"Design your own life!” Thoughts on ethnicity, race, and parenting biracial children

editor — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 16:50:37 +0000

Contributors:

Cinzia Pica-Smith

Type of Written Content:

Research Article

Subject Area:

Parents

Abstract:

In an increasingly multicultural society interracial families and their biracial or multiracial children are defying stagnant socially constructed concepts of race and racial categorization. In this paper, I present a narrative based on three ninety-minute in-depth phenomenological interviews (Seidman, 2006) focused on one participant’s life history and how he understands and makes meaning of his role as the parent of biracial children. Informed by a hermeneutic framework, the narrative presents a story of how the participant has come to understand himself and his children racially, ethnically, and culturally thorough his own intra- and interpersonal development. Parenting his children emerges as a strong influence on his process of de-constructing the concept of race and co-constructing new meanings for it. The narrative illustrates how, while honoring themselves and their communities, this person and his family dismantle some of the most ubiquitous ideas of our society concerning the construct of race.

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Introduction

Questions and answers about the social construction of race often lead to a complex and deep understanding of what supports and restricts us, as human beings, in relation to our authentic experience. Learning about race is also learning about how we think, how we identify ourselves, how others identify us, and how this may be either supportive or limiting in our processes of becoming. Thus, though the following is one narrative, a profile or case study, of one individual as he reflects on his life as a person in an interracial marriage, a father of biracial children, and a member of a multiracial world, this narrative connects us all to our collective struggle with understanding race.

Methodology

The words or profile below are the result of three ninety-minute in-depth phenomenological interviews (Seidman, 2006) on the experience of parenting biracial children. The first interview focused on the participant’s life history, the second interview centered on the experience of parenting his biracial children, and the third interview provided the space for the participant to reflect on the meaning of his experience (Seidman, 2006).

Interviews were transcribed verbatim and reviewed multiple times. In order to present this data as a profile, it was necessary to condense and edit volumes of spoken word into text (Seidman, 2006). This process is an integral part of the analysis, and, as Seidman (2006) points out, facilitates a co-construction of the narrative in which the crafted profile emerges out of the participant’s voice while reflecting a self-narrative of the researcher.

The following words are the participant’s own, and as the researcher my attempt was to convey the participant’s own meaning (Thompson, 1978) while understanding that my participation in the process facilitated a co-construction of the narrative. As the writer of the crafted profile I added punctuation, deleted repetitions and edited the draft in a manner that would transform verbal speech into written text (Gluck & Patai, 1991; Seidman, 2006). I chose salient passages and arranged them in a chronological narrative. At times, in order to create such a narrative, I had to re-arrange the original sequence of narration as the participant did not speak to me in a strictly chronological flow; rather, he went forward and backward in time in his narration. Moreover, the first two paragraphs of the profile (separated by the rest of the profile by asterisks) are out of sequence. These were taken out of context and placed at the beginning of the profile to convey a recurrent theme in the narrative as an introduction to the narrative. Italicized words or phrases indicate the speaker’s emphasis. The profile was read, reviewed, and edited by the participant in order to ensure that the narrative was representative of his experience and story. Following Jay’s story, I write my own reflection on the experience of interviewing Jay and co-constructing this narrative.

Jay’s Profile—“I feel like myself. I am who I am.”

I have always lived interracially. In my own personal experiences, I can truly say that I have always lived interracially. My family is all African American, with all the rich traditions of the African American experience, particularly in the South, but also the North. I have always had both. I have had the full range of experiences, the full range.

I feel like myself. I am who I am and I can swing both ways. You know what I mean? I am comfortable with all black folk or among white folk. I feel how a transsexual might feel. I am not a woman. I am not a man. I am what I am, and I can enjoy being a woman, and I can enjoy being a man. I’m not a this or a that. Now, I am a black man, and I know that because I am reminded of that every time I look in the mirror and every time I go out and so forth. This is my primary identity, a Black American, an African American, who feels comfortable in a lot of different venues.

* * *

My parents moved to New York when they had their three kids. That is where I initially grew up, on the lower side of the Bronx, from the time I was one to the time I was thirteen, in the 50’s. The neighborhood was very integrated . . . It was where the Black migration came to out of the South…There were lots of Irish, Jews; the Puerto Ricans were moving in. Blacks, all mixed in. In my one tenement we had Irish, Italian, Black. We all played together. . . My best friend was Jewish. We went to school together, we played together, we fought against each other; we fought together. That is the kind of neighborhood I grew up in. It was very, very seriously integrated, a truly integrated neighborhood.

My father drove a cab and my mother was a seamstress. She was an artist; she sewed costumes for the ballet. She was such an excellent seamstress, but she wouldn’t leave her home to work, because it was important for her to be home so she could watch her kids. So she did alterations for people, particularly Jewish women, who were beginning to have some affluence so they could pay for that kind of service. They couldn’t buy stuff off the rack, so they would come to her and she would make it from scratch. She wouldn’t charge them a lot of money, and they just loved her. I mean these Jewish women just loved her like a sister. So we were all always around different people.

Then my grandparents died and there was this home, the ancestral home, where my father grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. My parents, in spite of the fact that they had immigrated, were Southerners. That experience in New York was not in their formative years. Their formative years were in the segregated South where they still sort of had ties. They were used to these communities where people knew each other and knew who ‘your folks were.’ They didn’t have to guess around. In New York it was all a great big mix like ‘You don’t know who these folks are?’ You see it was very parochial in that way. So for them this was a great opportunity to move to Atlanta. Their daughters were coming out and approaching dating and marriage age. My sisters could go to Spellman College. I could go to Morehouse.

So, my oldest sister, who had been going to City College in New York, transferred over to Spellman. My little sister and I went to Booker T. Washington High School, the biggest and oldest high school in Atlanta where Martin Luther King went to school, where my father went to school. So this was very good for my parents. This was like returning home.

For us kids it was like shock. . .We had visited our grandparents every summer, so every time we went down there we had to figure out how to be good “niggers”. . . sitting in the back of the bus and you know…all those things. But, in the end, we were going to leave at the end of summer and go back to New York. But now, here we are living there, going to a segregated school. It scared the shit out of me because I had never been in that… I remember my first day of school and it was a huge group of black folk, . . .they had a football rally--and down there in the South football is big stuff--and the band was going, and they were walking and carrying on… I had never seen anything like that in my life! You see, I had never been around so many black folk only.

But, it didn’t take us long to integrate into it, accept it, and--most important--understand it. There were some very special things about it. I remember J. P. Read, my algebra teacher. I hated algebra. I hated the whole thing. She would give me hell. She said ‘boy, you listen. I went to school with your father…don’t you give me nonsense here. You aren’t even doing your homework!’ The principal was a good friend of my father’s; they had gone to school together. So there was this sense of community, a different sense of community.

When I graduated I was offered a scholarship to Morehouse. I turned it down to go into the service. People thought I was insane to do that; back then, the way you lifted yourself out was to go to one of the traditional black colleges and get a traditional education. From there you would go off and get some sort of professional career. I really never wanted that. I wasn’t interested. I wanted a technical education and I had had it with the segregated South. . . I didn’t want any part of that. . . My sisters were being sent to marry black men, black Morehouse men, and they fell right into it . . . even though all their experiences had been even more interracial than mine. Today, to this day, my oldest sister is married to a Morehouse man who became a surgeon, and they are well integrated into the Black community to a point where it is like she never had any white friends.

I left the South because I couldn’t reconcile the fact that I was artificially isolated from the whole race of people, who previously, when I was in New York, were my friends. I just couldn’t stand that kind of artificial separation. That is why I left the segregated South. But--I tell you, though, I just went to visit my sister there and we went to church and I was there amongst all these folks, black folks, and you just have to feel what if feels like to be there—the energy, the music and song, the unity. . .I miss that.

In the service, I got a good technical education. Technology was just exploding in the 60s in terms of computers and other things. Most of the guys I knew went into the FAA, Federal Aviation Administration, to repair huge radars or they went into emerging technologies at IBM and big companies. I didn’t want to work in the big ones, and I found this really small company in this little town. . . I had a wonderful career in Massachusetts. I started out as a technician trainee and when I left I was an executive for the corporate program and Senior Vice President of Operations in the lab. When I started we had 600 employees worldwide; that was small. After thirty years I was with them we had 140,000 employees. It was a real white organization. I think I was the second black guy in there, but I loved these people. They were so friendly and engaging. So much of how I conceptualize problems and solutions, came out of working there designing, creating, real innovative stuff.

Cindy and I met in 1969 in her theater group, which was basically an interracial theater group in response to the march in Selma, Alabama. A lot of people from Boston went down to that march and there was this older woman, a retired professor at Tufts University, who thought she could make a contribution to this great social movement going on, meaning the Civil Rights Movement. She had this ideal in her mind called “The People’s Theater.” The theater was a way for working people to express their lives into art. It was based right into communities of working people where they were the actors, the directors, the performers, and, sometimes, the writers. But our idea was not only for the theater for the working people: we made it an interracial theater. Because theater was pretty much along racial lines back then; if you had a black part, you got a black actor. You didn’t cast with a blind eye to ethnicity and race. She, the founder, said “we are going to bump up the theater like that, and it will be our contribution to this great social revolution.”

I joined that theater group. I learned Shakespeare. I did Shakespeare. I was Orsino, the Duke, in Twelfth Night. We showed how theater can transcend the common human experience. It can transcend race and class and so forth, so you get to the common aspirations of the human experience. Twelfth Night is a comedy of errors. There are these twins, who get separated at birth. They were not identical, but they looked like each other. We played it like he wrote it, but one was black and one was white. It was a very powerful thing to show.

So Cindy was in theater all her life. She spotted me and I spotted her, and. . .that was that. I wanted to know what she was all about. Within three months we were married. I was a very happy man. . .Thirty-six years. . .

Our parents, that was interesting! . . . I was somewhat disappointed by my mother’s advice. It wasn’t advice, really, it was a hope. This was before I had met Cindy; she said “I just hope you marry a black woman. There is so few good black men out there. . . the white woman will take our best,” you know how that goes. But you know, she saw these very successful black men and white women, and it just hurt her to see that. It was a personal hurt on her part. . . But, she never exercised animosity when Cindy and I married. She embraced Cindy. Cindy would have never known that she had ever had that conversation. She embraced her with all the love that she could. She was very loving. You see, that’s what happens when you get to know someone. Like those little Jewish women, they just loved her because they could see the love in her heart for humanity. It was the sort of thing that she worshipped.

So that was one of the first things that consciously gave me pause in terms of my identity when I married Cindy. It was the first thing, but otherwise, I always follow my heart. I am going to follow my brain, and I am not going to let all this other stuff interfere with my decisions. It is not important. It is not important to the basic fundamental things of love. Love: love for what you want to do, love for where you want to be, love for the person you love. Those things, you can’t let those other things—because she is not white, or he is not this, or this community is not this or that—You have to follow what you love first and then work on those things.

The other part of that was Cindy’s mother. She was just completely discombobulated that she would marry a black man. . . Her parents were on the West Coast. Her mother cried all the way across the continent . . .for several reasons. Cindy is her only daughter. She thought she would marry over there [near her parents], and she would have a wedding there for all her friends. We had a very small wedding here. So that was part of it, but to marry a black man just. . .it blew her mind because. . .her own mother was a racist and her Cindy’s mother knew that. Cindy’s grandmother was dead at that time, but her mother was just struggling with this notion that Cindy would marry a black man. The other thing was that her mother was concerned about was that our children being multiracial wouldn’t be accepted by the black community or the white community. . . She thought they wouldn’t be accepted anywhere.

But it was fine. It was fine in the end. It came to a point where she now has more love and respect for me than she does for her own two sons. They struggled with being “successful.” She sees me as a success in terms of the way I raise my kids, and the way we live our lives—we design our lives—and did what we had to do.

Family was always our focus. . .After we had the two biological kids, we adopted two children. . . and the criteria was that they were older kids and that they were Black, because they are “harder to adopt” So we adopted two children that were 7 to 9 at the time. They came from the state. . .before that from a dysfunctional family. My oldest adopted son . . .had been in foster care for only two years. He still had memories of his birth family, but my younger daughter did not. . .It was a real challenge in our lives; it really changed the whole dynamic of the family. When kids have been through abuse and foster care. . .hmm. . . Our son, tragically, was killed in a fight. Our daughter has gone through a lot. . .we are now raising her children, our grandchildren. That is another challenge but . . . it is very important. Now, after we adopted them, then we had another son biologically. I was 45 at the time; now we are in our 60s and we have a house full of kids. We didn’t plan it, but it turns out that it was a very important thing especially for Cindy.

I have been thinking about parenting, of course, in a larger context, too, because of the particular situation we are having in fostering care for our two grandchildren. So parenting, I have realized,. . .there is no place where you can learn parenting.. .It is only partially a derivative learning, it is an experiential learning thing. I remember someone saying that she had children when she was young and that they grew up together. . .There is a partnership and a relationship in which there is a good ‘give and take’. . .there is an element of that goodness, as I say, in the partnering of this parenting where the parent is learning how to parent as the child learns how to grow. . .I think much much more of that “to be a good parent” really does require the kind of reflection that you are asking me to do now. “What works for your child today?” “What are the circumstances today?” And, most important, “What are you trying to achieve for the future?” Parenting is about anticipating your child’s needs in the future to help your child prepare for the future. . . challenging them to make some decisions that you could easily make for them but don’t so that they can make the decisions. . . kids need guidance and support . . .still recognizing that kids have to grow up themselves. Growing up can be a lonely process. No one can do it for you. . .

Yes, I wondered how my children would negotiate their lives being multiracial. I knew that there would be trials, things that they were going to be challenged by like hate. But it is a whole thing, a complex and most wonderful thing. Cindy tells me that the things she loves about me the most are also the things she can’t stand. You know what I mean? Adversity is part of life. . .I say that to grow up you need ‘Diversity,’ ‘Adversity,’ and ‘University,’ and by university I mean learning, not college. . . Anyway, I always had the notion of “multiracial.” Being multiracial is the future of this country. . .

Remember when I made that comment about when I first got married to Cindy? Her mother was concerned that the children would not be accepted by either side, racially speaking? Well, it has been absolutely the opposite. They are more prepared to deal with this world than most kids who have been isolated, if you will, in their ethnicity. I am sure that they feel it is very rich, you know… whether you are Jewish or African American from a primarily African American community or whatever… I am sure it is very rich for them to grow up in a mono-racial environment, but I think multiracial kids who are really raised in multiracial kind of situations are much more prepared to deal, and much more accepted, and able to move in different areas, both psychologically and . . . in many other areas. So I think it is positive.

I am proud that they have really been independent thinkers on their own. They have figured out what box they are in and they have managed to, in some cases, break out of that box or stay in it as need be. But they have figured out…they are figuring out the world. They are figuring out who they are and where they are going. Charlene is the only exception because of all of the problems that she has had to face in the world. . . But for my three biological kids, they have figured out who they are in the world. Who they are racially, intellectually, culturally, socially. . . They just have figured it out. They have figured out that they don’t need to be white. They don’t need to be black. They can be themselves and they can find friends and find community and invent community.

Of course they went through this tremendous “who am I?”, and they became really difficult people to live with and deal with. I don’t know if this is good or bad but we never had a traditional rebellion with our kids. They went through some tough times, but it wasn’t…it wasn’t superficial. They had to figure out some things for themselves. And they did it their own way. They don’t have to look to be accepted by someone in the community or by the community itself. They invent their own community so they are accepted on their own…their own social construct. Jill is an internationalist. We sent her to India, and in college she studied Russian. Now she is married to an Italian and travels all over the world with her job at the State Department. My sons invent themselves in other ways.

So that is what I mean about being ‘in a box,’ my son has found his own box. He is able to figure out “oh, I am here.” A lot of people can’t do that. There are a lot of folks, grown up people that can’t figure out where they are in this world, what box they live in, what works and what doesn’t. A lot of people just accept how they think they should live as a this or a that, in this or that community. . . He builds his own community, and he is confident because he knows his community that he invented and designed.

The fundamental thing is raising a child, not raising an interracial child. That is the fundamental thing. . . When you raise your children you can raise interracial, multiracial, multi-sexual, you name it…The fundamental thing is understanding the bond between and the responsibility between a child and the person raising him. It is important, that relationship, the love, the respect, the discipline, the learning, the feeling of security. All of those things you have to give to a child. That is what is fundamental. And, it will transcend any, any issues, that the child might have. . .Whether they be black or white or multiracial or interracial or bisexual or homosexual, the fundamental issue is building that level of love, self confidence, discipline, respect, and the ability to know where you are in the world. And, the most important thing, which I am only know beginning to realize is to teach them to be designers. . .

“Design your own life!” Design. That is where I see the failings of our educational systems right up through Ph.D.s: we don’t teach people how to be designers. We can teach people to design, fundamentally, to design their own lives. They will be successful, and we will be successful parents.

Parenting is important whether you do it directly or indirectly. Yeah, it is great and it helps you to know yourself and a multiracial environment just gives you more opportunities to learn more things. It may complicate, but it may also expand. It does also expand the opportunities to learn and give value to your life, so it is not a burden to be a multiracial parent. Like anything else, it is more complicated than good or bad. . .

My experience being in a multiracial family, sort of reinforced what I had already believed. You know, when I used to work at my company, they couldn’t figure us out. They had all sorts of first impressions about me and the children. They used to ask “is Cindy black?” They couldn’t quite figure it out; so being multiracial and a multiracial family meant people couldn’t easily see it. People always want to try and label you and say “that is what you are”, easy…you know?. . .And it wasn’t easy for people to do that with us. They really didn’t know where we came from, what our experience was. They just couldn’t figure us out. They couldn’t label us. It was always nice not to be able to be easily labeled by people. You know what I mean? They want to be able to put you in that thing, in that category, and they couldn’t do that with us, particularly with my family. They had to get to know us. They had to get to know us. That was nice.

The kids love us and our family. My son, every time he had a girlfriend the first thing he would do was to bring her to our family. We would have dinner or something and see how we responded to her, and how she responded to us. And that was, for him, the test of whether this was a woman or a girl that he wanted to invest his time and energy with. If they didn’t appreciate us as a family, then he felt that they were somewhat limited in their view of the world. . . That was really very nice. Adrian used to say that his biggest asset was this family, in terms of getting a woman interested,…to bring her to the family and see what a rich family and rich environment we had. . . Isn’t that amazing?

Now the negative side is that I felt that we weren’t strongly connected to either strong cultural roots. The strength of the black culture and the black church in the South, the Baptists, is just oh so powerful, and our family never had that. We never had the kind of strong cultural connection…I mean it is a small negative, but it is a negative, that we don’t have…unifying things that are culture-based through religion. What is great about us is we have a really broad range of interests and likes and so forth in music, but nothing so intensely in-depth that we can say that this is our family. You know these families that play classical music together or play instruments? They sing together and do ethnic traditions together. . .Our family doesn’t have that kind of unity…that strong bond of ethnicity and culture. We are very exposed, and we appreciate all of our different tastes. I try…anyway. . .I mean you can’t have everything. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. The fact is that we don’t have this as part of our family. . .Our strong traditions are traditions we made up for our family. . .We have a lot to do with other people as our community, and I think that has really been a strong. Yeah…we create, we create our own traditions. . .We invent and we design.

Reflections

Listening involves making some connections. Story telling about the human experience will allow us to relate to one another regardless of the story if it involves deep human emotions. Working hard to hear his meaning, I learned that Jay feels his experience as a parent of biracial children in a multiracial family with complexity and some conflict. Jay described the nuances and dissonance of feeling connected culturally and in one’s identity with a cultural group while wanting to experience the richness and complexity of human diversity and commonality. This complexity is not often easily accessible to us as readers or “consumers” of media as both our diversity and our common human experience have been misrepresented and trivialized. When Jay told me that he feels most comfortable with African American men while expressing a deep desire to be in community with “the whole human race” of people, I understood this complexity as one that is often misrepresented. When he told me that he misses the deep cultural connection of the Black church and all of its traditions, while maintaining a family tradition in which these “ethnic traditions” are not present, I see the complexity of his chosen multiracial, multiethnic, and multicultural experience. His experiences, his thinking and feeling, are contextualized in a U.S. society that does not function multi-culturally, a society in which, especially in the context of Black/White dynamic relationships, “belonging” means “picking a side,” participating in binary understandings of race, ethnicity and culture and “giving something up” in order to “gain something new.”

A major theme that emerges in Jay’s profile is that of “designing” and “creating” identity, family, tradition, and community. Yet, the beauty and profundity of meaning that is inherent in this designing should not obfuscate what he feels is left behind in order to commit to this way of being. I learned about this dissonance only after careful reading. When Jay spoke of the experience in the Black church, the song, dance, the rhythm of speech, the feeling of unity and common understanding, I thought of an almost palpable feeling of “home” and sense of place. Yet, this feeling of being home does not negate the richness of other feelings he experiences in an environment that is culturally diverse. It is more complex than the binary that is typically presented for discussion.

In the present, Jay moves ahead creating new ways of understanding race and ethnicity while experiencing some of the barriers and limitations of the ubiquitous simplistic discourses our society supports. His children and grandchildren have and will continue to construct new identities, new meanings of race and ethnicity, and new communities for themselves. Parenting them has allowed and will continue to allow Jay to dismantle, design, and co-construct new understanding.

References

Gluck, S. B. & Patai, D., Eds. (1991). Women’s Words: The Feminist Practice of Oral History. New York, NY: Routelage.

Seidman, I. (2006). Interviewing as Qualitative Research: A Guide for Researchers in Education and the Social Sciences, 3^rd Ed. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Thompson, P. (1978). The Voice of the past: Oral history. Oxford University Press.

References:

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Content Type for Views:

Research Article

Left Behind: How Military Wives Experience the Deployment of their Husbands

ekurylo — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:02:21 +0000

Contributors:

Beth Easterling

David Knox

Type of Written Content:

Research Article

Subject Area:

Family

Father

Independence

Job

Marriage

Mother

Parents

Work

Abstract:

Deployment of military personnel has a profound impact on the wives left behind. There are three stages of deployment (pre-deployment, deployment, and post-deployment) which have unique challenges for military wives. Previous research has not addressed coping strategies and experiences of deployment through the various stages. Using survey data from wives (N = 259) of current or past military men who had been through at least one deployment, this paper reveals that actual deployment was the most difficult deployment stage and talking with other military wives was the most helpful strategy for coping with deployment. Ambiguous loss theory is suggested as a framework for examining these results.

