schoolteachers as well as the parents and how the responsibilities could take shape. By utilizing protocols from the Childcare committee 1913-1924 (Barnavårdsnämnden) my aim is to link the questions to the material and examine how this manifested within the committee. I also examined if the committee applied a certain gender construction on the parenting. I have applied a power perspective derived from Foucault aswell as the usage of Durkehims and Marx theories about the schools role in society and a gender perspective developed by Joan Scott and Yvonne Hirdman. The results of the study shows that schoolteachers possessed a position of power where their responsibilities over the social upbringing of the pupils reached beyond the confinements of the schools. The schoolteacher was placed with disciplinary responsibilities and was expected to help raise pupils of high morality. Teachers held a high role of participation in the work of the committee and was expected to hold insights of their pupils home situations. The parents showed to be neglected far more in comparison with the teacher but parenthood was nonetheless expected to hold responsibilities. However, parents was not allowed to interfere with the responsibilities of the teacher whereas the teachers role was not constricted to the interior of the school. Regarding mother- and fatherhood the study shows that the mother was given a clear role of parenting while the fathers function was more of an authoritarian background figure. The father was expected to provide for the family and the mother to care for the upbringing. The study proved that the committee was in a position of power where they could affect the tasks of parenthood. Meanwhile the committee granted schools and teachers positions of power where the teacher’s professional role extended beyond the schools. Within the sphere of parenthood a position of power was showing whereas the mother was attributed a larger responsibilities over the children’s upbringing but with the father acting as the authority of the family.