>(similarly, but relatedly,  I was surprised by Kathy's assertion that grandma
>cutting off the childcare tap would make her daughter more likely to
>contracept or abstain.  My understanding was that the states in the USA which
>in the last welfare reform cut off additional benefits for babies born after
>their moms were already on the dole, have not seen reductions in those birth
>rates.   Am I wrong about this?   I get my info only from the papers, not the
>research, so I am ready to be corrected.   But I wonder whether there is any
>research support for the idea that codependent grandmas make more neglected
>grandbabies.)


You are not wrong -- the outcome of cutting off welfare benefits does not
affect birth rates, BECAUSE the moms were getting only a tiny pittance for
each additional child, like $79 per month (depended on the state).  Thus,
the welfare money hardly made a dent in the mother's support for the child,
not at all comparable to being able to leave your children with your own
mother and know that they will be taken care of.

And the broader picture here is that if the grandmas didn't "take up the
slack" there would be broader cultural outrage at the practice of having
one baby after another after another when you can't take care of any of them.

And when I said that grandma should have been watching her own daughter
more carefully, I was talking specifically about the very young teenaged
moms (13-16) whose mothers let them roam all over town at all hours of the
day and night, and place no limits on their activities or behavior.  As
always, there will be specific examples where grandma is mopping up a mess
that was not of their own choosing.

We had a woman in town on the news (several years ago) bemoaning the fact
that her child was hurt in a drive-by shooting, and saying that she was a
great mom and she watched over her kids and she knew where they were at all
times, and if someone could get shot just hanging out with friends on his
own front porch, what was the world coming to??!!  She seemed not to see
any relevance to the fact that when the young teenager was shot, it was 2
am on a school night.  Now I'm not saying it was in any way his fault that
he was shot -- it was a random drive-by thing, and the fault lies totally
with the gunman.  But I am saying I thought it was pretty darn bizarre that
she thought she was such a great mother when she let her 14 year old kid
hang out on the porch at 2 am on a school night.

And when the "grandma" taking care of the grandkids is doing so because her
13 year old had no supervision or curfews or even information about birth
control . . . . .and suffers absolutely no consequences for getting
pregnant . . . .

My daughter went to high school with a girl who had two children and was
pregnant with her third, who said "Oh, my mom LOVES taking care of my
babies.  And I still get to go to school and go party and have fun."


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.                         email:
[log in to unmask]
Anthropology Department                               phone: (409) 845-5256
Texas A&M University                                    fax: (409) 845-4070
College Station, TX  77843-4352
http://www.prairienet.org/laleche/dettwyler.html

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html