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             Surviving multiple deployments has become a fact of life for United States military wives and their children. Beginning in late 2001 with an all volunteer military force involved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, military families have been forced to cope with longer, more frequent deployments than in recent history. Currently, there are over 1.4 million members of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force. [fn]Department of Defense, "Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and by Country (309A), September 30, 2008,"http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2008/hst0809.pdf.[/fn]Including active and reserve components of our armed forces serving in both Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF, Iraq) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF, Afghanistan), there were over 220,000 troops deployed at the end of 2008.[fn]Department of Defense, "Armed Forces Strength Figures for August 31, 2008, " http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/MILITARY/ms0.pdf. [/fn] For every marine, soldier, sailor, and airman who is deployed, there is a family [fn]Westhuis, David J, Richard J Farfara, and Phillip Oullette. "Does Ethnicity Affect the Coping of Military Spouses?" Armed Forces and Society 32, no. 4 (2006): 584-603. [/fn](spouse, children or parents or all three) left behind to face challenges on the home front in their absence. About half (49 percent) of enlisted military personnel and 68 percent of officers are married. [fn]David R. Segal and Mady W. Segal, "America's Military Population," Population Bulletin: A Publication of the Population Reference Bureau, 59, 4 (2004). [/fn]More recent statistics suggest that the enlisted force is an "almost all married enlisted force."[fn]Jennifer H. Lundquist, "A Comparison of Civilian and Enlisted Divorce Rates during the Early All-Volunteer Force Era," Journal of Political and Military Sociology, 35, 3 (2007): 199-217. [/fn]Spouses of military personnel who are left behind to face taking care of the children and operating the family household are greatly affected by deployments. As men make up the vast majority of military personnel in America,[fn]Segal and Segal, "America's Military Population" (2004). [/fn]this paper focuses on the wives of deployed military men.
             The purpose of this study is to explore and describe some of the experiences of military wives whose husbands had been deployed.   Coping strategies for dealing with the unique circumstances of military life [fn]i.e. Westhuis et al., "Does Ethnicity Affect the Cooping of Military Spouses?" (2006).[/fn]have been discussed in general but rarely in the context of the stages of deployment. An exception is research on Air Force members' perceptions of their spouses' abilities to cope with deployment.[fn]Christopher Spera, "Spouses; Ability to Cope with Deployment and Adjust to Air Force Family Demands: Identification of Risk and Protective Factors," Armed Forces and Society, 35, 2: 286-306.[/fn]Though military studies and military family studies have gained popularity in recent years, there is limited research on military wives and their coping experiences during various stages of deployment..
Finley, Pugh, and Jeffreys [fn]Erin Finley, Mary Jo V. Pugh, and Matthew Jeffreys, "Talking, Love, Time: Two Case Studies of Positive Post-Deployment Coping in Military Families," Journal of Family Life, (2010) January 20. [/fn]assessed how military families deal with deployment by addressing post-deployment readjustment when a service member sustained an injury. The current study takes a more general approach to provide a picture of how military wives perceive the experience of deployment throughout the various stages and how they cope with the challenges presented by deployment. Further, the current research uses ambiguous loss as a theoretical framework for understanding the findings. [fn]See Pauline Boss, Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live With Unresolved Grief (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).[/fn]
Review of Literature
Uniqueness of Military Families
            Military wives confront unique challenges not faced by civilian wives. In addition to adjusting to the constant moves and a demanding work schedule of their military husbands, deployments place additional strain on the wives left behind. These wives and their children are forced to cope not only with the absence of their husband and parent of their children but also often the concomitant fear associated with a partner who is deployed to war. Combat deployments generally involve a risk to the partner's physical and psychological well being when compared to other types of deployments and civilian life. Even when deployed to combat, the objective risk varies based on individual stations and can even vary from day to day for an individual service member. Regardless of the actual risk, spouses left behind at home carry differing levels of perceived risk to deal with in addition to the stresses caused by separation.
            The role of military wives differs from that of civilian wives. The former often fill roles unique to military families (e.g. be supportive of the husband whose life belongs to the military and who may constantly be called to the base to deal with a crisis, attend training missions, etc.).   Military wives also assume the roles of the military husband when he is deployed (hence, she must now do it all as he is no longer there). Military wives also commonly face some unsettling consequences of being a military wife [fn]Bradford Booth, "Contextual Effects of Military Presence on women's Earnings, Armed Forces and Society, 30, 1: 25-51; Beth Easterling, "The Invisible Side of Military Careers: An Examination of Employment and Well-Being among Military Spouses," (MS Thesis, University of North Florida, 2005); Margaret C. Harrell, Nelson Lim, Laura W. Castaneda, and Daniela Golinelli, Working Around the Military: Challenges to Military Spouse Employment and Education (Rand Corporation: National Defense Research Institute; Prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2004), http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2004/RAND_MG196.pdf (accessed October 11, 2008); Deborah Harrison and Lucie Laliberte, "How Combat Ideology Structures Military Wives' Domestic Labour," Studies in Political Economy, 42: 45-80; Hyder Lakhani, "The Socioeconomic Benefits to Military Families of Home-Basing of Armed Forces, Armed Forces and Society, 21, 1: 113-129; Theresa J. Russo, Lea M. Dougherty, and James A. Martin, "Military Spouse Employment: Challenges and Opportunities" in The Military Family: A Practice Guide for Human Service Providers, ed. James A. Martin, Leora Rosen and Linette Sparacino (Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2000) 87-102; Casey Wardynski, "The Wage Earnings of Military Wives" in Military Compensation in the Age of Two-Income Households: Adding Spouses Earnings to the Compensation Policy Mix (RAND: Document number RGSD-154). [/fn] which include significant barriers to employment (employers are reluctant to hire a military wife as she will move when her husband is transferred) and education (starting a degree program is extremely difficult as the military husband may soon be moved to a new location). Being unemployed while actively seeking employment can have a negative impact on the well-being of military spouses. [fn] Beth Easterling, "The Invisible Side of Military Careers" 2005.[/fn] Nevertheless, some wives cope by finding employment [fn] Beth Easterling, "The Invisible Side of Military Careers," (2006); John Mirowsky and Catherine E. Ross, Social Causes of Psychological Distress (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1999); Raphael Snir and Itzhak Harpaz, "To Work or Not to Work: Nonfinancial Employment Commitment and the Social Desirability Bias," The Journal of Social Psychology, 142, 5: 635-644.[/fn] or volunteering, [fn]Beth Easterling, "The Invisible Side of Military Careers" 2005. [/fn]each of which has been found to be beneficial in the well-being of military spouses. Building on the existing academic knowledge base, this study seeks to identify strategies that have been successfully used by military wives in coping with the deployments of their husbands.
Entire families are impacted by deployments. Children often exhibit emotional (e.g. anxiety and depression) and/or behavioral difficulties (e.g. trouble in school) as they cope with the deployment/absence of their parent. [fn]Judy Harrison and Kimberly J. Vannest, "Educators Supporting Families in Times of Crisis: Military Reserve Deployments," Preventing School Failure, 52, 4: 17-23. [/fn]Divorce rates of military marriages (when compared to civilian marriages) are also higher, [fn] i.e. Jennifer H. Lundquist, "A Comparison of Civilian and Enlisted Divorce Rates during the Early All-Volunteer Force Era (2007).[/fn] no doubt influenced by stress due to deployments.
          According to Burrell et al., spouses' perceptions of Army relocation and separation were more important in determining outcomes than the actual number of either event. [fn]Lolita M. Burrell, Gary A Adams, Doris Briley Durand, and Carl Andrew Castro, "The impact of military lifestyle demands on well-being, Army, and family outcomes. Armed Forces and Society, 33, 1: 42-58. [/fn] Separation and risk to the service member are two major facets of deployment. Stress related to these phenomena potentially produce negative feelings for military spouses who experience deployment across all branches of service. It is plausible to assume that spouses' perceptions of the experience of deployment are just as important, if not more so, in dealing with the deployment itself. Drawing on the Thomas Theorem that situations an individual defines as real are real in their consequences,[fn]W. I. Thomas, "The Relation of Research to the Social Process" (original in 1931) in ed. M. Janowitz, W. I. Thomas on Social Organization and Social Personality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966) 289-305.[/fn]perceptions of experiences for military spouses are an important determinant in outcomes for military families. Through survey research, this study was designed to determine which coping mechanisms military spouses perceive to be the most useful through the different stages of deployment.

Deployments in the 21st Century
            Deployments have become much more common and recurrent for military families across branches since September 11, 2001. One example of this trend is the large number of National Guardsmen and reservists who have deployed both to Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2006 over 98,000 guardsmen and reservists were deployed. [fn]Judy Harrison and Kimperly J. Vannest, "Educators Supporting Families in Times of Crisis: Military Reserve Deployments" 2008. [/fn] In all, there were over 220,000 troops deployed at the end of 2008 in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.[fn] Department of Defense, "Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and by Country (309A), September 30, 2008," http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2008/hst0809.pdf. [/fn] This number does not include troops deployed to other parts of the world which are still separated from their families. To emphasize the magnitude of affected spouses, there are over 200,000 wives of United States military men left behind to cope with the deployment of their husbands to war at a given time.
             The temporary absence may be the least of the hardships that a military wife has to cope with. Over 5,200 United States military men and women have died in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts [fn]Washington Post, "Faces of the Fallen: US Service Members who Died in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom," http://projects.washingtonpost.com/fallen (accessed December 9, 2009).[/fn]and well over 30,000 are estimated to have been wounded in action.[fn]Hannah Fischer, "United States Military Casualty Statistics: Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, Report for Congress, Congressional Research Service, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS22452.pdf (accessed December 9, 2009).[/fn]These estimates do not include the countless number of military members who have incurred mental injury due to war (which also has a huge impact on the family) or those who have been injured during training missions or in support roles leading up to or in conjunction with deployments. Even though most wives and children left behind do not have to confront the death or physical injury of their husband and father, they may live in constant fear of the possibility of both happening to their loved one who is deployed. And, although their military husband may return home unharmed in the physical sense, PSTD is becoming more commonly diagnosed. Some estimates suggest that 35 percent of military members returning from Iraq suffer from PTSD.[fn] Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, "Iraq Troops' PTSD Rate as High as 35 Percent, Analysis Finds, Science Daily, September 15, 2009, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090914151629.htm (accessed October 6, 2009).[/fn] As American presence in Afghanistan continues and grows as troops remain in Iraq, these numbers will likely remain steady or rise.

Coping with Deployment
            Deployment is a challenging time for military families. The challenge is particularly acute now in that military families faced with multiple deployments requiring the relentless renegotiation of roles throughout the entire deployment process. [fn]Finley, et al., "Talking, Love, Time: Two Case Studies of Positive Post-Deployment Coping in Military Families," (2010).[/fn] Uncertainty is "the only certainty" in deployment.[xxv] [fn]Angela J. Huebner, Jay A. Mancini, Ryan M. Wilcox, Saralyn R. Grass, and Gabriel A. Grass, "Parental Deployment and Youth in Military Families: Exploring Uncertainty and Ambiguous Loss," Family Relations, 56, 2 (2007): 112-123.[/fn]While the wife is confronting the common daily uncertainty of the whereabouts and well-being of her deployed husband, he is adjusting to a new life which is often in a dangerous war zone. This can be a confusing and stressful time for military families. Recently, Orthner and Rose [fn]Dennis K. Orthner and Roderick Rose, "Work Separation Demands and Spouse Psychological Well-Being," Family Relations, 58 (2009): 392-403. [/fn] found that wives whose husbands' jobs separated them for longer periods of time demonstrated more negative psychological well-being symptoms than those who were separated for shorter periods. Protective factors (such as husband's supportive work environment) were noted to have positive effects. Applying these findings to a military setting, it becomes likely that military wives can suffer psychologically in the absence of their husband, especially considering the added stresses that a combat deployment can produce in addition to their separation. Nonetheless, other social factors (i.e. support from the husband's unit) are plausible sources of solace during the deployment period.
             Throughout the process of deployment, spouses and other family members experience an array of emotions, ranging from guilt to pride as they adjust to separation. [fn] Amanda Huebner et al., "Parental Deployment in Military Families" 2007.[/fn]Although these challenges have been noted, little research has focused on exactly how military wives cope and which strategies families perceive to have the most positive personal and marital outcomes. One exception is a qualitative study by Faber, et al. which examined various family members of reserve military personnel who had deployed. Findings indicated that getting information and participation in a family support group were helpful in coping with deployments.[fn]Anthony J. Faber, Elaine Willerton, Shelly R. Clymer, Shelly M. MacDermid, and Howard M. Weiss, "Ambiguous Absence, Ambiguous Presence: A Qualitative Study of Military Families in wartime, Journal of Family Psychology, 22, 2 (2008): 222-230.[/fn]Additionally, Finley, et al. [fn]"Talking, Love, Time," 2010.[/fn] indentified successful coping strategies for couples in the post-deployment stage dealing with injury of a service member. However, there has been no research of which we are aware that identifies the stages of deployment military wives find most difficult based on challenges they experience.

Stages of Deployment
             Three stages of deployments are pre deployment, deployment, and post deployment. It is important to keep in mind that the term "deployment" to a military family does not necessarily mean just the amount of time the military member is away. A deployment begins months before the military member actually boards the plane to leave his or her family. Months of preparation (physically, mentally, and tactically) take place before a military member goes on the actual deployment. Before the deployment, the military member may be physically absent for long periods of time for training. Pre-deployment training is common in the months leading up to the separation of a deployment. He or she may work long hours and often bring work home which interferes with family time. After the deployment, families are required to readjust and reintegrate at a time when members have been physically absent from each other and, in the case of combat deployments, the husband may have been psychologically changed by the event of war. Faber et al. and Finley et al.[fn]i.e. Faber et al., 2008; Finley et al., 2010[/fn]acknowledged stages of deployment as related to the effects of deployment on military families, but no researchers have targeted specific coping strategies of military wives. The current study focused on coping strategies considered successful and commonly used by over 200 military spouses from different branches of the military service though the various stages of deployment.
            Humana Military Healthcare Services, the standard military healthcare provider for United States service members and their families, provides information on the needs that may arise and considerations to take during each stage of deployment. In the pre-deployment phase, families have differing approaches to dealing with the upcoming deployment, for example spouses tend to anticipate or deny the deployment. In addition, couples may argue due to frustrated emotions as they mix arguments with closeness during the pre-deployment phase. [fn]Humana Military Healthcare Services. "Stages of Deployment: What You Should Know for Yourself and Your Family," April 15, 2009, http://www.humana-military.com/south/bene/health-wellness/Behavioral%20Health/BehavioralHealthStagesofDeployment.asp (accessed June 1, 2009).[/fn] These couples are faced with the inevitable separation of the upcoming deployment, which has the potential to produce a variety of stresses and emotions that can cause tension within a marriage. These feelings can be unsettling and confusing as they challenge to change traditional family roles and structure. Despite this stress, couples report the desire to be close and take advantage of the time they have together before they are separated, which commonly results in conflicting and confusing emotions.
            During the deployment itself, families are faced with the difficult task of communicating over the thousands of miles which may be accompanied with limited forms of communication. Initially, spouses commonly report feeling disoriented and overwhelmed with emotions which may manifest in sleep disturbances, frustration, and anger. During this time, feelings of jealousy may arise as well as a loss of trust. Each partner typically struggles to adapt to the changed circumstances in their new, temporary, separate lives.   Both the wife and deployed husband establish new routines and the initial negative reactions tend to lessen over the course of deployment.
[fn]Humana Military Healthcare Services. "Stages of Deployment: What You Should Know for Yourself and Your Family," April 15, 2009.[/fn]In regard to the post deployment stage, those outside of the military community often view this as the "honeymoon"/reunion stage of deployment wrought with joy and few complications. On the contrary, families report this to be an extremely difficult stage of deployment.   During this time of adjustment, the couple is faced with redefining their relationship, deciding who does what in the combined household, and readjusting to being together again after such a long absence where the wife is generally expected to assume all roles of operating the household and managing the children and living without the other. Children, especially young children, may change dramatically in only a few months. Renegotiating parental roles both among spouses and with a child who may not even remember the deployed service member can create challenges to a family attempting to readjust after a deployment. It is true that there may be a "honeymoon period" of overwhelming joy immediately upon the return of the husband. However, the period readjustment soon follows. Wives who have become increasingly independent throughout the deployment can struggle with giving up some power and role space to make room for the returning military member reasserting his role within the family. Often, there is a need for one's "own space" and routines and responsibilities to be renegotiated. [fn]Humana Military Healthcare Services. "Stages of Deployment: What You Should Know for Yourself and Your Family," April 15, 2009.[/fn] Clearly, each family experiences these shifts in independence and role conflict differently.

Theoretical Framework- Ambiguous Loss Theory
             Boss's theory of ambiguous loss[fn]Boss, Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live With Unresolved Grief, 1999; Pauline Boss, "Ambiguous Loss Research, Theory, and Practice: Reflections after 9/11," Journal of Marriage and the Family, 66 (2004): 551-566; Pauline Boss, Loss, Trauma, and Resilience: Therapeutic Work with Ambiguous Loss (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006). [/fn] provides a framework to understand the challenges of deployment. This theory suggests that when ambiguity and loss are simultaneously experienced, negative psychological symptoms such as depression, anxiety, and difficulty sleeping occur. Drawing on Boss's theory, Huebner, et al., in researching military families and deployment, suggested that this theory also "asserts that connections between family members persist somewhat independent on whether they are present or absent" and discussed the complexity of relationships among family members. [fn]Huebner et al., "Parental Deployment and Youth in Military Families" 2007, 114. [/fn] The context in which military families physically exist is often out of their control, as in the case of deployment, and difficulties cannot be collectively resolved by family members.   Both spouses may feel a sense of loss and helplessness in trying to cope with this challenge as they have no control over their being physically together.
             Building on these ideas is also the concept of boundary ambiguity, which is the difficulty in knowing who is a part of one's family. Just because a deployed service member is not physically present, he may very much be symbolically and psychologically present [fn]Huebner et al., "Parental Deployment and Youth in Military Families" 2007.[/fn] in the lives of his family left behind.   This ambiguity may be experienced by military wives as they reorganize their lives in reference to the absence of their deployed husbands. Faber, et al., [fn]Faber et al., "Ambiguous Absence, Ambiguous Presence" 2008. [/fn] found support for the application of boundary ambiguity among military families in the face of deployment and concluded that this ambiguity dissolved once normalcy was achieved after completion of deployment. However, in the early weeks of post-deployment, the ambiguity can be magnified as the family works to readjust and redefine their roles within the family.
            In regard to the ambiguous loss, Boss noted "of all the losses experienced in personal relationships, ambiguous loss is the most devastating because it remains unclear, indeterminate....The uncertainty makes ambiguous loss the most distressful of all losses..."[fn]Pauline Boss, Ambiguous Loss, 1999, 5-6. [/fn] This reaction is indicative of the losses experienced by military spouses with a deployed husband. Part of this distress results from the fear that the loss may not be temporary as the military member may be killed or injured and return a physically and psychologically changed person. Further uncertainties of the deployment can exacerbate the stress of the family members left behind.
            The family stress perspective explores various dimensions of ambiguous loss that are particularly characteristic for military families experiencing deployment. Boss writes,
"Ambiguous loss is the most stressful loss people can face. Not only does it disrupt their family by diminishing the number of its functioning members and requiring someone else to pick up the slack, but more uniquely, the ambiguity and uncertainly confuse family dynamics, forcing people to question their family and the role they play in it."[fn]Pauline Boss, Ambiguous Loss, 1999, 20.
[/fn] Additionally, Boss (1999) explores assumptions necessary in order to deal with ambiguous loss from the family stress perspective in a therapeutic manner. Three of the four assumptions are particularly relevant for military families experiencing deployment and will be used to guide the findings of this research using this theory. These assumptions follow:
1.      Stress is caused by change or the threat of change in family composition.
2.     Persistent stress is not good but it can be managed.
3.     The experience of ambiguous loss can be traumatizing.[xl][fn]Pauline Boss, Ambiguous Loss, 1999, 21-23.
[/fn] In the context of this study and military deployments in general, we apply each of these facets to the experience of military wives. For example, all stages of deployment produce at the least a threat of change in family composition. A member of the family is physically absent for an extended period of time and may be emotionally absent for longer. Additionally, the fear of injury or death of the military member during the deployment is often constant during a combat deployment. Again drawing on the Thomas Theorem, merely the perception of danger of a loved one can produce concrete consequences for a military wife. If those fears become reality, family composition is changed dramatically causing stress in addition to the injury or loss of a loved one. This stress (from perceived or actual danger) can be persistent.
             A deployment generally lasts at least six months and, at times, over a year. This time varies based on factors related to branch of service and military occupational specialty. Marines are deployed for a minimum of six months in most circumstances whereas soldiers can be deployed for over a year.[fn]Erin Finley, Mary Jo V. Pugh, and Matthew Jeffreys, "Talking, Love, Time: Two Case Studies of Positive Post-Deployment Coping in Military Families," Journal of Family Life, (2010) January 20.[/fn]Airmen can be deployed for as little as three months to over a year and sailors often deploy for six months at a time. When including the other stages of deployment, this stress can persist for years. If military wives are experiencing ambiguous loss due to the nature of deployments, according to the theory of ambiguous loss, the entire experience is potentially traumatizing. Based on such possibilities, further exploration of the effects of deployment and the experience of ambiguous loss is required.
            Using the concepts of ambiguous loss, particularly boundary ambiguity and the family stress perspective, this research is based on the assumptions that military wives must find ways to cope with the extended absences of their spouses. Fundamental to these coping strategies is success in maintaining a relationship with their deployed husbands during the time they are working at carrying out day-to-day activities without their partners present. The uncertainty that goes with the experience of ambiguous loss can leave individuals physically and emotionally exhausted [fn] Pauline Boss, Ambiguous Loss, 1999.[/fn] making it necessary for military spouses to find specific, successful ways to cope with their unique family situation during a deployment. Finley et al.[xliii][fn]Finley et al., 2010.[/fn]have contributed to the application to ambiguous loss theory as well as successful coping strategies of families experiencing deployment and have noted, based on others' [fn]Faber et al., 2008. [/fn] work, that the adaptations military families make during the service members deployment make it difficult to reassess boundaries and responsibilities within the family in the post-deployment phase. Regardless, this renegotiation is imperative for family functioning.

