Family, Life Course, and Society Commons^™

Adoption Fees: Ethical Considerations For All Parties In Adoption, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

A great deal is said about ethics in adoption. However, the term remains vague, undefined, and subjective with suggested, but no firm or enforced guidelines enacted to police the adoption industry and protect the families and individuals whose lives they irrevocably change. This presentation focuses on the inequities of adoption fees particularly in terms of providing legal counsel to the mothers relinquishing.

Fraud And Kidnapping Casts A Cloud On Guatemalan Adoptions, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

Children are being stolen, kidnapped and trafficked fro adoption in Guatemala, as elsewhere. The author reports on her Human Rights Delegatiion visit with one mother who successfully reclaimed her daughter as she was on her way to be adopted in the US, as well as her visit with Norma Cruz' Survivor's Foundation who is working to help the victim of kidnappings in this corrupt nation.

Murwillumbah Communities For Children Site: Final Evaluation Report, Sallie Newell, Anne Graham

Professor Anne Graham

The Communities for Children (CfC) initiative was a major component of the Australian government’s 2004-09 Stronger Families and Communities Strategy (SFCS), which aimed to: • help families and communities build better futures for children; • build family and community capacity; • support relationships between families and the communities they live in; and • improve communities’ ability to help themselves. The SFCS sought to improve early childhood outcomes, in keeping with the National Agenda for Early Childhood’s five evidence-based priority areas: healthy young families; supporting families and parents; early learning and care; child-friendly communities; and family and children’s services working effectively …

Lismore Communities For Children Site: Final Evaluation Report, Sallie Newell, Anne Graham

Professor Anne Graham

The Communities for Children (CfC) initiative was a major component of the Australian government’s 2004-09 Stronger Families and Communities Strategy (SFCS), which aimed to: • help families and communities build better futures for children; • build family and community capacity; • support relationships between families and the communities they live in; and • improve communities’ ability to help themselves. The SFCS sought to improve early childhood outcomes, in keeping with the National Agenda for Early Childhood’s five evidence-based priority areas: healthy young families; supporting families and parents; early learning and care; child-friendly communities; and family and children’s services working effectively …

Prostitution Destroys Families, Anonymous In Providence, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes

Life Is Precious, Donna L. Landry, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes

Frock Coat And Flag: Union Soldier Markers In Central Maine, Kimberly Sawtelle

Kimberly J. Sawtelle

The Frock Coat and Flag motif of gravestone is a short-lived memorial theme borne from a compressed period of American history. The horrors, tragedy, and impact of the U.S. Civil War on American civilians and a lack of a comprehensive plan by the U.S. Congress to provide means or methods to bury and mark the graves of soldiers who died in service contributed to the manifestation of a portrait-style grave marker used by families in a relatively compact geographic region of central Maine between 1861 and 1864.

"Open Records" Versus "Equal Access": Reframing Our Issues, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

Adoption reform activists have for decades used the phrase "open records". Riben argues that "Equal Access" rightly reframes the argument as one of equality rather than a special request.

Who Deserves To Be A Mother: The Impact Of Class, Age And Powerlessness,, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

Worldwide, poverty far exceeds abuse, neglect or abandonment as adoption moves children from economically at-risk mothers to adopters of higher socio-economic status. Domestically, American mothers (and those in other industrialized countries) have historically lost children to protect their parents from the shame and stigma of out-of-wedlock, “unwed” pregnancy. It is socially created criteria such as age, marital and financial status, which change over time and place - not fitness - that determine who is considered "deserving" to be a mother and who is made to feel inadequate, selfish and undeserving of their own child. These criteria create pressure on marginalized, …

Adoption Loss, Pain, Irresolvable And Universal Grief, Mirah Riben

Mirah Riben

Adoption loss is a limbo loss with no ritual or closure, that has been recognized as being irresolvable, creating increased risk of secondary infertility and post traumatic stress disorder. The pain is felt regardless of where the mother lives, how much she chose the decision and felt it was best. The grief, pain and anger do not lessen over time.

Military And Relationships, Jennifer H. Lundquist, Daniel Burland

Dr. Jennifer H. Lundquist

No abstract provided.

Race And Childlessness In America, 1988 – 2002, Jennifer H. Lundquist, Michelle Budig, Anna Curtis

Dr. Jennifer H. Lundquist

This paper bridges the literature on childlessness, which often focuses on married White couples, to the literature on race and fertility, which often focuses on why total fertility rates and nonmarital births are higher for Blacks than Whites. Despite similarity in levels of childlessness among Black women and White women, Black trends have been largely ignored. Recent research has not adequately explored the extent to which factors driving childlessness may vary among Black and White women. We attempted to fill this gap using the National Survey of Family Growth (N = 3,628) and found many similarities in the predictors of …

Gender Wage Gap; Family Medical Leave Act; Genetic Prenatal Testing;, Medora Barnes

Medora W. Barnes

Penmel Adventures In Genealogy, Mel Regnell

Mel Regnell

Results of tracing the Maine Sawyers and Bachelders back to the Revolutionary War. Artifacts from gathering family oral history, photos, documents and records, this site is a compilation of ten years of research and wandering through DownEast graveyards in Maine.

Behavioral Economic Issues In American & Islamic Marriage & Divorce Law, Ryan M. Riegg

Ryan M. Riegg

Pursuing The Good Life: American Narratives Of Travel And A Search For Refuge, Brian A. Hoey

Brian A. Hoey, Ph.D.