Critique of Literature and Project Focus
            Previous research identifies the uniqueness and challenges of military families, but little has been documented on how military wives successfully cope with deployment, particularly in their own words. A major limitation of previous research is no exploration of what military wives feel during which stages of deployment. Additionally, coping mechanisms are an understudied area in military family sociology. In order to better explore and explain outcomes for military families experiencing deployment and better tailor programs for military families, we provide a comprehensive description of the experiences of those left behind. Also, each stage of deployment is examined separately to determine what military spouses are experiencing throughout the entire deployment process, not only the separation. Findings are then examined in the context of Ambiguous Loss Theory to determine its relevance to military families experiencing deployment.

Research Questions
            The research questions driving this research include:    (1) Which stage of deployment (pre deployment, deployment, post deployment) do military wives consider most difficult? (2) What feelings do military wives experience during the various stages of deployment? (3) Which coping mechanisms do military wives use during deployments? (4) In spite of the challenges of deployment, how happy are military wives with themselves and their marriage? (5) Is there empirical evidence to support the experience of ambiguous loss by military wives based on Boss's framework?
            Based on the ambiguous loss theory, it is hypothesized that deployment will be the most difficult stage of deployment with feelings of fear and sadness as most prevalent. It is further hypothesized that military wives will utilize various social networks (particularly family and friends) to cope with the difficulties of deployment.

Methods
Sample and Analytic Strategy
            The non-random, confidential sample consisted of 259 wives of current or former military men in any branch of service who had experienced at least one deployment as a couple. The study was limited to women married to military men as they are the largest group of spouses in any military community- only 14% of military members (inclusive of all branches of service) are women. [fn]US Census Bureau, "Facts for Features: Women's History Month," January 5, 2009, http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/013129.html (accessed October 6, 2009). [/fn] The 71 item survey was distributed using a snowball sampling method to military wives via email (through researchers' personal acquaintances and through personal affiliation with formal military wife networks supported by the Navy and Marine Corps) and Internet groups for military spouses from August to November 2008. (Institutional Review Board exemption was granted in June 2008 from East Carolina University.) A Google search was performed to search for military wife support groups open to all branches of service. The first author contacted moderators for these groups with information on this study; moderators shared the survey link and survey description at their discretion. Questions were both quantitative and qualitative to gain information on demographic characteristics as well as multiple facets of the deployment experience. This analysis expands the current body of literature by providing more specific information on how military wives experience the deployment of their husbands.
            Methodologically, military spouses are a difficult population to reach. Many of the surveys targeting military spouses are government surveys and independent researchers cannot readily access such data. Additionally, available research does not adequately address the deeper issues revolving around deployment, prompting this specific survey.[fn]Multiple respondents contacted the authors (contact information was included on the survey) to express appreciation for developing this survey in a manner consistent with the realities of their experiences. Many noted that this was the first survey they had participated in that asked questions they felt were relevant and expressed frustration with grand misunderstandings of military life and deployment by the general public and researchers. [/fn] Any military wife who had experienced a deployment during their marriage was invited to participate in this study. All branches of the service were invited for participation. The purpose of this study is to look at deployment in general. Thus, military wives are considered as a single group not defined by the branch of service of their husband, reserve or active duty status, or their age. Deployments affect all sub-groups in relatively the same manner-they all experience all three stages of deployment. With the lack of current information on this topic, this survey was designed to gain a broad, general description of the experiences of deployment for military spouses as a preliminary step in expanding the knowledge base of the deployment experience and overall uniqueness of life experiences for military couples.
            As this study was designed to be exploratory in nature, the quantitative analytic strategy is focused around description. Thus, the analysis utilizes descriptive statistics generated through SPSS to gain insight into which coping strategies were perceived by respondents to have been helpful through the various stages of deployment. These findings were used as a preliminary basis for qualitative analysis. After thorough examination of open-ended responses, we were able to identify multiple, recurrent themes stemming from the personal responses of military wives participating in the study. Responses were then grouped by these common themes and explored in the context of the literature, quantitative findings, and implications.

Quantitative Variables and Qualitative Opportunities
             A variety of variables were explored in this study including wives' perceptions of challenges to military life in general, challenges during deployments, and successful coping strategies through the three stages of deployment. Wives were also asked which stage of deployment they felt was the most difficult, with response categories for all are equally difficult and none are difficult. Demographic information (age, years married, years husband in military, deployment during marriage, children, combat deployment status, husband's rank, branch of service, education level, and race) and information on personal and marital happiness were also collected.
             Respondents were asked to indicate (on a 4-point scale from not difficult to extremely difficult) their difficulties in the transition to military life. They were then asked to indicate during which stages of deployment they experienced a variety of feelings, emotions, and challenges (i.e. fear, loneliness, joy, untrue rumors, parenting difficulties). A section on coping mechanisms asked respondents to rank how helpful (on a 4-point scale ranging from not at all helpful to extremely helpful) they perceived given coping strategies to be in dealing with the challenges of deployment during any stage. Coping strategies included employment, talking with friends, talking with family, talking with military wives, shopping, keeping a journal, living with a family, participation in base activities, counseling, volunteering, exercising, drinking alcohol, taking medications, and having an affair. This list was compiled based on available previous research on military families, informal discussions with military spouses on their deployment experiences, and referencing the 2003 Air Force Community Assessment. Measures accounting for individual happiness and marital happiness were constructed by responses from a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being extremely unhappy and 10 being extremely happy. These scales were also based on questions included in the 2003 Air Force Community Assessment [fn]J. A. Martin and G. L. Bowen. 2003 Air Force Community Assessment Reference Matrix, 2003, June. [/fn] and had been validated by its creators prior to its utilization in this study.
             Each section in the online survey also included open-ended questions inviting respondents to elaborate on their answers and include additional comments not specifically addressed in the quantitative questions. For example, at the end of the section discussing challenges, respondents were asked to elaborate on any of the challenges mentioned that they faced and/or to add additional challenges faced that were not included in the survey. Similar questions were included at the end of each sub-section of the survey (challenges in transitioning to military life, feelings/emotions through the stages of deployment, challenges through the stages of deployment, and coping mechanisms through deployment). Further, a statement at the end of the survey invited respondents to "elaborate on anything mentioned in this survey or anything pertaining to yourself, your military experience or your experiences during deployment that you would like to share. These sections were utilized for qualitative analysis to add to the raw numbers of the descriptive quantitative variables. This allowed insight into explanation of and elaboration on the successes of coping strategies as well as opened up opportunities for respondents to add information on coping strategies not included in the quantitative section.

Results
Quantitative Analyses
             The military wives surveyed had been married for an average of 7.08 years and their husbands had been in the military for an average of 9.88 years. Approximately 68% of the wives sampled were married to enlisted men during their most recent deployment. Over 80% of respondents were white. Nearly half of the respondents' husbands were in the Marine Corps and about 1/3 were in the Army (including the National Guard) with the remaining respondents having husbands in the Air Force (11%) or Navy (7.5%); these figures include reserve components as the experience of deployment is the same for all military members. Reservists are not considered "reservists" when deployed, they are active duty prior to, during, and post-deployment. Over 60% of respondents were between the ages of 19 and 30, but ages ranged from under 18 to over 51. On average, wives had experienced about two deployments with the vast majority of respondents' husbands having been deployed to a combat zone. Over 70% of the respondents had one or more children. Over 40% were employed at the time of the survey with slightly over 37% employed at the time of the last deployment. Education levels varied with the highest percentages of women having some college with no degree or a bachelor's degree (22.8% each).
             For stages of deployment, the following categories were used: "pre-deployment" was 3 months preceding a deployment, "deployment" was from the day the military member left until his return, and "post-deployment" was the 3 months following the deployment. Over half (50.7 percent) of respondents felt that the actual deployment period was the most difficult stage of deployment and nearly 28% felt that all stages were equally difficult. The latter finding suggests a need for some sort of coping strategy for wives throughout the deployment process independent of the length of time the husband was physically deployed.
            Experiences of a military wife during all stages of deployments of her husband can be much different than when her husband is at home. The most common problem experienced by over 33 % of respondents during pre-deployment was untrue rumors; these are often rumors about military men (including aspects of the upcoming deployment) or other wives. For example, it is not uncommon for rumors about deployment dates or location to make their way around units, even though this information is often kept confidential until the last minute. Rumors about other wives vary, including infidelity, mental health status, parenting problems, relationship trouble, etc. Rumors continued to be a challenge for nearly half of respondents during deployment. Additionally, over 1/3 of the wives reported experiencing difficulties in communicating with their husbands, parenting difficulties, taking care of oneself, and asking for help during the deployment. The most common problem experienced after deployment (but only about 18% of respondents indicated this was a challenge) was financial difficulties. Table 1 details these findings.

Table 1
During what stage(s) of deployment did you experience challenges of the following situations?
N=218
	Pre-deployment	Deployment	Post-deployment	N/A
Untrue rumors	33.50%	48.20%	17.40%	34.90%
Discrimination based on husband's rank	8.7	14.2	5.5	72.9
Difficulty maintaining friendships	9.2	25.7	18.3	56.4
Difficulty in communicating with your husband	18.8	52.3	17.9	26.1
Parenting difficulties	8.7	37.6	14.7	50
Trouble with your job/schooling	11.5	24.3	9.6	59.2
Financial problems	28.9	16.5	18.3	49.1
Taking care of yourself/meeting your personal needs	16.5	40.8	9.6	43.1
Asking for help when you needed it	16.5	47.2	13.3	36.7
Jealousy	11	25.2	9.2	58.3
Trust problems	7.8	21.6	9.6	64.2

To meet the challenges discussed above, wives used a variety of coping mechanisms. The most helpful coping strategies (mean of greater than 3 on a 4 point scale with 4 being the most helpful) were talking with friends, talking with other military wives (highest mean), and exercising. Table 2 details findings on coping mechanisms perceived to be helpful during deployment by respondents. Wives, on average, reported relatively high levels of happiness with self (mean of 7.26 on a scale of 1-10), marriage (mean of 8.31 on a scale of 1-10), and had high positive self concepts (mean of 1.93 on a scale of 1-5 with 1 being strongest agreement of statement regarding having a positive self-concept).

Table 2
Please indicate how helpful each of the following coping mechanisms/skills were to you at ANY stage of deployment.
	N=*	N/A answers*	Mean (a)	Std. Deviation
Employment	120	68	2.792	1.076
Talking with friends	182	5	3.066	0.858
Talking with family	183	4	2.689	0.992
Talking with military wives	179	9	3.251	0.834
Shopping	179	16	2.37	1.059
Keeping a journal	85	102	2.529	0.971
Going home to live with family	82	104	2.707	1.181
Participating in base activities	92	94	2.347	0.931
Counseling	33	154	2.546	0.833
Volunteering	81	105	2.617	0.93
Exercise	160	27	3.006	0.872
Alcohol	63	122	1.873	0.813
Medications	45	142	2.2	0.999
Yoga	33	155	2.546	1.033
Affair(b)	9	176	1.444	0.726
(a) scale of 1 (not helpful at all) to 4 (extremely helpful)
(b) min/max for all values was 1/4 except for Affair which was 1/3
*N/A answers were marked as "missing" and not included in "N"

When wives were asked about the emotions they experienced during their husbands' deployment, they reported both positive and negative emotions during the various stages of deployment. During the pre-deployment phase, more than 50 percent of the wives reported fear, sadness, and nervousness. During the actual deployment, more than 50% of the wives experienced loneliness, fear, sadness, going crazy, and nervousness, as well as feelings of independence and strength in the absence of their husbands. During post-deployment, more than three-quarters of respondents felt joy. Table 3 details results for emotions felt during the stages of deployment by respondents.

Table 3
During which stage(s) of deployment did you experience the following feelings/emotions?
N=240
	Pre-deployment	Deployment	Post-deployment	N/A
Loneliness	17.50%	84.60%	5.80%	5.40%
Fear	57.5	73.8	9.2	6.7
Sadness	56.2	73.8	12.1	6.2
Hopelessness	17.1	31.7	3.3	51.7
Helplessness	22.1	45	8.8	38.8
Going crazy	25	56.7	13.3	26.2
Nervousness	55	62.5	19.6	11.2
Independence	22.9	77.9	22.1	8.8
Strength	30	75.8	45.7	4.6
Joy	11.7	16.2	80	5.4

Qualitative Analyses
            Open ended questions were included in the survey regarding general transition to military life, emotions/feelings during the different stages of deployment, challenges of deployment, and coping strategies for challenges of deployment to address specific research questions. Below, findings are discussed in the following categories based on these open-ended questions: transition, perceptions of deployment stages, feelings, challenges, and coping.

Transition
            Respondents focused on two major theses as difficulties in transitioning to military life: lack understanding by civilian friends and family and maintain a career. This section was included in the survey to assist in gaining a broader understanding of the overall challenges of military life, which includes the experience of deployment. Extended separations and parenting alone were commonly discussed in these contexts. The uniqueness of military life (i.e. extended separations, foreign residence, frequent relocations) can be misunderstood by those outside of the military community. Respondents indicated frustration with those outside of the military community not being able to understand their situations or trivializing experiences that respondents considered to be extremely difficult and unique to military life. These responses mirrored findings that communication with military wives helped to cope with deployments, as members of this community have a relative understanding of these experiences. Discussing their anger with the lack of understanding of those outside of the military community, wives commented:

"I get angry when people who are not military make flip or rude comments when they hear that my spouse is deployed, like well what did you expect when you married him. He is in the military. No one knows what it is going to be like enduring a 15 month separation."

"Getting family/friends to understand what Marines do... and that time apart is different than the business trip separations that they encounter."

These quotes illustrate the larger theme of frustration with those who do not experience the challenges of military family life first hand. Respondents repeatedly referenced civilian acquaintances who compared deployment to short business trips. Additionally, respondents commonly noted negative perceptions of individuals who they felt trivialized the challenging experience of military life, particularly deployments. Deployment in general was also highlighted as a major difficulty in the transition to military life, evident in the previous quotes.
Moving, especially with children, was also repeatedly noted as a difficult part of the transition. Deployments were frequently mentioned as the most difficult part of military life, especially not being able to see one's husband and having to parent alone. For example, one respondent shared,

"Deployments are the worst him being away 15 months at a time; we are on number three now and it is just hard being married to a man that is half way across the world with very little contact at all. I feel as though at times I am a single parent."

Maintaining a career was also highlighted as a challenge in transitioning to military life, in general. Easterling explored disadvantages military spouses face in finding and maintaining employment, even when they were more highly educated or more highly qualified. Covert discrimination of military wives appears to occur (at least as perceived by military wives) in military areas as employers are reluctant to hire women with the added responsibilities of parenting in the absence of a military spouse and/or women who are likely to only be in the area temporarily. [fn]Beth Easterling, The Invisible Side of Military Careers, 2005. [/fn] Below are some quotes from wives emphasizing difficulties regarding their work life in the transition to military life:

"Keeping my career [was the most difficult part of the transition]."

"It is difficult, expensive, and time consuming to switch professional certifications from state to state. I am a teacher, a profession that does not pay very well, but does require state certification."

"The hardest part of the transition for me was leaving a great career behind. I was doing something I loved, but in a field that is only in a few areas of the country making it difficult to continue in that [capacity] when we have moved."

Perceptions of Stages of Deployment
Some wives reflected on the differences between the stages of deployment. Their statements are indicative of being able to look back with a new vision of the entire deployment experience with a "big picture" of the process and emotions and challenges they go through. These personal responses added support to the finding that many wives consider all stages of deployment difficult.

"In retrospect, one of the most difficult parts of deployment for us was the post-deployment. We had a baby right before my husband left, and by the time he came home, things were dramatically different in our home."

"Pre-deployment is [the most difficult since you are] trying since you are waiting for the time to come that your husband leaves, you are worried about what could happen to him while he is gone. During the deployment you miss your spouse and worry for their safety."

"As the wife and mom of your family, you have to be very independent and strong for yourself and your family ALL the time, independent in the sense that you can handle the house, the finances, your job, the kids, and all other family matters by yourself."

"The most difficult emotion during deployment is the inability to relax completely. You are 100% responsible for 100% of the family (families if you run an FRG) left at home. There is a constant underlying current of stress." [FRG is an acronym for Family Readiness Group, which is a group to aid military families in terms of social support and finding resources, especially during deployments.]

Feelings
Respondents reported a range of feelings including fear, anger, uncertainty, feeling unsettled, and these feelings could vary in intensity and stage of deployment. Many wives expressed the feeling of being on an "emotional rollercoaster" and even not fully understanding their feelings during their husbands' deployments.

"Before, during, and after a deployment you are on an emotional rollercoaster. During the pre-deployment stage you feel anger because you are mad that your loved one has to leave."

"My emotions during deployment are all over the place. Some days I feel sad, some days I feel like super Mom and so independent and some days I feel mad. The mad emotion always gets me because how can you be mad at someone at war? Well, I can!"

Responses reflect a certain level of hostility with the misunderstanding of others, especially when others compare their situations to that of the respondent. These responses were consistent with those addressing difficulties in the initial transition to military life.

"My husband was injured on 2 separate tours in Iraq, every phone call was scary. People who are not military do not understand and I resent when they say they do. My husband being deployed and your boyfriend going on vacation ARE NOT the same."

"It is a very lonely and difficult time. No one that has not experienced it can understand."

"I felt jealous when the other husbands were coming home and mine was still deployed."

Husbands' feelings were also of concern to the wives during the various stages of deployment. Those noting the injury of a husband expressed difficulties similar to those highlighted in Finley, et al. In the face of constant training beforehand and issues such as PTSD or difficulties in readjusting, the military member may seem distant even if he is physically present. One respondent captured this recurrent theme in commenting,

"Before the deployment we had problems when he would disappear without calling and would randomly turn up with friends. He was distant and nervous."

Challenges of Deployment
Two major themes were highlighted by respondents discussing challenges of deployment: rumors and taking care of oneself. Respondents noted a fair amount of challenges in dealing with untrue rumors. During deployments, it is common for rumors of all types to spread quickly. For example, rumors about other spouses' personal can be spread around units. Additionally, rumors about dates of deployment can begin prior to deployment. During deployments, rumors commonly spread involving the deployed service members' units, such as location, injury, and sensitive information about location and mission. Especially closer to homecoming, rumors circulate about when units are coming home.

"Many military wives have a tendency to gossip. I've been married to the military for over 13 years. Way back when we first entered the military it was mandatory for wives to go through training that is to 'prevent' pertinent information being given out."

"Since it's the military, there are always untrue rumors: when they're coming home, when they're leaving again, what actual day they will leave, or get back. Communicating is sometimes difficult especially during the deployment."

Another recurring theme of a difficulty during deployment was taking care of oneself. With the added responsibilities of taking care of children and the household alone (discussed above), it is difficult for wives to find time to do things for themselves. Asking for help can be difficult, especially when separated from family and close friends.

"The most difficult challenge in this area was being able to meet my own needs - rest and a break from the 24/7 responsibility."

"During deployments being a single parent is very hard. Not getting any breaks or having someone else to help out at home is very tiring. I find it hard to ask for help from friends and not being near family is difficult too."

Coping
The three most common coping mechanisms cited as successful by respondents were support from other military wives, work, and religion. Additionally, some respondents noted that being part of a military family growing up aided in dealing with the unique aspects of military life because the military lifestyle was "normal" to them. Religion was not included in the quantitative section but emerged as an important coping mechanism in the open response section. Though some noted that they stayed away from military wives because of the rumor issues, it was the most common response in the qualitative responses for the best way to cope with deployment, mostly because respondents felt a bond with other military wives and felt that they understood what they were going through.

"I think just having a great support network of other military spouses is the best! They truly understand you and what you are going through. I think this is priceless! Just getting together for dinner was great."

"I couldn't have gotten through the deployment without military wives who were also amazing friends. Many of them had husbands who were also deployed and the strength of the bond that was formed between myself and these other women is difficult to describe."

"Other military wives were the key stone for me...talking to them and just keeping each other sane was a great help."

The lack of support from the military community was noted as a disadvantage in trying to successfully cope by respondents who were not close to a military instillation. (This is often the case for National Guardsmen and reservists.) This is another side of the finding that support from other military spouses is a useful coping mechanism during deployments. One respondent noted,

"We do not live near a base as we are on independent duty. We do not have the activities and opportunities that families living near a base have during a deployment, therefore making the deployment even more difficult."

             Having had parents in the military was beneficial in transitioning to military life as well as coping with deployments.   These women noted that they knew what to expect, which helped the transition. For example, one respondent commented "I grew up a 'military brat' so the transition was not difficult at all." Another wrote "I was already used to the lingo, the ranks, on-base 'culture', and PCSing." [PCS is a military acronym for Permanent Change of Station.] Being a part of a military community also had its advantages. One respondent noted "military wives have an 'instant community' to be introduced to and a friend at one station always knows somebody at your next station to introduce you to."

Discussion
             This study focused on the emotions and coping strategies used by military wives during various phases of the deployment of their husbands. The first research question addressed wives perceptions of the difficulty of the various stages of deployment. Though the majority of respondents indicated that deployment was the most difficult stage of deployment, over one-fourth of respondents felt that all stages of deployment were equally difficult. This finding challenges the notion that deployment needs only be addressed during the separation; families need support and face challenges months before and after the actual deployment begins and ends. In retrospect, the qualitative section also supported the notion that all three stages of deployment are challenging to military spouses.
             Despite the challenges of deployment, wives in this study overwhelmingly reported success in maintaining both individual and marital happiness; they also experienced the positive emotions of strength and independence even in the face war. This finding addressed the fourth research question. These positive findings are in light of the literature that outlines the possibilities for negative effects of military life and deployment.[fn]i.e. Kelly C. McLeland, Geoffrey W. Sutton, and Walter R. Schumm, "Marital Satisfaction before and after Deployments Associated with the Global war on Terror," Psychological Reports, 103, (2008). [/fn] Further, military wives in this survey reported a variety of positive emotions throughout deployment highlighting feelings of personal strength, independence, and joy. Findings from this study parallel and add support for findings such as those of Finley et al. [fn]"Talking, Love, Time," 2010. [/fn] who identify potentials for positive outcomes for military families with the utilization of various coping mechanisms even in the face of separation and war.
Throughout the stages of deployment, the most commonly felt emotions by respondents were loneliness, fear, sadness and independence providing evidence of both negative challenges and positive outcomes throughout deployments. These findings address the second research question while adding to the existing body of literature on the challenges military families face through deployments. It also helps support the family stress perspective within the ambiguous loss framework (discussed below). Even before the experience of deployment, wives report feelings of frustration with various challenges (such as maintaining employment) from the initial transition to military life. With deployment comes the added challenges of parenting alone and taking care of personal needs, commonly without the support of family.
             The third research question explored which coping mechanisms were considered useful throughout deployment. To deal with the challenges of deployment, the most helpful coping strategy reported was talking with other military wives. This quantitative finding was supported in qualitative analysis of the open responses from respondents. Also considered helpful coping mechanisms were talking to friends and exercise. Religion emerged in the open ended questions as a common coping strategy as well. The variety of coping mechanisms considered successful points to the possibilities of successfully overcoming the challenges of deployment.
            Qualitative data obtained through open-ended questions helped to support and give a personal voice to the quantitative findings. Paramount among these statements was the recurring theme that having the support of the military community was particularly important, especially when "civilian friends and family" often do not understand what a military wife goes through. Another recurring issue was the problem of rumors and the difficulties in getting along with and trusting other military wives. The dichotomy of fellow military wives being both a source of solace and sadness is an interesting area for future research, as is the successfulness of working as a coping mechanism while military wives experience large barriers to obtaining employment in military communities. Cheating and coping with an injured spouse were also identified as challenges in the qualitative data and warrant further study beyond the scope of data from this survey.

Value of Ambiguous Loss Theory
              The final research question addressed the value of ambiguous loss theory in helping to understand the deployment experience of military wives. Based on the three assumptions presented as part of the family stress perspective (change or threat of change in family composition, manageability of persistent stress, and the experience of ambiguous loss as traumatizing), findings are consistent with the experience of ambiguous loss for military families as well as possibilities for overcoming the challenges of ambiguous loss within the family stress perspective. Findings support the notion that military wives commonly experience ambiguous loss in the face of deployment, the first assumption we presented in the family stress perspective. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses reflect concrete changes in family structure alongside the threat of changes. In addition, the stress is persistent yet manageable as the second assumption in the family stress perspective states. Military wives in this study did note that the stress, though difficult, was manageable through various coping mechanisms, particularly working, support from other military wives, and religion.
             Finally, through an examination of the words of these respondents, we conclude that the process of deployment through its stages has stressful results consistent with ambiguous loss. Though results from this survey cannot definitively include "trauma" (which is the third component mentioned for purposes of this study in family stress perspective), it can be determined that there are negative stresses that impact military spouses throughout the deployment stages. Ambiguous loss produces extreme stress. Findings indicate that experiences of picking up the slack in the absence of the service member and confusion of family dynamics alongside of the questioning of roles for military spouses. All of these elements, evident in results from this survey, are consistent with the experience of ambiguous loss.
             The ambiguity of the "loss" of a service member to his spouse during the stages of deployment coupled with varying degrees of perceived danger and fear appear to commonly result in stress for military spouses. The unique life circumstances of military spouses (including separation from family members, uncertainty of multiple details regarding deployments, and parenting alone) can exacerbate these stresses. However, according to responses from this survey, these stresses can be successfully managed and, in some cases, overcome with the use of what are considered to successful coping mechanisms. Ambiguous loss theory also notes that, with the proper skills, the stresses of ambiguous loss can be overcome and dealt with in a successful manner.
            The self-proclaimed "emotional roller coasters" and the questioning of one's own emotions along with her spouses are indicative of an ambiguity in the sense of loss felt throughout the stages of deployment. The misunderstanding, uncertainty, changes in and redefining of one's relationship, and the constant worry that often accompany deployments are indicative of an ambiguous loss, and the stress that can result. Findings from the open response sections of the survey give a personal voice to the emotional toll that deployment can take on a military wife. From uncertainty about length of deployment and whereabouts of their husbands to dealing with daily activities such as parenting alone with little support, the ambiguity of deployment situations emerges. Paramount in the ambiguous loss framework and family stress perspective are the elements of confusing family dynamics, change or threat of change in family composition, and persistent stress. The responses of military wives through this survey validate the plausibility that each of these elements are commonly experienced throughout the stages of deployment. Also consistent with the family stress perspective is the notion that this negative stress is manageable.
            These data reflect that military wives use successful coping mechanisms to manage the stresses brought about by deployment. Family and individual therapists and service practitioners should take note of the challenges faced by military wives alongside of their stresses and strengths and how they cope with deployment in an ambiguous loss framework to better understand and serve these families.
            Building on these findings is the notion of two types of ambiguous loss that can be experienced. The first is when the family member is physically absent but perceived as psychologically present. The second type is when the family member is physically present but perceived to be psychologically absent. [fn] Pauline Boss, Ambiguous Loss, 1999. [/fn] Findings suggest that military wives can experience both types of ambiguous loss. The first type is experienced during a deployment as the military member is not present in the everyday life of the family, but could be perceived as psychologically present, depending on the individual family situation. Additionally, some families may also experience a feeling of psychological absence, compounding the effects of ambiguous loss. The second type of ambiguous loss can be experienced both before and after a deployment when the military member may seem to be "somewhere else" even though he is physically present. Respondents noted these types of experiences before and after deployments. When experiencing cases of injury, either physical or emotional (i.e. in the case of PTSD), military wives may likely continue to feel the second type of ambiguous loss for an extended period of time. This is another area that begs for further examination.

Limitations of the Study and Suggestions for further research
             The data for this study were from a non-random sample of military wives (hence no husbands of military women) whose spouses were deployed.   In addition, wives of Marines were overrepresented. Because of the nature of this survey and the sampling method used, respondents were limited to English-speaking, computer savvy military wives. Minorities were grossly underrepresented in this sample, a major limitation. Despite limitations, this study brings to light some important issues and should be utilized as a beginning point and a place to begin further exploration of this important but understudied topic.
             Subsequent research would benefit from nationally representative random samples as well as spouses of both sexes from all branches of the military. As mentioned, obtaining these types of samples is extremely difficult, especially without financial support and access to military families from governmental agencies. Also, the motives of such data should be suspect as those developing and distributing the surveys may have limited knowledge (or no first-hand knowledge) of the realities that military families face.
             Military wives often feel that they, too, are called to duty and serve with few benefits or recognition. This leaves many spouses of military personnel with a feeling of powerlessness and a sense of disconnection with the branch for which their husband serves. [fn]Kristine Kaufmann, "Army Families Under Fire," The Roanoke Times, May 17, 2009, Horizon Section: 1, 4. [/fn]Recognizing the struggles and successes of military families is a first step in reaching out and improving outcomes for them. Future research should focus on the needs of military families both in times of deployment and in times when the spouse is at home. The question of how military families adjust between deployments (which is often only a matter of a few months) is an area that warrants exploration in this context within an ambiguous loss framework.
             Future research might also explore sources of tension for military wives revealed in this study. For example, military wives are both a source of support and stress for each other during deployments. Additionally, paid work is noted as a successful coping mechanism, yet it is noted as a major challenge to military life in general, especially with higher levels of education. These paradoxes should be examined closely and policies and programs developed to aid military families.
             Special caution should also be taken to note the positive experiences of military spouses (including independence and strength) during deployments and to look for possible protective factors to help assist military wives experiencing difficult situations. Social service providers (especially those in our military sectors) as well as the government might use the findings of this study and consider establishing more successful programs and services for military families. The emergence of the high levels of marital and individual happiness and common feelings of independence and strength identified in this study could be offered as pillars on which to build programs and services, versus the focus on the negative aspects of deployment. Similarly, policies that assist in providing job opportunities for military spouses should be expanded while legislation to prevent discrimination in employment for military spouses should be strengthened as employment appears to be a major source of help for military spouses during deployment but maintaining a career continues to be difficult for military spouses.
             Building bonds between military spouses and their families to support each other during times of deployment and beyond should continue to be facilitated by all branches and individual units. Finally, service providers should look to ambiguous loss and family stress perspective in offering services to military families as findings support the experience of ambiguous loss as well as possibilities for therapeutic assistance through techniques outlined in the family stress perspective.

References:

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Content Type for Views:

Research Article

Parenting Behavior among Men with Disputed Paternity

ekurylo — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:36:51 +0000

Contributors:

David M. Bishai, Ph.D.

Nan Astone, Ph.D.

Laura Argys

Type of Written Content:

Research Article

Subject Area:

Alzheimer's

Abstract:

We interviewed 245 individuals who were having paternity tests conducted pursuant to a request for a child-support order. Our interviews were conducted from Sept 2003 to August 2004 and focused on the relationship between the mother and the man in question as well as the level of contact between the man and the child. We also obtained permission to link the interviews with results of the genetic tests from the research subject. In the last 30 days 39-44% of these men had had contact with the child and this rate did not vary by the eventual result of the paternity test. One quarter of the men who had been in recent contact with the child had their paternity refuted by the test.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors acknowledge the support of the National Institute for Child Health and Development, David Bishai Principal Investigator. (1 RO3 HD042545-01).

Generate Table of Contents?:

Yes

I. Introduction

Fatherhood is now a well established field of scholarly study (Goldberg, Tan et al. 2009). Two outgrowths of gender role change have received the bulk of scrutiny by researchers interested in fatherhood (Edwards, Doucet et al. 2009). The first is the increase in the amount of time relatively affluent children in two parent families spend with their fathers (Bianchi 2000). The second trend is the increase in the number of relatively poor children who live apart from their fathers (Garfinkel, McLanahan et al. 1998). These two trends, taken together, have given rise to concern that change in paternal behavior is one important reason for increasing disparities among children in the quality of the investment they receive from their parents (McLanahan 2004)

In this paper we focus on a very specific group of fathers with contested paternity. These men have been the targets of public policies concerned with improving the support for children of unmarried parents. Seventy-five percent of the fathers of the 1.5 million children born to parents who are not married voluntarily agree to sign affidavits of paternity, nearly 900,000 of which are signed in the hospital at the time of delivery (Mincy, Garfinkel et al. 2005). That leaves about 375,000 children whose fathers did not acknowledge them at the time of their birth. Among these, there are roughly 340,000 who subsequently undergo genetic testing to determine paternity (American Association of Blood Banks 2002).

A large motivation for public policies that mandate the identification of putative fathers and compulsory genetic testing is to save government outlays for cash assistance to children. Therefore, one major criteria for determining the success or failure of such programs is the amount of such savings (Astone 1997). In fact, paternity establishment has proven to be beneficial to state budgets by offsetting the need to publicly finance welfare payments to single mothers after child support orders are obtained (Farrel, Glosser et al. 2003).

Nevertheless, there are sound theoretical reasons from both sociology and economics to expect that undergoing such a test and receiving the results might result in a change in the putative fathers' behavior toward their children. Discovering whether or not policies do change fathers' behavior can illuminate some issues in the scholarship of fathering, as well as provide information to child advocates who are interested in promoting public policy that fosters child development. Evidence that paternity establishment is beneficial to children is quite limited, however.

State level child-support agencies in the US are responsible for most of the 340,000 paternity tests conducted annually in the US at a cost of $34 million. There is a pressing need to learn more about the lives of the children whose unmarried parents have paternity testing. The hypothesis that paternity testing is beneficial to the children involved as well the state's budget, remains untested. Although examination of paternity tests exclude the man's paternity in 28% of cases, but there have been few studies to illuminate the pre-test behaviors of men who were excluded compared to those who were not (Bishai, Astone et al. 2006).

The goal of this paper is to assess the scope for genetic paternity tests to improve the well-being of children by reporting on a survey of 245 respondents who were undergoing genetic testing in child-support agencies in Maryland in 2004. This study attempts to measure how well the men and women in these cases could predict the test results based on information available to them. If the test results are not entirely anticipated by the participants before the test, which we show below is a plausible hypothesis, then paternity test results are less likely to have large impacts on behavior. The study also documents the degree of contact between the men and the child being tested prior to a paternity test. If contact is already high before the test, especially among men or the parents of men who are later confirmed as fathers then one would expect the test to have little positive impact on the men's behavior. If contact prior to the test is substantial among men who are later proven not to be the biological fathers then the tests could be harmful by potentially severing relationships between children of unmarried women and the men who are serving in the role of father.

II. Background

US Policies on Paternity Establishment and their Implementation

The role of state governments in paternity establishment has expanded as part of state intervention to enforce child support. In 1975, Title IV-D of the Social Security Act required each state to establish offices of child-support enforcement (OCSEs). Nine years later the Child Support Enforcement Amendments of 1984 required all states to initiate wage withholding and to extend the age for paternity establishment to age 18. The greatest growth in the use of genetic tests for paternity establishment followed the 1988 Family Support Act which required all states to establish paternity in 50% of out of wedlock cases or to increase paternity establishment by 3% annually for cases on AFDC and to offer genetic tests at the request of any party when paternity is contests. The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) required states to have a voluntary paternity acknowledgement process and set goals for states to achieve 90% paternity establishment (Miller and Garfinkel 1999). PRWORA allowed each state to set its own policy on the pass through of child-support funds from father to mother (Farrel, Glosser et al. 2003).

The primary rationale for policies to improve paternity establishment was that paternity establishment is a necessary condition for the establishment of a legal child-support order for a child born to an unmarried woman. States have a financial interest in obtaining child-support orders for TANF beneficiaries because these child-support payments remit directly to the state except for 19 states where an average of $50 per month of the father's child-support payment is passed through to the custodial parent (Farrel, Glosser et al. 2003).

Because child-support payments offset states' TANF outlays there is a powerful fiscal incentive for states to pursue measures like better paternity establishment that can increase both the number of child-support orders and compliance. Some worry that state policy makers' focus on achieving fiscal relief via better child-support enforcement has led them to overlook both additional benefits as well as potential harm resulting from both paternity establishment and child-support enforcement. Overlooked benefits to children from paternity establishment include inheritance and eligibility for dependent benefits from Social Security in the event of the fathers' death (Wattenberg 1987; Nichols-Casebolt 1988). There may also be cognitive and psychological benefits to children from both child-support payments and indirectly if child-support payments increase contact (Argys, Peters et al. 1998). Of course, there may be negative consequences of paternity establishment as well. These include the possibility that paternity establishment can bring women into greater contact with men who subject them to domestic violence, and who could be more easily avoided in the absence of paternity establishment (Fertig, McLanahan et al. 2003).

There is also concern about the potential for genetic paternity tests to disrupt emotional and care-giving bonds between a man and his children in cases where a man who believes he is the biological father is later confronted with laboratory evidence to the contrary (Bellis, Hughes et al. 2005). Because, to date, nothing is known about the frequency of contact between men and the children who require genetic paternity tests it is difficult to evaluate this potential harm of paternity disruption.

There are a variety of reasons for a man to prefer not to have a child-support order, and one need not presume a lack of paternal concern for the child's well-being. Aside from the bureaucratic hassles of a child-support order and possible sanctions for defaulting, a child-support order for a child on TANF does little to improve the financial resources of the child or mother. Under current state policies no more than $50 of a monthly child-support payment to a TANF beneficiary is ever passed through from the father to the mother. Parents may prefer to arrange a stream of informal payments to the mother. For example, suppose a father gave a mother on TANF $75 a month. If that mother lived in a state with no pass through, this would be $75 more dollars than she would receive under a child-support order, and in states with $50 pass through, it would be $25 more. Compared to a $100 child-support order, a father who reliably makes monthly $75 informal payments to a mother on TANF offers a situation that is better for mother, child, and father. Many mothers seek a child support order only as a last resort after informal payments from the father become unreliable.

Federal regulations, however, reduce the TANF benefits of an unmarried mother by 25% unless she cooperates with the state in identifying the father of her child. It is easy to see how, under certain circumstances, a woman may name someone she knows NOT to be the father, in order to satisfy the demands of the regulations, while maintaining the informal arrangement which she perceives as best for her and her child, and most likely to keep the money from the father coming. Qualitative data suggest that unmarried fathers and mothers in poverty often do consider the strategic implications of paternity establishment to avoid the inflexibility of the formal child-support system (Edin 1995).

Prior Studies of Paternity Establishment and Child-support Enforcement

Current knowledge about the impact on families of paternity establishment and child support is drawn primarily from cases where men voluntarily acknowledge paternity. These men are probably quite different, in unobserved ways, from those who have to be coerced. There is substantial evidence that child-support payments are more likely when paternity is established (Miller and Garfinkel 1999; Argys, Peters et al. 2001; Freeman and Waldfogel 2001). The existence of the child-support order and paternity confirmation is associated with greater contact between child and father (Seltzer, McLanahan et al. 1998; Argys and Peters 2001 ). Child-support awards are also associated with increased influence of fathers over children (Seltzer, McLanahan & Hanson, 1998). There is evidence that child educational outcomes (Graham, Beller et al. 1994) and scores on cognitive tests (King 1994; Argys, Peters et al. 1998) are associated with child-support awards. Additional dollars of child support, however, have been found to have stronger effects on child outcomes than additional dollars of mother's earnings of family income (Aughinbaugh, 2001; Argys, Peters, Brooks-Gunn & Smith, 1998). This suggests either positive selection into child-support payment or that higher child achievement actually triggers higher child-support payments by strategically inclined fathers (Aughinbaugh, 2001). This is also consistent with the idea that mothers cooperatively agree to spend child-support payments disproportionately on children to encourage future payments (Argys and Peters 2003).

Because existing literature focuses on general samples of children born to unmarried parents, the effects of paternity establishment are typically confounded with the unobservable factors that have led men to voluntarily acknowledge paternity. Even in studies where instrumental variable methods are used to infer the causal effects of paternity establishment, these effects apply to the typical or "marginal" man whose paternity is established. Because so many of the cases of paternity establishment in existing studies occurred voluntarily, it is not valid to extrapolate these observations to the minority of men who demanded a paternity test or to those for whom paternity has not been established. There have been no prior studies of families in which men do not voluntarily acknowledge paternity, so this study will contribute by offering a better profile of how these families differ from other unmarried families. Because this study interviewed child-support clients on the day of their paternity test in four Maryland counties and is linked to the subsequent results of the test it can shed light on the extent to which men and women correctly anticipate what the genetic tests will show.

Conceptual Framework and Expected Results of Covariates

The conceptual framework for this study sets in opposition contrasting explanations for why men might fail to voluntarily acknowledge paternity and how this would alter the effects of paternity testing. Deciding which explanation is correct will have important policy implications because in one case genetic testing helps men do the right thing, in the other case genetic testing wastes resources and interferes needlessly.

One state of affairs where paternity testing would be of value would be a situation of genuine paternity uncertainty. This would imply a non-marital union in which the mother had multiple sexual partnerships prior to a child's birth and neither she nor the potential father/s can be certain of paternity. Men's willingness to acknowledge paternity is simply because of genuine doubt and not because of disinterest. Resolution of the doubt is both necessary and sufficient to convert men like this into supportive fathers. The assumption is that once men are certain of their paternity, they have every reason to be just as solicitous of a child's welfare as any other blood relative.

For genuinely uncertain fathers, confirmation of paternity may lead to more positive fathering by signaling them to take this role. Forste and her colleagues point first to the diversity of role expectations, behavioral schemas and cultural constructions of fatherhood that have emerged over the past decades and second to variation among men in their own relationships with their fathers (Forste, Bartkowski et al. 2009). Given this complexity, they argue that men serve as agents in negotiating fathering in their own lives. Under complex circumstances, signal life events can serve to galvanize men to organize their own fathering behavior according to a certain individual pattern. If this is so, one can imagine that, even among men who were fairly certain that they were the biological fathers of a child, confirming paternity might be such a signal event that it galvanizes them to act more positively towards their children.

Another reason to hypothesize that confirmation of paternity might result in more positive fathering concerns its potential effects on the relationship between the mother and father. For fifteen years co-parenting has been a central construct in studies of child development (Cowan and McHale 1996). Early researchers focused on co-parenting in intact families (Belsky and Crnic 1995). Soon scholars moved on to study co-parenting in divorced families (Amato 2005). Life events like subsequent marriages and births have marked effects on contact rates between unmarried men and their children (Tach, Mincy et al. 2010). Other studies of co-parenting among couples who have experienced extreme challenges such as abuse and incarceration illustrate the importance of the couples relationship over time (Roy and Dyson 2005; Hardesty and Ganong 2006; Schoppe-Sullivan, Brown et al. 2008). It is possible that confirmation of paternity has a salutatory effect on the relationship between the mother and father such that co-parenting is facilitated. At a minimum, it might eliminate conflict about the fact of paternity itself.

Another model might be named the "selective shirking" model. Proponents of this view argue that there are two types of men: those with and those without an interest in the role of fatherhood. Those who are interested in fatherhood know that this role is enhanced by a strong bond with the mother that includes co-residence (Willis 1999). Men with a sincere interest in fatherhood are unlikely to father children without co-residence and a stable relationship. A stable relationship and co-residence with mother and children offer a man better control over the amount of time he can spend with the children how his money is spent on the children. If this theory is true, then the children of women who do not live with the fathers of the children (virtually 100% of those who present for mandatory paternity tests) are far more likely to be the offspring of a subset of men who have little or no wish to invest in their children.

The selective shirking hypothesis we just elaborated was framed in the language of unobserved differences in people often employed by economists. One might base a similar hypothesis on the research on fathering by Doucet, a sociologist who uses ethnographic methods and a different theoretical frame (Doucet 2006; Doucet 2009; Doucet 2009). She argues, based on extensive ethnography with men who are working exclusively as full-time caregivers for their children, that providing for the physical and emotional needs of children is still extremely stigmatized behavior for men. She finds that those men who have in the past held well-paid or high prestige jobs can surmount this stigma, but it is extremely difficult for economically unsuccessful men, to do so. These men face the "double jeopardy" of being judged both failed (because they do not fulfill the traditional male role of breadwinner) and deviant (because they are doing women's work (Doucet 2006). These findings suggest that men whose breadwinner role must be coerced are unlikely to be accompanied by high levels of caretaking, before or after confirmation of paternity.

Existing studies cannot measure the extent to which unmarried fathers-especially those who have not acknowledged paternity--can be classified as having genuine paternity uncertainty vs being selective shirkers. Deciding the extent to which each explanation prevails is important for policy purposes because in a situation of genuine paternity uncertainty imposing a child-support order based on paternity testing has the potential to improve paternal care behavior. Under the "selective shirking" hypothesis, men who are not living with their children and the mothers of their children are really not the sort of men who are cut out for fatherhood. Selective shirkers are more likely to fail to make child support payments and to spend time with children even after paternity tests. For men in the selective shirking model all pregnancies are unintentional and unwanted, but there is not necessarily any uncertainty about whether they are fathers. These men will have virtually zero contact with their children and the paternity test is unlikely to alter this. In contrast men with genuine paternity uncertainty will be unable to accurately predict what their paternity test. Their subjective belief in their paternity prior to a test would be intermediate between 0 and 100 and thus their rates of contact with children would be reduced relative to men who were certain of paternity. Contact rates for uncertain men would not be zero.

Deciding whether data support either of these two explanations requires one to observe how much never married non-cohabiting fathers are voluntarily investing in their children. Certainly the observation that 69% of unmarried fathers in the Fragile Families study voluntarily acknowledge paternity around the time of a birth suggests that most unmarried fathers are not intending to shirk responsibility (Mincy, Garfinkel et al. 2005). But one cannot extrapolate from the Fragile Families sample to men who do not voluntarily acknowledge paternity? One requires observations of paternal behavior among this selected group of men.

Figure 1Enlarge this image

Figure 1. Conceptual framework. The selective shirking model predicts that men in group B1 will be those who wish to have out of wedlock children with little concern for child well-being and little desire to transfer resources to them unless compelled. The selective shirking model predicts there will be no difference between group B1 and group B2 in terms of relationship quality and paternal behavior prior to paternity establishment. Men in both B1 and B2 will have low levels of child contact and equally poor relationships with the child's mother.

The "genuine uncertainty" model predicts that men in group B will have high rates of child contact. And men in group B1 will have more child contact and better relationships with the mother than men in group B2. In this model, the reason men in group B1 are not acknowledging paternity is valid uncertainty.

Figure 1 lays out the conceptual framework and predictions in more detail and helps to focus our analysis on two sets of issues: 1) comparing the backgrounds of men who are confirmed vs. excluded as biological fathers by genetic testing; and 2) identifying the determinants of father-child contact among men who did not voluntarily acknowledge paternity. Our conceptual framework suggests the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1) Among men who have not voluntarily acknowledged paternity, there will be systematic differences between men whose genetic paternity is later confirmed and those whose genetic paternity is excluded by laboratory testing.

Hypothesis 2) Men who are later confirmed as genetic fathers will have no contact with their children prior to the test.

If we accept hypothesis 1 and 2 it would be consistent with the selective shirking explanation of non-marital paternity. Hypothesis 1 is based on the presumption that with there would be systematic differences would appear that would differentiate shirkers from men interested in fatherhood. Differences in educational attainment, income, and the relationships with women would be expected. Men with less income and education would be more likely to fall into the predicament of non-marital fatherhood and to shirk their responsibility by not voluntarily acknowledging paternity. Hypothesis 2 is implied only by the selective shirking theory's stipulation that men who father births outside of marriage are inherently disinterested in contact with their children. Thus the biological fathers, as confirmed by paternity, tests will have no contact with their children.

In contrast, with genuine paternity uncertainty, socioeconomic background variables will not be correlated with the outcomes of a paternity test. Furthermore, until the test results are back, men with genuine uncertainty of paternity would form a prior belief about the test that was intermediate between 0 and 100. On the basis of this belief, there could be some men who have contact with the children prior to the test results coming back.

The conceptual framework helps to guide selection of variables.

Which variables might predict whether paternity is confirmed genetically?

From the conceptual framework the genuine uncertainty theory predicts significantly higher rates of paternity establishment among men with three categories of features 1) a stronger relationship to the mother; 2) an indicated desire to be involved with the child; 3) an expression of bonding to the child. Plausible control variables would include the child's age and sex and the man's household income, all three of which are known to affect fathering (Carlson, McLanahan et al. 2005; Cheadle, Amato et al. 2010).

Which variables might confound tests for correlation between paternity and father-child contact?

If the selective shirking explanation is correct, we expect to observe negligible rates of child contact among men who have not voluntarily acknowledged paternity. Indeed under the selective shirking explanation men whose denial of paternity leads to a genetic test ought to have low rates of child contact whether or not they are later confirmed as biological fathers. Conducting an analysis to demonstrate that biological paternity had no effect on child contact would have to control for confounding factors that could plausibly correlate with both biological fatherhood and child contact. There is limited literature identifying variables that correlate with confirmation of biological paternity.

From prior literature on unmarried fathers, we expect four groups of variables to be potentially correlated to father-child contact (Carlson, McLanahan et al. 2005). These are relationship quality, attitudinal characteristics, child's characteristics, and father's human capital. To this list we add 4 other plausible determinants of contact: longer distance from the father's house, and indicators of father-child bonding including whether the man was present at the birth, says the child looks like him, and whether the child has the man's last name.

Method

Data

We obtained permission from the Maryland Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) to enroll research volunteers from OCSE facilities in Ann Arundel, Baltimore, Montgomery, and Prince George's County from October 24, 2003 until August 12, 2004. Legal guardians, mothers, and men were all eligible if older than 18 regardless of the participation status of the other party in their triad. Legal guardians can request child support in Maryland and were considered to have valid information on the amount of contact the children were having with the men being tested. All interviews were conducted on the day of the genetic test on the premises of the OCSE facilities. Test results were not known at the time of the interview. During the enrollment period, a total of 412 eligible individuals attended the four sites on days when our research staff was present. Our staff were able to invite 395 (96%) of these to participate in the study. The 30 minute survey was self-administered in English while participants were in the waiting room of the OCSE facilities. There were 17 who could not be offered enrollment prior to their departure because research staff was occupied with multiple ongoing interviews. Of the 395 invited participants, 250 (63%) agreed to participate and 245 (110 men and 135 women) completed the survey. There were 57 men and 57 women who participated in the survey and whose data could link them as couples, which implies that of the 245 responses there were only 188 in which only one member of a couple was surveyed and 57 in which both were surveyed.

Enrollment rates were 71% in Ann Arundel County, 70% in Baltimore County, 31% in Montgomery County, and 55% in Prince George's County. Enrollment rates by race/ethnicity were 63% among blacks, 28% of Hispanics, and 69% of whites. Low Hispanic enrollment may have been due to the requirement for English fluency. We also suspect, but have no confirmation, that some of the eligible Hispanic candidates who did not participate may have had misplaced concern that research participation would expose them to undesired attention by immigration authorities. Women (76%) were more likely to enroll than men (50%). This study was approved by the Johns Hopkins Committee on Human Research.

Measurement

Men received slightly different surveys than mothers and guardians. The different phrasing was so that mothers could answer about father's parenting behavior in third person and fathers could answer in first person. For father-child contact we asked, "During the last 30 days how many days have you [has the father] seen the child/ren?". For relationship quality we used as indicators: the number of years the man had known the partner, whether they were ever married, categorical indicators for why the relationship faltered (distance, drug problem, relationship reasons, money/other), and relationship intensity coded on a 1 through 5 scale based on a question that read: .

"Which of the following statements best describes your current relationship with the child (ren)' s mother? 1) We are romantically involved on a steady basis 2) We are involved in an on-again off-again relationship 3) We are just friends 4)We hardly ever talk to each other 5) We never talk to each other"

Indicators of parental involvement were statements in response to two questions, "Do you want to be involved in raising your child (ren) in the coming years?" with categorical responses "Yes", "No" or "Don't Know". and to a similar question "Does the child (ren)'s mother want you to be involved in raising your child in the coming years?" also coded categorically "Yes", "No" or "Don't Know". Finally there was a dichotomous question, "During the child (ren)'s mother's pregnancy, did you give her money to buy things?" We counted dichotomous responses for whether the man was present at the child's birth, whether the child looked like the man, and whether the child had the man's last name as expressions of bonding.

Table 1 presents the mean values of variables used in the analysis for the sample of men and the sample of women.

Table 1. Sample Characteristics: Percent Distributions.

All Men (N=110)

All Women (N=135) [1]

M

SD

Range

M

SD

Range

Paternity confirmed by genetic test

0.56

0.02

0-1

0.90

0.01

0-1

Putative father saw focal child in last 30 days

0.44

0.02

0-1

0.39

0.02

0-1

Putative paternal grandparents saw focal child in last 30 days

0.32

0.02

0-1

0.29

0.02

0-1

Focal child's age

Younger than 1 year

0.32

0.02

0-1

0.23

0.02

0-1

1 to 3 years

0.32

0.02

0-1

0.41

0.02

0-1

4 or older

0.36

0.02

0-1

0.36

0.02

0-1

Mean father's age (SD)

30.8

9.90

18-65

31.2

8.90

18-61

Mother has custody of child

0.87

0.01

0-1

0.91

0.01

0-1

Perceived odds of a positive match

50-50 or less

0.69

0.02

0-1

0.15

0.01

0-1

A pretty good chance

0.16

0.01

0-1

0.14

0.01

0-1

An almost certain chance

0.15

0.01

0-1

0.71

0.02

0-1

African American

0.67

0.02

0-1

0.62

0.02

0-1

Household income

Less than ,000

0.17

0.01

0-1

0.25

0.02

0-1

,000 to 29,999

0.29

0.02

0-1

0.22

0.01

0-1

, 000 or more

0.32

0.02

0-1

0.29

0.02

0-1

Do not Know

0.22

0.02

0-1

0.24

0.02

0-1

Education

High school diploma or more

0.89

0.01

0-1

0.82

0.01

0-1

Less than high school

0.11

0.01

0-1

0.18

0.01

0-1

Does putative father do anything to help mother?

Nothing

0.53

0.02

0-1

0.77

0.02

0-1

Something

0.47

0.02

0-1

0.23

0.02

0-1

Number of children

None

0.2

0.02

0-1

0

0.00

0-1

One

0.32

0.02

0-1

0.34

0.02

0-1

Two

0.25

0.02

0-1

0.31

0.02

0-1

Three or more

0.23

0.02

0-1

0.35

0.02

0-1

Mean mother's age (SD)

27.4

6.50

18-44

Only one sexual partner the month focal child was conceived

0.58

0.02

0-1

Relationship quality

Romantically involved and steady

0.8

0.02

0-1

On again, off again

0.12

0.01

0-1

Just friends

0.18

0.01

0-1

Hardly ever talk

0.25

0.02

0-1

Never talk

0.37

0.02

0-1

Table 1. Sample Characteristics: Percent Distributions.
Paternity confirmed by genetic test	0.56	0.02	0-1	0.90	0.01	0-1
Putative father saw focal child in last 30 days	0.44	0.02	0-1	0.39	0.02	0-1
Putative paternal grandparents saw focal child in last 30 days	0.32	0.02	0-1	0.29	0.02	0-1
Focal child's age
Younger than 1 year	0.32	0.02	0-1	0.23	0.02	0-1
1 to 3 years	0.32	0.02	0-1	0.41	0.02	0-1
4 or older	0.36	0.02	0-1	0.36	0.02	0-1
Mean father's age (SD)	30.8	9.90	18-65	31.2	8.90	18-61
Mother has custody of child	0.87	0.01	0-1	0.91	0.01	0-1
Perceived odds of a positive match
50-50 or less	0.69	0.02	0-1	0.15	0.01	0-1
A pretty good chance	0.16	0.01	0-1	0.14	0.01	0-1
An almost certain chance	0.15	0.01	0-1	0.71	0.02	0-1
African American	0.67	0.02	0-1	0.62	0.02	0-1
Household income
Less than ,000	0.17	0.01	0-1	0.25	0.02	0-1
,000 to 29,999	0.29	0.02	0-1	0.22	0.01	0-1
, 000 or more	0.32	0.02	0-1	0.29	0.02	0-1
Do not Know	0.22	0.02	0-1	0.24	0.02	0-1
Education
High school diploma or more	0.89	0.01	0-1	0.82	0.01	0-1
Less than high school	0.11	0.01	0-1	0.18	0.01	0-1
Does putative father do anything to help mother?
Nothing	0.53	0.02	0-1	0.77	0.02	0-1
Something	0.47	0.02	0-1	0.23	0.02	0-1

Number of children
None	0.2	0.02	0-1	0	0.00	0-1
One	0.32	0.02	0-1	0.34	0.02	0-1
Two	0.25	0.02	0-1	0.31	0.02	0-1
Three or more	0.23	0.02	0-1	0.35	0.02	0-1
Mean mother's age (SD)				27.4	6.50	18-44
Only one sexual partner the month focal child was conceived				0.58	0.02	0-1
Relationship quality
Romantically involved and steady	0.8	0.02	0-1
On again, off again	0.12	0.01	0-1
Just friends	0.18	0.01	0-1
Hardly ever talk	0.25	0.02	0-1
Never talk	0.37	0.02	0-1

[1] Missing responses led to the following final sample sizes for each variable by gender for men (m) and women (w): paternity 110 m, 135w; child's age 99 m, 132w; father's age 107m, 125w; custody 107m, 135w; perceived odds 110m, 133w; father sees, 108m, 133w, grandparent sees 108m, 130w; race 107m, 133w; income 108m, 130w; education 108m, 131w; father helps 108m, 126w; number of children 107m, 116w; mother's age 131w; sex partners 118w; relationship 106m.

The extent of missing responses is listed in the footnote to the table. Missing values were not imputed and so respondents with missing values are not included in our analyses. Genetic tests revealed that 56% of the sample of men and 90% of the partners of the sample of women were biological fathers of the child in the triad. This suggests a self-selection bias that led fewer biological fathers and more female partners of biological fathers to enroll into the study. Both mothers and men reported non-negligible amounts of child contact with 39-44% of men seeing the child within the last 30 days and 29-32% reporting paternal grandparent contact during the same period. These frequencies are expressed as ranges because of disagreement for the linked couples. The lower estimate corresponds to contact rates as reported by women only and the higher estimate reflects contact rates reported by men only. Prior to the test, the sample of men reported less confidence than women that the genetic test would confirm paternity with 69% of men reporting odds less than 50-50 and 71% of women reporting an almost certain chance. Only women were asked about sexual activity the month the child was conceived, and 58% reported only one partner. Given the divergence of the actual lab results between the male sample and the female sample, divergent anticipation of test results is partially to be expected. More of the female sample (77%) than the male sample (53%) reported that the man did nothing to help the mother. To check whether these divergences reflected biases in reporting, Table 2 shows responses by gender in the matched sample of 57 cases in which both the man and the woman were enrolled.

Table 2: Concordance between mother's and father's reports of variables for matched couples [1]

Men in Couples

Women in Couples

P-Value

Perceived Odds of a Positive Match

M

SD

Range

M

SD

Range

50-50 or less

0.66

0.03

0-1

0.2

0.02

0-1

<0.05

A pretty good chance

0.23

0.02

0-1

0.25

0.03

0-1

An almost certain chance

0.11

0.01

0-1

0.55

0.03

0-1

<0.01

Putative father saw focal child in last 30 days

0.54

0.03

0-1

0.57

0.03

0-1

Putative paternal grandparents saw focal child in last 30 days

0.36

0.03

0-1

0.34

0.03

0-1

Does putative father do anything to help mother?

Nothing

0.47

0.03

0-1

0.63

0.03

0-1

<0.05

Something

0.53

0.03

0-1

0.37

0.03

0-1

<0.05

[1] Missing responses led to the following sample sizes for each question in the sample of matched couples: perceived odds n=56 couples, fathers sees n=54, grandparent sees n=50, father helps n=51

Even in the couples sample, women were more likely than their linked partners to report an almost certain chance of paternity confirmation and less likely to report a 50-50 chance or less. Men and women showed good concordance in reporting rates of paternal contact with the child. They diverged in reporting whether the man does anything to help the mother with 63 % of women and 47% of men reporting doing anything to help the mother.

Analytic Approach

Our analysis proceeds in four steps. Because there is no prior literature identifying variables that predict biological paternity in disputed cases we first undertake exploratory tabulations to identify any relationships between background variables and the genetic confirmation of paternity. Each background variable is cross tabulated against the results of the paternity test and differences between the sample of cases where paternity is biologically confirmed and the sample where paternity is excluded are assessed using students t-tests for continuous variables and z-tests for dichotomous variables.

The second analytical step is a multivariate logistic regression of the odds that paternity is confirmed. We confined this analysis to only the sample of men because only the men were asked details of romantic and parenting intentions. Because cases where both the man and the woman enrolled in the study may exhibit selection bias we included a dummy variable to flag these cases. To minimize the effects of collinearity, we entered groups of variables suggested by past literature and our conceptual framework blockwise for multivariate analysis in the categories of 1) relationship quality, 2)attitudinal characteristics, 3)bonding, and 4)child variables. These headings are in Table 4 and 5, abbreviated respectively as "Rel Qual" "Attitude" "Bonding" and "Child". The regression analysis applied Huber-White standard errors, also known as "sandwich" estimators to adjust the standard errors for the non-independence of the 57 observations from linked couples. A dummy variable marking out observations that came from participants whose partner also participated was also included.

Third we used multivariate logistic regression to estimate odds ratios of predictors of whether the man had any contact with the child in the last 30 days. Each of these child contact regressions followed the same blockwise strategy as before. Because of the potential for collinearity among variables in any single theoretical group, theories are best assessed using the F-statistic testing joint significance for all variables in a group. Also, we estimated an atheoretical model identified by backward stepwise regression to achieve parsimony. This model is labeled "Stepwise" and included as the final column in Tables 4 and 5.

Results

Determinants of Paternity Establishment

Table 3 displays descriptive data tabulated by whether paternity was confirmed in the genetic test. The confirmation rate overall was 76% (=183/245), which is very similar to the 72% confirmation rate in a nationally representative sample (Bishai, Astone et al. 2006).

Table 3. Socio-Demographic Background by Later Paternity Confirmation Status

Paternity Excluded (N=62)

Paternity Confirmed (N=183)

P-Value

M

SD

Range

M

SD

Range

Father's Age

30.46

10.15

19-65

31.25

8.99

18-61

Father saw child last 30 days.

0.42

0.03

0-1

0.41

0.02

0-1

Pat. Grand parents saw child last 30 days.

0.32

0.03

0-1

0.30

0.02

0-1

Child resembles father

0.12

0.01

0-1

0.16

0.01

0-1

Child has father's last name

0.30

0.03

0-1

0.42

0.02

0-1

<0.05

Father at delivery

0.29

0.03

0-1

0.40

0.02

0-1

<0.05

Man's belief test will confirm paternity 1-5

3.12

0.1

1-5

3.08

1.29

1-5

Child is a boy

0.45

0.03

0-1

0.51

0.02

0-1

Child's age (years)

4.48

4.8

0.3-15

4.06

4.37

0.03-23

Fathers fertility (Children ever fathered)

1.32

1.24

0-5

1.9

1.37

0-5

<0.05

Odds of marrying mother (1-5)

1.49

1.14

1-5

1.42

0.91

1-5

Promised mother financial support

0.47

0.03

0-1

0.59

0.02

0-1

<0.05

Couples' relationship duration (yrs)

7.49

6.39

1-30

7.07

5.75

0-30

Both partners enrolled in study

0.73

0.03

0-1

0.37

0.02

0-1

<0.01

There were significant differences in other characteristics between biologically excluded and confirmed cases, including father's attendance at the delivery, father's fertility, promising financial support and having a child with the same last name. Respondents' subjective predictions of confirmation were weakly correlated with the test outcome, but only for women. Women who stated that there was "no chance" that the man would be confirmed as the father had a 70% paternity confirmation rate which was significantly different (p<0.01) from the 94% confirmation rate of all other women (Figure 2). What men predicted the test results would be had no correlation with paternity confirmation as is illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2Enlarge this image

Magnitude of Paternity Disruption

There were 230 men with non-missing reports of contact with the child. Of the 98 men who reported contact with the child in the last 30 days, 25 (25%) had their paternity excluded by the test and this was not statistically significantly different from the average for all men. There was evidence that many of the 25 men who would later have their paternity refuted had spent some quality time with the child. In 50% of these cases the men reported reading stories, playing, visiting relatives, or hugging the child. In 16% of the cases where paternity was refuted the man was co-residing with the mother and child. In this sample of 25 paternity exclusions where the man was in contact with the child, 37% of the children in these cases were above the age of 2. On the other hand, of the 132 men who reported no contact with the child in the last 30 days, 104 (79%) were later confirmed as biological fathers.

Determinants of Paternity Confirmation

Multivariate determinants of the rate of paternity confirmation are shown in Table 4.

Table 4Enlarge this image

The specification in the first column includes all 5 categories of variables simultaneously and is subject to sample size reduction due to missing variables. Subsequent columns of the table focus on more limited subsets of independent variables. Overall the table shows few systematic predictors of paternity confirmation. Paternity confirmation appears to have negligible correlation with the man's intention to be more involved with the woman. Men who stated that they did not know if the mother wanted them more involved with the child had lower odds of paternity confirmation than men who were certain that the mother wanted them involved. The F-test for the full model rejects the joint significance of the full set of predictor variables, but the F-test for the variables in the stepwise model in the final column is significant. As shown in Figure 2, men's reported predictions of the genetic test result had no correlation with their actual paternity confirmation.

Determinants of Child Contact

Results from multivariate analyses of men's contact with the child, reported in Table 5, show that the separate blocks of variables reflecting aspects of the romantic relationship, parental intentions towards the child, and the pre-existing bond were associated with the odds of contact between the men and the focal child. The final row of the table shows that being a father who would later be confirmed by a genetic test did not significantly predict contact with the child, although the association is positive. This variable also did not emerge as significant in the step wise regression. F-tests at the bottom of the table show that, considered jointly, attitudinal characteristics were significant determinants of contact as were relationship quality and indicators of father-child bonding.

Table 5Enlarge this image

The test that all variables in the full model were significant was rejected, but with only 72 complete observations and 19 degrees of freedom this test has low power. Promising the mother financial support and knowing that the mother wants involvement were two of the strongest predictors of father-child contact.

Discussion

Our overall paternity confirmation rate of 76% is similar to results obtained in a national sample of paternity tests in the U.S. which documented an overall 72% rate of confirmation of paternity which had almost no systematic variation with the age, race, and ethnic background of triad members(Bishai, Astone et al. 2006) . To our knowledge this is the very first study of parenting behavior among men immediately prior to the resolution of disputed paternity.

Unadjusted rates of baseline father-child contact were uncorrelated with the genetic test results (Table 3). Multivariate regression found no correlation between genetic paternity and contact with fathers (Table 5). The selective shirking explanation predicts that rates of child contact among men who did not acknowledge paternity would be negligible and no higher for men who were genetically confirmed as fathers. Our data show that 41-42% of men had had contact with the child in the last 30 days regardless of their genetic paternity. This rate of contact is not negligible, though it is substantially lower than the 75% observed for all unmarried men from the Fragile Families study (Carlson, McLanahan et al. 2005). Although men who do not voluntarily acknowledge paternity do not have as much contact with their children as the average unmarried father, their rates are higher than would be expected if they had no inclination towards the role of fatherhood. This picture does not look like shirking. It looks more like men who think they might be fathers but who are unsure.

Remarkably, men who are ultimately excluded as biological fathers are as likely as confirmed biological fathers to be in contact with the children alleged to be theirs prior to the genetic test. Part of the explanation lies in the true uncertainty that these men have about their biological paternity. The multivariate models of the predictors of paternity confirmation were poor and men's subjective rating of confidence in their paternity had no correlation with the actual test results.

There are important limitations in our analysis, in particular the small sample of respondents. Furthermore our evidence shows that men who enrolled when their partners did not were more likely to have their paternity disproven, and when women enrolled alone tests were more likely to confirm paternity. This selective enrollment occurred despite the joint presence of both members of the couple at the testing site and our practice of inviting both partners to participate in the survey on enrollment days. Readers should be careful about extrapolating the results of this analysis to the broader population of all families where men have not voluntarily acknowledged paternity.

Our results have important implications for the refinement of child-support policy. We found that roughly 25% of the non-resident men and their parents in our sample who were actively engaged with children would learn through genetic testing that they are not biologically related to the child. Whether these individuals sever their connections as a consequence of the genetic test information is still unknown. We found that 37% of the children in these cases are above the age of 2, so strong emotional bonds may have been established, raising the possibility of psychological harm. There have been no systematic evaluations of the impact of paternity disconfirmation on the children (or adults) who have formed a relationship with a man in a paternal role. On the other hand, there is a large contingent of previously uninvolved men who will receive child-support orders on the basis of the genetic tests. This will, in some states and in some cases, potentially improve the financial resources available for these children. It will certainly reduce the financial burden of supporting these children for the state. Future research will determine the impact of paternity confirmation on the parenting behavior of previously uninvolved men and paternal kin.

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Carlson 2005

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Content Type for Views:

Research Article

What do you Want: Counting the Cost

ekurylo — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 20:56:19 +0000

Contributors:

Stephen G. Kerr

Allyson Rameker

Monica Kak

Type of Written Content:

Research Article

Subject Area:

Children

Family

Parents

Abstract:

This paper grew out of the frustration a group of MBA students experienced.
They were seeking financial information to guide thier decision-making about
having a child. The paper reviews 20 articles found in popular parenting
publications in terms of financial content. Coverage appears superficial and
lacking in terms of decision-making content. A criterion for a reflective
approach to budgeting is suggested.

Generate Table of Contents?:

Yes

One of the most consequential moments in a couple's life together is their discourse about children. The arrival of a child is an irreversible commitment to a more complex and rewarding life. This is not always a step that is taken after rational analysis as there are so many emotional variables to consider. Even so, many serious couples will engage in an anxious search for information to help them cope with those uncertainties. How many children can they support? Who can they turn to for help with the emotional assessment? What considerations should be made before making a decision about child birth? These are private and sacred discourses that are enhanced by good information and guidance.

The concept of this paper arose from a discussion during an MBA class at the University of Nevada Reno in the summer of 2006. A group or about 20 students were reviewing how to select relevant techniques for financial analysis. MBA students focus on gaining a sound understanding of decisions in both the short and long run. It is always a challenge to capture the implications of a financial decision without over or under simplifying the situation. During break, a recently married student commented on the shortage of meaningful financial data upon which to assess the cost of having a child. The following situation was typical of several students' situation.

The Bakers have been married for a few years and are now ready to embark on the journey of parenthood. Their search for answers related to child care costs and related issues have frustrated them. The materials often contradict each other and seem based on assumptions that do not apply to them. As a result, they feel more confusion and have even more questions. In 1996, the Nevada economy was already experiencing the decline the entire country is now feeling. Economic uncertainty has caused tension between the Bakers. How can they commit to a child when they cannot sort out what the financial parameters are? It was evident from the discussion in class that these MBA students were experiencing frustration due to a lack of meaningful information. The positivist mind set of an MBA group led the group into a discussion seeking solutions.

This paper grew out of a desire to explore the extent of inadequate information problem these MBA were experiencing. The specific goal of the paper is to gain a deeper insight into the quality information found on newsstands. Do the popular media outlets that keen, expecting couples, might readily turn to for financial information provide what is needed to make thoughtful decisions? A recurring criticism of the MBA group was that the popular media contained information that was superfluous.

The group felt information in popular magazines was structured to sell more copies rather than make a meaningful difference in the reader's life. We live in a world where incredibly detailed information is made available, by law, to consumers of goods and investors in the stock market. It would seem evident that information about financial commitments associated with a child would be on a higher priority than those items!

As a group, MBA students are trained to be highly analytical. This can be a considerable difficulty when answering questions like "what is important for you and your family?" Nobody in the group knew someone who had made a decision to make a baby on an analytical basis. However, they all felt a need for more helpful information about how to process such a complex question. In order to explore this topic the study was structured into 2 distinct steps. The first step was to synthesize the discussion(s) about information needs into a testable set of information requirements. The second step was to consider the popular literature to see if the information deemed desirable was readily available. Obviously financial information is only one component of the decision-making process. The purpose then is to consider if the information in the popular press helps these readers with the question "what is important for them and their families?"

MEDIA CONTENT CRITERION:

The MBA's felt that the information in the popular media should be useful. In this context usefulness meant providing a framework that would help a couple organize their discussions. Usefulness would also mean that adequate financial information was provided so that the couple could understand the consequences of the child rearing decision. While it is not an economic decision, a couple will be better prepared if the full range of economic consequences were considered. The supposition was that such information would reduce the sense of uncertainly felt around this major decision. They determined that the framework, as a decision criterion, would emphasize the financial implications of their answers to the question regarding what is important when raising a child.

A criterion was developed with reference to the analysis normally taught in MBA courses in the process of evaluating major commitments and investments. A check list of things that might be good to consider while processing the deep feeling about bringing a baby into the world emerged. The process resulted in 5 criterions. Consideration of each criterion would deepen a couple's understanding of the decision and thereby improve their sense of satisfaction the decision they made as a couple.

Our first criterion is Lifestyle Choices. We would examine each article to see if the concept of personal choice and responsibility was emphasized. A child changes ones flexibility towards career and friends. The early years are also capital intensive. Does the article connect the dots for the reader that hard decisions have to be made-married with children is not the same as married and childless? One must also consider the opportunities that they will make available for their children. For example, will "junior" learn to speak four languages and play three instruments before the age of ten or will he come home from school only to watch re-runs of Petticoat Junction and eat Twinkies? The range of choice is considerable and the financial affect will reflect that range of choice. Some outcomes are outside of a couple's control. It is natural to assume a "perfect" child will arrive. The probability of "perfect" child with special needs may be low but this demanding outcome must be considered.

The second criterion is the presentation of the effect child could have on Foregone Earnings. Historically this would mean the effect of lost wages when the mother stops work to be home full-time with the child(ren). Current data estimates this costs almost one million dollars if the mother does not go back to work (Longman). If she does go back to work, studies show that on average she will earn 37.4% less than a woman who has not had children (Gray and Chapman). An alternative effect is the shared cost of lost promotion. In some skilled intellectual professions a shared commitment will mean a shared cost. Failure to evaluate this cost is a source of potential stress in a marriage when the loss becomes real. The absence of forethought is not fair to anyone involved. We found there is a glaring lack of information about the career cost to stay at home fathers.

Our third criterion is the presentation of the range of Child Care options and associated costs. Through choice or necessity some degree of child care is needed. The social and economic impact of who spends the most time with a child(ren) becomes important. A cheap choice may not represent the environment mom and dad expect. Evaluating the trade-offs is not easy but it can be even harder to gain knowledge concerning the full range of options. A good article would inform the reader of the range of options available and how to discover the local costs of each alternative. It would be naïve to think that this information would not weigh heavily on some couple's minds during the decision making process.

A couples preferences for life style, career, and child care must all come together in a workable cash flow budget. Our fourth criteria is, therefore the quality of information presented regarding long term Cash Flow Budgeting. Corporations have elaborate systems for cash flow planning. Budget season is often full of creative conflict necessary to explore a balance between competing priorities. Most couples would not have knowledge of these processes. An understanding of these processes will increase the chances of meaningful discussion. Lacking the empowerment of a process a couple's relationship could be weakened by competitive advocating by one for a particular choice. Successful cash flow budgeting over the eighteen or so years of a child's dependency will require a dynamic process grounded in good communication and thorough budgeting skills.

The fifth criterion is presentation of Incremental Costing. Only some costs are additive. For example a second child will add the same amount to a food budget as the first did. In some cases there are no additional costs. For example, 2 children might be able to watch the same television. When a couple adds a child they go from one relationship in the family to 3. A second child increases the number of relationships to 6. Some costs grow exponentially in the same way. Transportation costs will often behave in this manner. An article should make a couple aware of these cost dynamics. This information will help a couple work through decisions about subsequent children. For most, the group felt, that simple multiplication would result in a flawed basis for discussion.

RESEARCH FINDINGS ABOUT MEDIA CONTENT:

Two searches were done to locate "popular" media continuing this information. The first was a visit to a large grocery chain in August 2006 to locate magazines with articles related to the cost of raising a child. The second was a Google search for information relating to cost of children. This process revealed the need for a more explicit definition of "popular media!" Regardless, the 20 items cover a broad cross section of information a couple might reasonably come across when considering the financial impact of their decision about bringing a child into their lives.

Table A contains a summary of the 20 articles included in this study. The content of each article was analyzed carefully and coded wherever material related to one of our financial criteria's explained above. When the notation process for an article was complete a summary of the content for each criterion was prepared and then tabulated onto a grid. We were then able to explore the overall coverage of specific criteria's by reading down the table. The following findings were made for each criterion as a result of this process.

TABLE A: LITERATURE SUMMARY

	Criteria's
Article Name	Lifestyle Choices	Foregone Earnings	Childcare	Budgeting Concerns	Incremental Costing
Alhabeeb	3	1	1	1	2
BabyCenter	1	1	1	1	1
Bauer and Rettig	1	1	2	1	2
California	2	1	5	5	1
Consumer Reports	2	1	2	4	2
Dunleavey	1	1	4	3	1
Gray and Chapman	2	4	2	1	3
Lino, 2003	1	1	2	1	3
Lino, 2006	1	1	2	1	1
Longman	3	3	2	1	1
Maine Today	1	1	2	1	1
Michigan Courts	1	1	1	1	2
MSN Money	1	1	2	1	1
National Child Care Information Center	1	1	2	1	2
Parenting	2	1	1	4	1
Petote	3	3	1	1	1
PNC Bank	2	1	1	1	1
Reynolds	1	1	1	2	1
Schrader	1	2	2	1	1
Schultheis and Webster	1	1	1	1	1
University of Arkansas	1	1	1	3	1
USDA	2	2	2	1	3
Weaver	2	1	2	1	1

Criteria One: Lifestyle Choices

While some articles offer some form of disclaimer that their numbers do not include any sort of lifestyle expenses (soccer camp, piano lessons, etc), many do not make it clear to the reader that the total cost they are offering is a "naked" number (Longman, 1998). Anything above that would be considered necessities (food, clothing, childcare, housing, etc) to most readers and would increase the cost of raising children for them. The Consumer Report's article sums up the level of analysis that is offered by explaining that "you can spend as much money as you wish bringing up a baby-a stroller can cost $2,800 or $28." Longman stated, "there's plenty we haven't counted: soccer camp, cello lessons, SAT prep., and other extra-cost options." (1998)

Criteria Two: Foregone Earnings

For the most part, foregone earnings were not mentioned. A few articles mentioned that their numbers do not include any indirect costs (such as foregone earnings). This is quite astonishing as the opportunity cost of one parent staying home is ever increasing with more women joining the workforce and climbing up the corporate ladder. According to Longman, foregone earnings could add $996, 567 to the total cost of having a child, which doubles the total cost (1998). Foregone earnings should be carefully considered when trying to determine how to weigh the costs and benefits of having children. Gray and Chapman found that having one child reduces a women's earning potential by 37.4% compared to a working woman who does not have any children (2001).

Criteria Three: Child Care Costs

Most articles mentioned child care as a child rearing expense. Child care was estimated anywhere from 7 to 12% of total child rearing costs (Weaver, 1999). In the California Budget Project, child care was actually rated as the second biggest expense, behind housing, when raising a child (2003). In fact, Gary and Chapman stated that women with children are more likely to go back to work now because childcare is more common now (2001). However, in most studies child care was not given priority over other child rearing costs, such as, food costs (Lino, 1998).

Criteria Four: Long Term Budgeting

A few articles give the prospective parents different ideas (some humorous) on how to save money when raising children. The article that gave prospective parents the best information regarding budgeting concerns was the California Budget Project paper (2003). This paper gave parents a rough idea of what parents of different income levels could afford to provide for their children. The University of Arkansas paper provides a budget for newborns that includes items, such as, strollers, highchairs and diapers (2006). Overall, the attention to budgeting concerns was very weak.

Criteria Five: Incremental Costing

Less than half of the articles touched on incremental costing-while your first child is most expensive, subsequent children will cost less. The number of children decreases the cost per child as things such as housing and transportation can be shared (Alhabeeb, 1995). The National Child Care Information Center states the obvious - if childcare is expensive for one child, it costs twice as much with two children (2006). The Consumer Reports article estimates that the second child costs only 20% less than the first child (2005).

DISCUSSION ABOUT THE FINDINGS:

The abundant supply of articles in the popular press is evidence of the public demand for financial information. Our findings indicate the supply of primary research that popular media writers are drawing upon for their manuscripts is surprisingly limited. A commonly cited source is the USDA. The Family Economics Research Group of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has provided estimates on the cost of raising a child for several decades now. Estimated costs are based on a family with two children on a per-child basis (Dual-Parent & Single-Parent families). The data comes from the 1990 - 92 Consumer Expenditure Survey (Interview Portion) conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor (USDA, 2007).

The most recent figures have been updated to 2007 dollars using the Consumer Price Index. Families with more than two children that use the USDA estimates to calculate costs are instructed to multiply total expenses for each appropriate age category by 0.77 for each child. Further, the USDA has also created its own baby calculator to assist families in calculating the annual cost of raising a child. It allows families to compare their overall annual estimated costs with National costs. The USDA baby calculator allows families to calculate costs based on information provided on number & age of children, income levels and region. Costs are provided on basic necessities, such as, food, housing, clothing, health care, transportation etc. Each year, the USDA publishes an annual report estimating expenditures on children by families (USDA, 2007).

A deep concern we have with the information provided in the USDA reports is the basis of their preparation. The USDA figures on various child-related expenses were developed for a macro-economic purpose. Applying macro-economic data to individual circumstances is confusing and potentially misleading. As a child ages these issues magnify. The existing data does not estimate costs when a child legally becomes an adult at age 18. Further, no figures are provided on costs related to a child's college education and there are no cost estimates if the child becomes a dependent at home after the age of 18. Finally, each year, the USDA updates the initial 1990 - 92 survey data to the relevant year dollars by using the Consumer Price Index. The CPI does not reflect the specific cost adjustments that exceed general information that apply to many items a parent would be considering, such as health and education. All of these factors limit the usefulness of the data and introduce the possibility of serious decision-making errors.

In the context of this discussion we note that there are a very narrow range of ideas that are presented in the popular literature. The rich possibilities for discussion around each criterion are rarely suggested. Our findings point to the following narrow field of discussion in terms of the criterion.

Criteria One: Lifestyle Choices

While 60% of the articles suggested that future parents should think about what type of youth experience they will encourage for their kids, none of the articles gave readers a tool that they could use to analyze how these choices could affect the total cost of a child (Table A, Appendix).

Criteria Two: Foregone Earnings

25% of the articles that discussed foregone earnings reveal a superficial consideration. Career progression is impacted and should be strategically considered to avoid one or both parents from feeling resentful down the years. There are also several dimensions to the cost. Research shows that a mother that has one child will make 37.4% less (Gary and Chapman, 2001). This affects the intrinsic cost of a child. Also, it doesn't increase the cash outlay a child demands, rather it decreases the amount of money a family can bring in. Since this cost can be directly attributed to the act of having a child, it should be considered by potential parents. Surprisingly, most articles did not mention this as a cost. Also, we found no articles with information about the salary cost associated with stay at home fathers. There are some novelty stories about the increasing incidence of this but no substantial facts. Perhaps this is a reflection of our method-literature available in a major grocery store.

Criteria Three: Child Care Costs

The USDA survey, of which many of the articles in our sample pull their information from, states that their childcare costs are dramatically underestimated because 50% of families reported no childcare costs (USDA, 2005). The articles that base their costs on the USDA survey do not point this out to the reader. This means that many of the articles underestimate the cost of childcare (should the family need it) by as much as half. A recent nationwide survey of day care costs published by the Children's Defense Fund found that childcare can easily run up to $4,000 per year (Dunleavy, 2005). This could be a major cost to a family that needs child care.

Criteria Four: Long Term Budgeting

A meager 40% of the papers gave their audience any consideration on how costs will shift over time. A discussion of financial shifts from preschool to elementary to high school to college is imperative. However, the articles did not provide potential parents with any data on these shifts in cost or offer any tools for their consideration (Table A, Appendix).

Criteria Five: Incremental Costing

Incremental costing is crucial to the child rearing decision. The second child does not cost as much as the first child because items such as housing and transportation can be shared. However, 65% of the articles did not mention incremental costing (Table A, Appendix). This would leave the reader to infer that each child would cost the same.

BABY CALCULATORS-AN INTERNET DEVELOPMENT

Many of the popular parental outlets are supporting parents with web-enhanced tools. One such tool is a "baby calculator." This software prompts parents through a limited number of questions and then they display suggested financial costs. The resulting figures are a direct reflection of how much a parent is willing to spend on each aspect of a child's life (academic, sports, arts, entertainment etc.) A range of costs are associated with each category that can be selected or entered fluctuates in response to the indicated income levels, standard of living, cultural, and region (BabyCenter, 2009). In other words, a couple or parent that is making a six-figure salary annually in one part of the world is more than willing to spend more money each month on basic amenities vs. a couple or parent that is making half that money each year in another part of the world.

The baby calculator is deterministic. The variability of estimates it gives reflects a big picture that accommodates many different situations. It is not really much use to state that a family with more income will spend more on childcare. Most families already know this and a "calculator" is not really going to change this reality. It might however, fool potential parents into a false sense of budget security. At the heart of the problem is the USDA research paradigm. Future parents would be aided by a more reflective approach that is imbedded in our criteria. Such an approach would cause parents to reflect on key decisions regarding their child in advance with knowledge of the cost consequences. Parents do need to consider the experience they would like to give their children in the long run. A more reflective process would assure parents they are not forgetting something important. Guidance is more valuable than a general cost number that fits everyone in a particular economic category and applies specifically to no one.

CONCLUSIONS: WHAT IS IMPORTANT?

There are several ways popular literature may have utility and help a couple. First, it might prompt them to consider cost items and options that did not initially occur to them. A secondary benefit is the resources or processes it points them too. Each case will enrich their discussion about having a child as they gain a fuller understanding of the choices, with financial consequences, they will subsequently have to process. Many of the decisions are laden with assumptions as therefore maybe a source of conflict if a couple has not processed them in advance. We presume a couple would benefit whenever a new concrete insight is derived from reading an article. It all helps address the question what is important for me and my family?

We found that the financial commentary provided in the popular press we reviewed is superfluous. Consider, by analogy, the information available to car buyers. A typical automotive magazine will highlight many aspect of owning each specific car model. They detail the purchase cost, performance consideration, long-term service costs, and the secondary market. Our findings indicate that far less information is available in the parenting literature. We are proposing that the shallow nature of the literature can be eliminated if articles focused on a criterion the helps couples process their feelings in the decision making process by increasing the number of considerations taken into account.

The irony of this situation is that we live in a world were incredibly detailed information is made available by law to consumers and investors. Why then, is this same level of information not encouraged to those considering the life changing decision of having a child? If this type of information was available, would potential parents be able to make better decisions in regards to how many children they can "afford"? Regardless of income we found a dreadful tendency to under estimate the commitment involved.

Deciding to make a child is a serious undertaking. We do not doubt that many couples take the matter very seriously. The popularity of parenting magazines is most likely a reflection of the desire these couple have for information. We do not think it would be hard for respected scholars to make more meaningful resources available. There is glaring need to close the gap that has opened up between macro-economic resources and the needs of young people facing a serious decision. Finances are probability not the first rational for having a child but the financial considerations reflect the depth of discussion that has been undertaken-in other words, the financial decisions will reveal what is important.

Our work suggests that more research is needed. A detailed ethnographic study of a number of young couples would result in a deeper exploration of an effective criterion. A survey of family practice physicians might also strengthen this understanding. Men need some real case studies or other substantive data to demystify the impact of staying home on their careers. The USDA survey is geared to public policy makers. We are convinced there is a need and opportunity to create a new base of data that is suited to the decision-support young couple's need.

Related Resources:

Kerr's recent publications include:

Petravick S. Kerr SG (2009) Protect Your DataAlways and Everywhere,
Journal of Accountancy. New York: June 2009. Vol.2 207, Issue 6, Pages 33-34

Kerr SG, (2008) Service Science and Accounting, Journal of Service Science.
December 2008, Volume 1, Number 2, Pages 17-26

Kerr SG, (2008) Responsible Accounting for St. Joachim¹s, Journal of
Business Case Studies. November 2008, Volume 4, Number 11, Pages 35-47

Kerr SG, (2008) Preparing for Carbon Credits, Management. November 2008,
Volume 82, Number 7, Pages 37-39

Kerr SG, (2008) Accounting Policy and Carbon Credits, Journal of Applied
Business Research. August 2008, Volume 8, Number 8, Pages 77-88

References:

Alhabeeb 1995

Alhabeeb, M.J. "Parental Expenditures on Children and Household Expenditures." Family Economics and Resource Management Biennial (1995): 69-70.

Bauer Minnesota

Bauer, Jean W. "The Cost of Raising Children." University of Minnesota. Aug 2 2006 <http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/businessmanagement/DF5899.html....

Consumer 2005

"Bringing up Baby on a Budget." Consumer Reports. June 2005. ConsumerReports.org. Aug 2 2006 <http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/babies-kids/the-cost-of-raising-a-bab....

Child Calculator

"Cost of Raising a Child Calculator ." Baby Center. Aug 2 2006 <http://www.babycenter.com/costofchild/>.

Child Care 2006

"Cost of Child Care in the United States." May 2006. National Child Care Information Center. Aug 2 2006 <http://www.nccic.org/poptopics/averagecost.html>.

Dunleavey Child Care Costs

Dunleavey, MP. "7 ways to Combat Crazy Child-Care Costs." Uncommon Sense. MSN Money. Aug 2 2006 <http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/CollegeAndFamily/RaiseKids/7waysToC....

Expenditures 2005

"Expenditures on Children by Families, 2005" United States Department of Agriculture Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion Number 1528-2005(2005): 1-32.

Gracian 1994

Gracian, R.R., Mack. "Saving for Baby." Black Enterprise: MoneyWise Vol. 25(1994):

Gray 2001

Gray, Matthew and Bruce Chapman. "Foregone Earnings from Child Rearing." Australian Institute of Family Studies Autumn 2001 1-6. July 31 2006

Budget PNC Bank

"How much will it cost to raise a child?" PNC Bank. Aug 2 2006 <http://partners.financenter.com/pncbank/calculate/us-eng/budget07.fcs>.

Issue 10

Issue 10. "The Cost Of Having Children: If Children Are Part Of Your Plans." Money and Marriage. University of Arkansas. Aug 2 2006 <http://www.arfamilies.org/news/Money_and_Marriage/Issue10_Children.htm>.

Lino 1998

Lino, Mark. "Do Child Support Awards Cover the Cost of Raising Children?"

Family Economics and Nutrition Review Winter 1998. 31 July 2006 <http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EUB/is_1998_Wntr/ai_53408455....

Longman 1998

Longman, Phillip J. "The Cost of Children" S. News & World Report Vol. 124(1998)

California Budget 2003

"Making Ends Meet. How Much Does it Cost to Raise a Family in California?" California Budget Project (October 2003): 1-34.

Michigan Courts

Michigan Courts. "New Economic Data on Child-Rearing Expenditures." 1-24.

31 July 2006 <http://courts.michigan.gov/SCAO/services/focb/formula/psi-ch2.pdf#search...'new%20economic%20data%20child%20rearing'>.

Petote Parenting

Petote, Carmen . "Lifestyle Q & A Forum." iParenting.com. Pregnancy Today. Aug 2 2006 <http://pregnancytoday.com/lifestyle/answers/fp-costraisechild.htm>.

Schrader Child Cost

Schrader, Lucy. "What Does It Cost to Raise a Child?" University of Missouri-Extension. Aug 2 2006 <http://missourifamilies.org/features/financearticles/raisechild.htm>

MSN Cost of Children

"The Cost of Raising Children" MSN Money. Aug 2 2006 <http://moneycentral.msn.com/articles/family/kids/tlkidscost.asp>.

Parenting 2005

"The Get-Real Money Guide" Parenting. November 2005. BabyTalk Mom-To-Be Magazine. Aug 2 2006 <http://www.parenting.com/parenting/pregnancy/article/0,19840,1130522,00.....

Maine Today 2005

"The Cost of Having a Child" June 3 2005. Maine Today. Aug 2 2006 <http://business.mainetoday.com/financialsense/001736.shtml>.

Suburban Library 1998

"The Cost of Raising a Child" August 1998. Suburban Library System Reference Service. Aug 2 2006 <http://www.sls.lib.il.us/reference/por/features/98/child.html>.

Weaver 1999

Weaver, Marsha K. "The Cost of Raising a Child" September 13 1999. Kansas State University. Aug 2 2006. <http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/dickinson/FACS/Archive/sept13.htm>.

Zinn 2003

Zinn, Christopher. "Doctor Who Botched Sterilization has to Pay Cost of Raising Child" Volume 32726 July 2003. July 30 2006 <http://www.bmj.com>.

Expenditures 2007

"Expenditures on Children by Families, 2007" United States Department of Agriculture Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion Number 1528-2007 (2007): 1-24

MSN 2009

"The Cost of Raising Children" 2009. MSN Money Central. http://moneycentral.msn.com/articles/family/kids/tlkidscost.asp

BabyCenter 2009

"Cost of Raising Your Child" 2009. BabyCenter. http://www.babycenter.com/cost-of-raising-child-calculator

Content Type for Views:

Research Article

Call for Submissions on Oil Spill in Gulf

ekurylo — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 03:24:54 +0000

Call for Submissions on Oil Spill in Gulf

How has BP spill affected your family?

New, online, peer-reviewed journal seeks submissions on any aspect of family life, especially how families have been affected by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The Journal of Family Life, created by the Emory Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life (MARIAL) is multimedia and interdisciplinary.

Submission guidelines at www.journaloffamilylife.org
We accept research papers, photo essays, essays, poetry, music, video and short films.
We seek submissions from all disciplines including psychology, sociology, family studies, religious studies, theology, anthropology, literature, cultural studies, history, women's studies, political science, philosophy, media studies, the arts, journalism, and the sciences.
Journal of Family Life is open access and free of charge.
The journal is aimed at scholars, practitioners, students, journalists, and the general public. Send questions to laneybrooks@mindspring.com or psymd@emory.edu.

Book Review: The New Normal

ekurylo — Mon, 03 May 2010 21:29:45 +0000

Subtitle:

Money, Community and Family Values

Contributors:

Jennifer Thompson

Type of Written Content:

Essay/Commentary

Subject Area:

Career

Children

Family

Father

Home

Identity

Memory

Narratives

Parents

Religion

Abstract:

This is a review of two recent books:

Jim Wallis, Rediscovering Values On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street: A Moral Compass for the New Economy. New York: Howard Books, 2010.

Kevin Salwen and Hannah Salwen. The Power of Half: One Family's Decision to Stop Taking and Start Giving Back. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010.

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Book Review

Two recent books use the idea of "the new normal" to explore how families' lives can be transformed when they think deeply about their choices as consumers. In The Power of Half: One Family's Decision to Stop Taking and Start Giving Back, father-daughter team Kevin and Hannah Salwen chronicle the story of their family's decision to shift their focus away from an achievement- and accumulation-focused lifestyle. By focusing instead on their connections to each other as a family and what they can do to help others, their worldview substantially changed. Jim Wallis's Rediscovering Values On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street: A Moral Compass for the New Economy takes a broader view, using the occasion of the Great Recession to argue for a new understanding of the relationship between morality and the economy. This "new normal," Wallis says, can help us become more compassionate and healthy individuals, families, communities, and nations. While at first glance these two books don't seem to be in the same genre, they actually deeply resonate with each other.

Rediscovering ValuesEnlarge this image

Wallis and the Salwens share little in common at the outset. Wallis, an evangelical Christian theologian who runs Sojourners, a magazine focused on social justice, uses a prophet's voice to call readers to introspection and discernment of ultimate values. Wallis indicts the vast systems in which we all live that threaten the well-being of individuals and communities alike by stacking the deck against the poor, poisoning the environment, and deadening family and civic relationships with meaningless consumerism, narcissism, and unreasonable work demands. Kevin Salwen, the author of most of The Power of Half, enjoyed a successful career working for the Wall Street Journal for nearly two decades. Salwen suggests that his readers would be familiar with the acquisitive lifestyle he comes to reject. "It would have been difficult to differentiate us from other families. Two parents, two kids, nice house, dog. ... Like others we knew, we bought most things we wanted." He recalls the years when he focused on buying ever-nicer things and ever-larger houses until his family came to live in a mansion with its own elevator. The family gave to charity and performed volunteer work, but its stance toward its possessions was to continue acquiring "better, nicer, more," as Salwen puts it.Power of Half book jacketEnlarge this image

The acquisitive lifestyle that the Salwens ultimately come to reject is the same one that concerns Wallis because it encourages greed and competition rather than concern for the common good. "Normal-people greed," as Wallis puts it, is of the same ilk as the competitive, status-seeking consumption of billionaires who own 300-foot yachts. "Without a clear sense of self, a strong identity, and a community of purpose, it seems our default mode is to identify ourselves by the things we own," Wallis writes. "We try to convince ourselves and signal to others who we are almost solely by the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the restaurants we eat at, and the houses we own." The central theme of the Salwens' book is that they decided to change their acquisitive lifestyle. As Kevin Salwen tells it, he was driving with his daughter Hannah one day when they saw a homeless man asking for money. Hannah noticed another driver in an expensive car, and realized that "if that man...had a less nice car, ... [the homeless] man there...could have a meal." Kevin responded, "if we had a less nice car, he could have a meal." The Salwen family decided that they had more than they really needed to live on, so they would scale back their lifestyle and give $800,000 to charity. Individually and together as a family, they pondered whether they really felt able to make such a drastic change. Once they agreed that they would, they debated together what values would govern how they disbursed the money and to whom. They ruled out some potential recipients based on personal preferences, as when Kevin's wife, Joan, says, "Yuck. I have no interest in going to India. I don't think we can handle those slums in Calcutta." Others they analyzed according to idiosyncratic categories: a list of issues that the family generated "was divided into two sets of problems, broadly split into 'Poor People's Issues' and 'Everybody's Issues.' In the first category [Joan] listed such ills as hunger, homelessness, lack of clothing, inability to read or write, lack of job skills.... 'Everybody's Issues' ... [ranged] from drunk driving to smoking to cancer to racism to the environment."

Kevin Salwen seems primarily interested in telling his family's story and pointing out that as they discussed their values and took action together to live them out, the family grew closer. Unfortunately, his central point about the family's deepening closeness sometimes gets buried by the storytelling and his avoidance of a deeper level of analysis. For example, he says early in the book that children understand acts of chesed, a Jewish value that Salwen defines as "good deeds done without cause," more than tzedakah, the Jewish value of "financial charity." But he does not spend a lot of time dwelling upon why that might be the case, and more reflection on that in the context of his family's unique experiences would be edifying.

Rediscovering Values helps to fill in the analysis missing from The Power of Half. "Parenting is a countercultural activity," Wallis says, arguing that our morally bankrupt economic system hurts family life. Linking the broad social and economic context directly to individual and familial experience, he describes how American economic and public policies dedicate few resources to the needs of parents and children, and suggests that as we recover from the Great Recession, we revise our ideas about what constitutes success in our lives. For example, in order to enjoy a deeper connection with his family, Wallis describes his careful protection of his time with his children and wife. His two young sons, Wallis writes, "have become a spiritual anchor for me.... I began to build my speaking and traveling schedule around things like Little League baseball, or even just putting them to bed at night-which I now do most nights. After a while, I realized I wasn't just doing this for them-but also for me.... [B]eing a dad to Luke and Jack, I now have a new phrase: 'A calendar is a moral document.' ... [A] budget tells you what and who are most important to a family, church, city, state, or nation. And that's certainly also true about a calendar. It tells us who or what is most important to us."

When the Salwens encounter the homeless man on the street corner in Atlanta, they present the situation as something of a zero sum: we need to accept having less so that others can have more. Wallis also wants to ensure the well-being of people all over the world, but he presents it differently: if we share and care about one another, he says, there is always enough to go around. The reason for this, he suggests, is that if we focus on values and relationship that matter deeply, rather than consumption, then having a less fancy car or house or stereo really doesn't matter and we can be content with what we have. And instead of "keeping up with the Joneses," Wallis writes, in the "new normal" we should instead make sure the Joneses are okay.

References:

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Content Type for Views:

Essay/Commentary

A Christening Gown for My Son

ekurylo — Mon, 03 May 2010 19:15:08 +0000

Contributors:

Jocelyn E. Sirkis

Type of Written Content:

Essay/Commentary

Subject Area:

Children

Family

Home

Identity

Memory

Mother

Parents

Teen

Abstract:

This essay recounts the moment the author showed her teenage son the christening gown she created for him in his infancy.The gown's hem is embellished with hand-embroidered lettering reflective of her idealized, early wishes for her newborn. Mothers often have high hopes for their children and often want to imbue upon them the traits that they hold most dear. But children are their own people - not an extension of their mothers - and often, for better or worse, come into their own identity.

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Essay

I designed and created the elaborate, five-foot long gown fourteen years ago when my son was nothing more than a sweet, round-faced newborn. I remember working on it late at night in the dark hours I had between household chores, diaper changes and 2 a.m. feedings. Some of the work was done by machine, but the important part was crafted entirely by hand.

The gownEnlarge this imageAlong the bottom hem, I hand-embroidered six words in pale blue thread, each one a "virtue" that I imagined the gown bestowing upon him: HOPE, FAITH, COMPASSION, WISDOM, HUMILITY and KINDNESS. These six nouns were, at the time, my best hopes for my young son. For all the labor it took to create, the gown was worn just once then wrapped, boxed and stored carefully away.

I had no intention of taking it out again until the time came when some (as yet unknown) daughter-in-law would undoubtedly want it for the christening of some (yet unknown) grandchild. That plan was interrupted when I received an email from the college I work for inviting employees to enter an item in a "Faculty and Staff Art Exhibit." I don't have "traditional" artistic talent, but since textiles were welcomed, I figured I'd show the dress. Besides, my son was now a full-fledged teenager; I thought that seeing the gown would awaken him to the great love I have held for him since birth. So together we took the boxed dress down from the top shelf of my bedroom closet.

With more than a small flourish, I opened the lid, pulled away the blue acid-free tissue paper and demonstratively lifted the lace gown up high in front of me. My fingers pinched the shoulders of the lace bodice as I cast my eyes around one side so that I wouldn't miss seeing his response.

He folded his arms across his chest. His eyes glanced up and down before fixing on the band of embroidered words. He stood still for at least ten long seconds in total silence.

Finally, he let out a loud, awful sounding guffaw followed by a chortle. I turned the gown towards me, cast my eyes down to the hem, opened my mouth and said nothing. He shook his head and continued to laugh with a mixture of incredulousness and pity. No words between us were necessary. We both understood completely. The gown was indeed beautifully embroidered but the words no longer made sense. The attributes described the son I wanted to have but not the son I got.

To his credit, the young man standing before me is intelligent, determined and hard working. He is also highly egotistical and blatantly callous towards the suffering of others. This is not because he was raised this way; it is because he is this way and my influence hasn't had the sway I expected.

In fifth grade he began reading the objectivist works of Ayn Rand and took her message (selfishness is OK!) to heart. By thirteen he became known as the lothario of the local junior high school, breaking innocent little hearts and making them cynical about love. He's the kind of kid who'll sit down for a game of checkers with a preschooler and play to win, especially if there's money involved.

My son pounds his chest and speaks with a sardonic, biting wit. He walks around with a gummy smile and a firm handshake as though he were perpetually campaigning for office. He has the Superintendent of Schools on speed-dial. Spending time with him is maddening - like being stuck in a broken elevator with Donald Trump and Eddie Haskell.

So when his laughter started to ease, he pointed to the hem of the gown and asked: "If you had to do it all over again today, what six words would you sew on there now?"

I thought for a few seconds, then stretched my hand across one side of my pained face and slowly spoke: "RUTHLESS... FLAMBOYANT... AMBITIOUS... RELENTLESS... SLICK... and... DELUSIONAL.

But," I added with resignation, "that wouldn't make for a very nice christening gown, now would it?"

"Delusional?" he repeated, obviously taking exception to this one word. "You're calling me delusional? Let me remind you that you were the one who thought she had given birth to Gandhi!"

References:

n/a

Content Type for Views:

Essay/Commentary

466 McMicken

ekurylo — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 19:45:26 +0000

Contributors:

Leigh Wells

Subject Areas:

Children

Death

Family

Home

Identity

Memory

Narratives

Parents

Relatives

Resilience

Overview:

This photo essay is assembled from a body of work entitled 466 McMicken. Walking down McMicken, just north of Over-the-Rhine Cincinnati, I saw a family out on their porch, grilling hot dogs and playing cards. I introduced myself, and Woody, the head of the family, said I could come and photograph his family anytime I wanted.

I visited 466 McMicken, a property that had been condemned, off and on for a year. The house expanded and contracted when it needed to. Cousins, aunts, grandchildren and occasionally an ex-wife called the place their home. However many people were there, the grandbaby was always the focal point. It was great meeting them just after the riots of 2001, which tore the neighborhood apart.

Depending on whom you ask, more than a dozen African American men died at the hands of Cincinnati police. The death of Timothy Thomas was the beginning of the riots in April 2001. In 2002, especially around the anniversary of Timothy's death, you could feel tension buzzing in the neighborhood. Dissatisfied with lack of change over the previous year, protesters marched downtown. In the late summer of 2002 I began the project at 466 McMicken The photographs and the visits were an occasion to talk about tension in the city and what it means to be a family.

Photographs:

466 McMicken

Homework

Afternoon cards

Untitled 1

That 70s Show Leftovers

Popsicles

Swinging with Lee-Lee

Untitled 2

Untitled 3

After Dark

Marbles

Picnic

Untitled 4

On the Playground

McMicken

References:

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"Power of Half" author to speak at Emory

ekurylo — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:47:04 +0000

"Power of Half" author to speak at Emory

Book tells how Atlanta family sold home, gave profit to charity in Africa

Former Wall Street Journal reporter and editor Kevin Salwen will describe how his family grew closer after they agreed to sell their Atlanta mansion and donate $800,000 to a charity that works in Africa.

Salwen wrote "The Power of Half" with his teenage daughter, Hannah, who convinced her parents and younger brother that they had too much and should find a way to give up half to help others.Power of Half book jacketEnlarge this image In the course of a three-year project, they sold their historic home, moved into one half its size, and donated half the profits to charity.

Kevin Salwen will talk about the family project on Wednesday, March 31, from 4-6 p.m. at the Emory Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life (MARIAL). Lecture infoEnlarge this image

The MARIAL Center is on the 4th floor of Emory's Briarcliff campus at 1256 Briarcliff Road. There is plenty of free parking. The lecture is free and open to the public. For information, please call 404-727-3440.

How Families Work

ekurylo — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:13:15 +0000

Subtitle:

Love, Labor and Mediated Oppositions in American Domestic Ritual

Contributors:

Mark Auslander

Type of Written Content:

Research Article

Subject Area:

Children

Family

Father

Home

Identity

Marriage

Memory

Mother

Narratives

Parents

Relatives

Religion

Ritual

Wedding

Work

Abstract:

This paper offers an anthropological perspective on a range of middle- class American family rituals, with attention to the functions of ritual practice in mediating core cultural imperatives towards love and work.
Although Americans formally tend to dismiss ceremonials as "mere ritual," high stakes are associated with the proper performance of domestic rites; failed or incomplete performances can have profound negative consequences for the family's functioning and trajectory. Building comparatively on an African ethnographic example, I argue that kinship-oriented rituals "work" by first staging a nested series of overlapping and ambiguous frames, in which a set of underlying social and cultural contradictions are dramatized. These tensions are then resolved, at least within the ritual arena, through higher-order symbolic integration. These dynamics are at play both in U.S. life passage rites, such as weddings or funerals, and calendrical rites, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. These multilayered ritual dramas powerfully evoke for their participants not only idealized scenarios of family unity but also the underlying structures and forces that threaten to undo the bonds of kinship. Family rites, paradoxically, thus afford glimpses into normally unarticulated zones of anxiety, loss, and ambiguity at the heart of the American kinship system.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. Anthropological field research (1987-89) in eastern Zambia was supported by IIE/Fulbright, Wenner-Gren and National Science Foundation grants. Field research (2000-02) on ritual performance in middle-class families in rural and urban Georgia was supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Program on Working Families, through the Emory Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life, (MARIAL) at Emory University; subsequent research on family ritual has been supported by the Norman Research Fund at Brandeis University. Many of the ideas presented here have emerged through prolonged conversation with Bradd Shore and other faculty and fellows at MARIAL. I am also indebted to Richard Parmentier, Ellen Schattschneider, Robert Paul and Herve Varenne for their many insights into ritual and symbolic process in American society. I alone, however, am responsible for the interpretations and analyses proposed here.

Please address correspondence to Mark Auslander, Department of Anthropology, Brandeis University, Waltham MA 02454. email: mausland@brandeis.edu

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Yes

Introduction

Sigmund Freud, dark prophet of the bourgeois psyche, once famously defined sanity as the capacity to "love and work." Yet balancing and integrating these fundamental imperatives, paired enterprises that Freud suggestively termed the "parents of human civilization," has not proved easy for middle-class families from Freud's time onwards. The relentless pursuit of getting and spending in the outer world has long threatened to overwhelm the domestic domain, even if the home fires are in principle exempted from the frigid logic of the marketplace. Home may be where the heart is, but declarations of love are deeply embedded in the symbolic media of material consumption and the workplace-whether one chooses to say it with flowers and diamonds or by developing intricate activity schedules for children. For all of its troubling and troubled aspects, modern work has come in many respects to be thought of as the measure of all things, the pre-eminent source of self-worth and fulfillment. Work promises an escape from the complex, fraught psychic terrain of the family so long ago excavated by Freud and his disciples, while leaving many with the sense that in the pursuit of work they have betrayed key obligations to loved ones.

My title, "how families work," evokes these intertwined paradoxes of middle class domestic life. In most societies for most of human history, the reproduction of the family within larger social frameworks has been a directly economic enterprise, since the family was usually a primary productive unit. The work of kinship in most other societies has been profoundly continuous with other forms of work, the processes through which persons transform natural elements into cultural products and through which they exchange abstract signs of their labor and productive capacity--in the form of shells, cattle, women, money or other valued media. In contrast, since the mid 19^th century the western bourgeois family has been formally defined as the social unit most directly opposed to the domain of work and commerce. The family has long been idealized as a haven in a heartless world, a secure enclave that protects its members from the predations of wage labor and financial calculation, a clearly-bounded zone within which unconditional love and sentiment reign supreme. "Family time" has in principle long been contrasted with its antithesis, "work time."

Nonetheless, the middle-class family has since its inception been intimately enmeshed within the cultural logics and practical necessities of capitalist labor regimes. In normative terms, "making a living" has usually implied supporting a family. Middle class wage levels have, in principle at least, been tied to the cultural ideal of home ownership and reproducing a subsequent generation at least at the same socioeconomic level as its antecedents. Since the high Victorian era the family and home life have been expected to restore and replenish exhausted wage earners, readying them for productive re-engagement in the business world. Middle-class families have been structured, in conjunction with the middle and upper tiers of the educational system, to reproduce a set of dispositions and orientations in each new generation, so as to meet the emerging labor requirements of the managerial and professional markets. Consumer spending for Christmas and other family holidays has for generations been understood as a bedrock of the national economy. In many respects, then, although the site of the "family" is usually formally contrasted with sites of "work," our families are "at work" continuously, laboring to support externally oriented economic productivity while constituting the home as a uniquely privileged site of "love," in both romantic and non-romantic senses of the term.

For over a century, ritual has proven an especially apt medium for dramatizing, and to some extent redressing, this fundamental tension between love and labor in middle class households. Rituals of the family have also served to mediate, with varying degrees of success, a set of related, pervasive oppositions in modern American kinship and society, including those between the (natal) family of orientation and the (affinal) family of procreation, between immediate and extended families, between autonomy and dependence, between the claims of self and community, between nature and culture, and between life and death, as well as across the complex boundaries of generation, class, race and gender. Ritual practices ranging from Christmas and Halloween to family reunions and funerals simultaneously help constitute and crosscut these fundamental categorical distinctions. [fn]Herve Varenne. Americans together, structured diversity in a midwestern town. (New York Teachers' College Press, 1977); Bradd Shore, Family Time: Studying Myth and Ritual in Working Families (Emory Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life, Working Paper 028-03, 2003)[/fn]

The enormous, fraught burdens placed on middle-class "family time" and on the domestic rituals staged within it may be conceived in terms of the contradictory overall social organization of temporality and labor in modern society. Modern conceptions of personhood are fundamentally tied to economically productive labor: the question "what do you do?" is the single most salient inquiry for middle-class Americans about an interlocutor's status and identity. Yet in the chaos of the marketplace, persons continuously risk being rendered anonymous, their labor time commoditized, their contributions rendered abstract or invisible, their projects absorbed without a trace. As businesses go under, jobs are lost and economies shift, familiar guideposts, through which persons might have kept track of their life progress, may swiftly vanish. The bourgeois family system is expected, in a compensatory fashion, to provide an enduring architecture of temporal continuity, telling its members where they have come from and where they are going. The family is, in effect, charged with maintaining coherent temporal scaffolds for making sense of relations between past, present and future, and most directly, with providing its members with reassuring visions of a viable future.

Yet in contrast to earlier bourgeois dynastic families, of the type memorialized by Thomas Mann in his novel Buddenbrooks, modern American middle-class nuclear families are structured to self-destruct each generation.[fn]Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family.Trans., John E. Wood. (New York: Random House, 1994) In a sense, Mann's novel prophesies the emergence of the modern nuclear family.[/fn] As Bradd Shore argues our children are trained, often in subtle ways, to detach themselves from their natal families and homes, even during moments when the values of family continuity and stability appear to be most manifestly celebrated.[fn]Bradd Shore, Family Time: Studying Myth and Ritual in Working Families (Emory Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life, Working Paper 028-03, 2003)[/fn] In family rituals and everyday domestic scenarios, our children are socialized into achieving multiple futures, which are not always mutually consistent. They are told, in effect, that "the family" is as eternal as the Christmas tree or menorah, yet are conditioned to seek ultimate fulfillment by becoming parents themselves and presiding over an independent household of their own. Simultaneously, they learn that real self-definition depends upon economic productivity in the workplace and that adult citizenship is achieved through autonomous commodity consumption, governed by the prevailing fashions of the market.

Not surprisingly, these ambiguous ritual messages yield decidedly ambiguous consequences for family members. At times, those participating in domestic rituals derive a reassuring sense of coordinated wholeness and fulfillment, experiencing lineal continuity that coherently stretches back through the generations to time immemorial. Yet at other times, participation in these rites can provoke profound crises of faith, foregrounding failed attempts to balance love and work, deep anxiety over the validity and sincerity of family relations, and nagging doubts over market-governed definitions of worldly success.

Since the early 1970s, as the overt economic mobilization of American middle class families has dramatically intensified, the double-edged potentials of family rituals to heal or harm have arguably increased. As both parents are increasingly engaged in (or at least looking for) full time employment, and as time available for sentimental expressions seems to be more and more compressed, time-limited ritual occasions have been correspondingly idealized and elaborated. Ironically, as work increasingly invades the home, family rituals are often researched, planned and pursued with work-like intensity, in the apparent hope of restoring the categorical distinctions between work and family, and between labor and love that have long been eroded in practice. In a society that often expresses skepticism over the value of "mere" ritual, the stakes for family ritual--and for the "family time" that these rituals epitomize-may be higher than ever before.

What is Ritual and How Does it Work?

Anthropologists have studied ritual since the discipline's inception, and many would regard the study of "ritual" as one of the few, distinctive features of anthropological inquiry left.[fn]Sociologists working in the tradition of Erving Goffman tend to use the term "ritual" in a rather broader sense, to refer to any patterned, repeated behavior. See Goffman, Erving. Interaction Rituals. (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. 1967)[/fn] Yet there is little consensus as to the definition, organization, consequences or ultimate efficacy of ritual action. Most would agree that ritual is a highly structured and prescribed form of action, in which actors tend to deny the ultimate authorship of their acts, ascribing their motive force to an external authority (be it the gods, the ancestors, law, or tradition) and in which participants understand themselves to be in a context significantly different from ordinary life. The internal structure of ritual is often characterized by intensive repetition, reversibility, severe restrictions on improvisation and accessibility, strict regulation of bodily comportment and emotional expression, marked distinctions in the time and place of performance, secrecy or elaborate control over perception (as in masking or the use of esoteric or archaic language and other restricted codes), the use of highly meaningful words and objects, and the simultaneous deployment of multiple (and usually multi-sensory) channels of communication and expression, often including music and dance. Yet many activities that would be generally recognized as "ritual" do not exhibit many of these characteristics, and some actions sharing many of these qualities would not necessarily be classified as "ritual" in the strictest sense.

Perhaps because of the multiple frames and meanings embedded in ritual practice, scholarly discussion of the topic is invariably marked by dispute, hedging and qualifying. Rituals often uphold the established sociocultural order and status quo, tending to socialize persons into taken-for-granted commonplace assumptions about the world.[fn]N.D. Fustel de Coulanges, The ancient city. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 1980 [1864]); Emile Durkheim. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (New York: Basic Book, 1915); Claude Levi-Strauss, Structural anthropology Volume I (New York: Basic Books. 1966); Pierre Bourdieu. Outline of a theory of practice. Translated by Richard Nice. (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. 1977); Maurice Bloch, Ritual, history and power: Selected papers in anthropology.(London: Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Athlone Press. 1989)[/fn] Yet ritual arenas are especially well suited to the ambiguous dramatization of paradox and may challenge, subvert or resist dominant sensibilities and structures of authority. [fn]Victor Turner, The ritual process: Structure and anti structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969); Carlo Ginzburg, The night battles; Witchcraft and agrarian cults in the 16^th and 17^th Centuries. trans. J. & A. Tedeschi, (New York: Penguin Books. 1986) Stuart Hall, & T. Jefferson, T. (Eds.) Resistance through rituals: Youth subcultures in post-war Britain. (London: Routledge. 1993); David Lan, Guns and rain:Guerrillas and spirit mediums in Zimbabwe. (Berkeley: University of California Press. 1985.) Pater Stallybrass and Albon White. The Politics and Poetics of Transgression. (London. Methuen. 1986); Jean Comaroff. Body of power, spirit of resistance: The culture and history of a South African people. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1985)[/fn] Ritual is often associated with intensive faith, yet ritual performance, notes Rappaport is not necessarily coincident with belief in any manifest sense of the term.[fn]Roy Rappaport, Ritual and Religion in the making of humanity. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 1999).[/fn] (Consider Niels Bohr's reputed response to a student shocked that he hung a luck-bringing horseshoe in his laboratory: "Of course I don't believe in the horseshoe, but I understand that my lack of belief has no negative impact upon its efficacy!") Ritual tends to integrate practitioners into wider social collectivities, yet there are extensively documented private (non-shared) rituals and ritual activities may dramatize the radical separation of a person or persons from the larger social field.[fn]Keith Burridge, New heaven, new earth: A study of millenarian activities.(New York: Schocken Books. 1969); Dick Hebdige, Subculture:The meaning of style. (London: Methuen, 1979)[/fn] Ritual generally proceeds by imposing radical separations between persons, objects and categories but tends to establish intimate conjoining or unions between that which had been rendered distinct.[fn]Claude Levi-Strauss, Structural anthropology. Volume I. (New York: Basic Books, 1966); Valerio Valeri. Kingship and Sacrifice: Ritual and Society in Ancient Hawaii (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985); Nancy Jay, Throughout your generations forever: Sacrifice, religion and paternity. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1992.)[/fn] Ritual is usually thought of as solemn, yet is sometimes playful, hilarious or uproarious.[fn]J. Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A study of the play element of culture. (London, Routledge & K. Paul. 1949); Mikhail Bakhtin. Rabelais and his world. Translated by Helene Iswolsky. (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1968); Clifford Geertz, The interpretation of cultures. (New York: Basic Books. 1973.); Keith Basso, Portraits of the "the Whiteman": Linguistic play and cultural symbols among the western Apache. (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. 1979)[/fn] Although in principle conventional and scripted, ritual acts are at times strikingly original, imaginative, and improvisational.[fn]Barbara Babcock (ed.) The reversible world: Symbolic inversion in art and society.( Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 1978.)[/fn] Preparation for successful ritual performance often demands intensive concentration, purposeful discipline and conscious reflection upon the rite, yet performances may enable experiential states of altered consciousness in which normal distinctions between act and actor or subject and object are transcended: "the dance dances the dancer."[fn]Bradd Shore. Culture in mind: Cognition, culture and the problem of meaning. New York: Oxford University Press. 1996) p.50[/fn]

Social Reproduction, Social Time and Ritual Mediation: An African Example

The extraordinary mutability and diverse potentials of ritual frameworks perhaps help account for the fact that in human societies the world over, rituals mark and help organize significant moments in the developmental cycles of domestic groups and their changing relationships with higher-level social institutions. Social reproduction, never an easy process, is usually predicated on the social repression and regulation of sexuality and other libidinal drives, the exchange of marriage partners between discrete groups, the transfer of rights, property and obligations between generations, and the controlled, phased waxing and waning of relations between close kin. Amidst the inevitable conflicts that result over resources, power and loyalties, actors are often torn in multiple directions. Young and old can easily be overwhelmed by the divergent pressures of the immediate moment. Ritual provides highly evocative mechanisms for bringing underlying conundrums into the open in a structured fashion and rendering them, for the most part, manageable and negotiable. [fn]For an overview of American middle class ritual, see Mark Auslander" Rituals of the Family" Sloan Work Family Encyclopedia. 2002. http://wfnetwork.bc.edu/encyclopedia_entry.php?id=253 [/fn] Ritual dramas, which themselves proceed through highly structured temporal sequences, offer persons and groups meaningful guideposts for understanding larger passages of social time, and for apprehending normally inchoate continuities in collective experience. By the same token, rituals of social reproduction at times offer social actors particularly effective platforms upon which to pursue short-term and long-term political strategies within their families and in the wider community.

An extended example drawn from my fieldwork in south-central Africa may help to clarify how ritual action dramatizes and modulates the contradictory processes entailed in the enterprise of reproducing society. The Ngoni of eastern Zambia hold a special ceremony known as the mugeniso, around the time that the first-born son of a marriage union is able to walk. In principle, following the rite, strict prohibitions on the new husband eating in the presence of his wife's parents will be relaxed.[fn]Many of my Ngoni friends professed horror and disgust upon learning of the American practice of the rehearsal dinner. "How can affines eat together, before a child has even been born? Don't all your families go crazy in time?" a young man asked me. [/fn] In accounting for the ceremony, Ngoni informants explain that the first few years of marriage are nearly always tense. The bride, in a prolonged probationary state, is watched carefully by her husband's kin for signs of laziness, disobedience or disloyalty. She may often return to her mother and father's compound, bearing complaints of ill treatment, and her brothers may be tempted to take revenge on their brother-in-law and his agnates. Cattle or monetary bridewealth transactions, which ought to flow at a regular rate from the husband's people to the bride's people, are often stalled, and mutual recriminations and traditional court proceedings between affines (in-laws) are not unusual. The purpose of the mugeniso, it is usually said, is to "heal" or " cool" the burning animosity between the comparatively new affines and to celebrate their common bond, the first male child of the conjugal union.

In the initial phase of the mugeniso ceremony, the husband and wife's families dramatize these underlying tensions by playing at combat over a head cattle. On the morning of the rite, the husband, wife and child, accompanied by members of the husband's patrilineage (a classification often extended to his entire village) should journey to the bride's natal home bringing a bovine, usually an ox, as a gift to the bride's father. In precolonial days, I was told, the members of the military age regiment, to which the husband had belonged before marriage, would escort the procession. Once they come to the edge of the host village, the approaching party brandishes spears, knobkerries and shields and repeatedly hurls themselves towards the wife's natal relatives, who have danced out to greet them, shouting taunts and insults. The wife's people, in turn, stage mock charges upon the "foreigners, attempting to seize the ox and the boy from them.

This physically enacted opposition is to some extent undercut by the choice of ngoma war songs performed by the two parties as they dance, including the song allegedly sung in the 19^th century by the Ngoni's traditional enemy, the Bemba, as the Ngoni legions approached, "Tipasile Mkhondo." There is a good deal of exaggerated leaping, laughter, and playful mock dueling as performers sing the words of the song, "Prepare the spears/ the spears/we are all going to die/the Ngoni are coming." In time, the host group "captures" the ox, and moments later the two groups merge into one another, singing songs of war victory as they dance together towards the compound of the wife's father. The young boy will usually be invited to dance with his matrilaterals at the head of the procession and his mother's female relatives will loudly ululate their praises as the child enters the compound.

After the maternal grandparents and their kin have formally welcomed the young family and their relations, the young boy is entitled to enter his maternal grandfather's cattle byre and select a single beast for slaughter. In most cases that I have observed or heard about, the boy seems to understand that regardless of his grandfather's protestations and his subtle (or not so subtle) hints to select a modest beast, the child is really expected to pick the plumpest and most desirable animal. Many times, I've heard Ngoni men rapturously and uproariously recount, "Oh, the old man cried, he just cried, when he saw the beast the boy had chosen. It was his favorite animal, but he had no choice. So he just cried!"

After the beast has been slaughtered and the meal prepared, the husband and his family are invited to enter the house of the wife's parents and to eat with them. The husband is scrupulous to avoid establishing direct eye contact with his father-in-law or mother-in-law, and will be very careful not to sit or crouch near the wall of his in-laws' sleeping quarters. In practice, sons-in-law tend not to eat much at this event, but the groundwork is laid for future commensality and collaboration. Both sides of the family take great delight if the first-born boy eats his food with zest. In several cases, I heard the maternal grandfather tell his grandson, only partly in jest, that he was going to keep him in the compound for good, since his father and his agnates were clearly incapable of paying all the promised bridewealth. The exchanges of food, speeches, teasing and laughter usually have the desired effect. "After the mugeniso," I was often told, "the families will be so much easier with each other."

The mugeniso rite thus effectively dramatizes and to some extent defuses a set of underlying tensions between affines through a series of ambiguous enactments. It begins with a tussle over one of the bridewealth cattle, a persistent source of argumentation between the two families. Appropriately, this struggle quickly merges into a struggle over the young boy, the product of the union that has been legalized through bridewealth cattle; in capturing the ox, his matrilaterals in a sense seem to be capturing their sister's child. At one level, the opposition between the two parties is deflected through the singing of a song about the common enemy of the Ngoni, the Bemba, whom they allegedly vanquished. Yet there is a semi-serious edge to this song, as well, which alludes to the Bemba's status, in Ngoni's eyes, as "food of the spear" (chakudya chamkhondo); it is never clear after all, in relations among affines, just whom is going to "eat" (or subsume) whom.[fn]Ngoni and Bemba retain a joking relationship with one another, and are expected to cavort uproariously at one another's funerals. In some respects, the relationship between affines at the mugeniso resembles a joking relationship, characterized by raucous clowning and muted aggression. [/fn] Similarly, the practice of having the young boy lead the procession once it has been unified can be multiply interpreted. It is sometimes explained as showing the underlying unity among the extended family, which has an equal interest in the new offspring. Yet the husband's people usually tend to state that boy is a warrior "conquering" the village of his mother, while the wife's people assert he is "coming back to his real home."

Overlapping, ambiguous interpretive frames are especially evident in the byre episode, which calls forth a complex mixture of seriousness and hilarity. The scenario of the little boy annihilating his grandfather's favorite beast is a miniature rite of reversal, calling to mind a standard bone of contention between younger and older men. Juniors are forever pleading with their elders to slaughter or sell their cattle, yet men of the senior generation are invariably reluctant to do this, for cattle are the foundation of a patriarch's wealth, prestige and influence. Young men complain endlessly of their older male relatives "love only cattle, not their children" Hence the delight taken in seeing a small boy imperiously and successfully demand a beast from a senior man, especially from a man with whom the boy's own father would be loath to quarrel. At the same time, the incident anticipates the eventual passage of generational succession, when the boy will ultimately inherit the patrimony of the ascendant generation and become the master of its herds.

In principle, this episode teaches the boy the lesson that he may always go to his matrilaterals for aid, for they love him unconditionally, in contrast to his agnates who may resent him as a potential competitor for the common resources of the patrilineage. Yet, there is unquestionably an aggressive edge to the pressure on the boy to pick the finest animal, a choice that invariably pleases his agnates, who are thus reassured that the boy has the makings of a virile, assertive male who will not be overly under the spell of his matrilaterals, whom, they suspect, seek to spoil and "soften" the youth.

Ngoni regard it as particularly hilarious (yet also deeply propitious) if the boy picks one of the cattle that had been given as bridewealth for his mother by his father's people. Significantly, his agnates and matrilaterals tend to differ over just what the joke is. The boy "knows his own beasts," the agnates joke, and is "taking his own back." In contrast, matrilaterals proclaim with a smile, "he feels free since he knows he is in his real home now!" Picking one of the bridewealth cattle raises a delightful paradox: the boy is annihilating one of the media through which the legitimacy of his own birth was established and through which he has legally been made a member of his father's patriline. Interestingly, the demonstrable (and I believe sincere) anguish of the maternal grandfather over the loss of a valued bovine is seen as a good omen by both sides of the family. As one agnate of the boy told me, "When the grandfather cries so hard, that means he and the boy will always be good friends!" A maternal uncle of the boy agreed, laughing, "Oh, he will be a wild one, that one!"

Only once the child has symbolically triumphed over his mother's father may relations of avoidance between affines be relaxed. This victory and subsequent transformation of relations are only possible because of the ambiguous status of the child during the rite; he "belongs" to both his father's people and his mother's people. (If the child unambiguously represented his father's patrilineage at this moment, the assault on the matrilaterals' livestock would presumably seem too aggressive.)

Two further points should be emphasized. First of all, the ritual management of the marriage bond in this instance demands the participation of three generations: the tense relationship between adjacent generations (of the father-in-law and his son-in-law) is successfully manipulated by shifting the focus of attention to relations between alternate generations (of the maternal grandfather and his daughter's son). In effect, solidarity between generations one and three helps to secure the reconciliation of affines, especially between generations one and two.

Secondly, note that these generational reconfigurations are effected through the medium of cattle, the overarching embodiment of social and economic value in Ngoni society. Cattle here operate as the pivotal switch point between the social levels of descent and kinship, between the agnatic principle of patrilineal organization and the interpersonal ties of complementary filiation. In regular bridewealth transactions, cattle mark the boundaries of distinct descent groups, dividing the donating family of the husband from the receiving family of the wife. In the mugeniso rite, performed once the marriage has proven its solidity, these former lines of contrast are blurred; in seizing his maternal grandfather's cow, the little boy (the fruit of the marriage union) operates as a bridge between the two families, establishing a new intimacy that is exemplified by their subsequent act of eating together. Although cattle are the enduring source of aggressive conflict among affines, the seized cow in this instance establishes the enduring "love" between the child and his matrilaterals, who welcome the youth to his "real home." Through the selection and slaughter of the second head of cattle, chosen by the daughter's son of the host, this cross-generational affection is partially transferred to the relationship between the host father-in-law and his guest son-in-law. Up until this moment, in effect, father-in-law and son-in-law have only been linked through the daughter/wife, a highly fraught link suffused with sexual anxiety. (Indeed, many Ngoni insist that it would be akin to incest for affines to eat together before the mugeniso.) Now, the assured presence of a healthy young grandson/son, a common heir, more securely links the two men. Appropriately, all parties celebrate their transformed relationship by safely consuming together the flesh of a slaughtered beast that embodies the salutary three-way relationship between father-in-law, son-in-law and grandson.

How does Ritual Mediation Work in North America? The Case of the Wedding Party

At first consideration, the elaborate ritual logic of the Ngoni mugeniso-- defusing affinal tension through a highly valued economic medium that is manipulated to dramatize positive cross-generational solidarity --would seem worlds apart from modern American family rituals. Yet the above analysis casts some light on the internal symbolic mechanisms through which structural oppositions are mediated in middle class North America. Consider, as an illustrative example, the functions of the wedding party in the standard American neotraditional "white wedding" ceremony, which emerged in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.[fn]John Gillis, A world of their own making; Myth, ritual and the quest for family values. (New York: Basic Books. 1996); For an illuminating discussion of French bourgeois rituals of the 19^th century, see A. Martin-Fugier, Bourgeois rituals. In M. Perot. (Ed.) A history of private life (Volume 4).(pp. 261-337. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1990)[/fn]

Over the course of the wedding ceremony, the bride and groom must be visibly separated from their natal families (and especially from their parents) and established as a discrete couple capable of eventually being a family of their own. At the same time, enduring bonds of filial love between parent and child must be emphasized and preserved. This phased attenuation is partly accomplished through the performance of generational solidarity among the couple's peers, in the form of the costumed wedding party, who are visibly contrasted with the couple's parents and families of origin seated in the audience.[fn]The generational solidarity of the cohorts is usually emphasized, on an evening preceding the wedding, by single-sex reveling at bachelor and bachelorette parties.[/fn] The process somewhat resembles the much more elaborate functions of age-grades or age-sets in some small-scale, age-ranked societies, in which induction into a male or female cohorts is a necessary precondition to marriage and promotion to full social adulthood and in which age-mates actively assist in the marriage process.[fn]The closest equivalents to age-grades in modern American society are class cohorts at school. Not surprisingly, the maid of honor and best man are often high school or college classmates of the bride and groom.[/fn] (Recall that in the mugeniso the Ngoni husband is escorted by his former age regiment.) The American wedding party is typically composed of a group of male peers of the groom and a group of female peers of the bride. At the start of many wedding ceremonies, a series of paired bridesmaids and groomsmen often walk down the aisle, in a ritual foreshadowing of the eventual conjugal pairing of the actual bride and groom. Upon reaching the altar each couple of the wedding party will separate and retire to their respective sides of the altar, forming a line of women on the left and a line of men on the right (in some weddings, this division conforms to the distinction between bride's party and groom's party in the seated audience.)

The wedding party, flanking the altar in a gender divided fashion, thus tangibly paves the way for the bridal couple. This line of peers, which may include the couple's siblings, friends, and a few young cousins (or children of the bride or groom from previous marriages or relationships), stands facing the seated audience, which normally includes the couple's parents and other members of ascendant generations. Standing, among other things, signifies the virility and endurance of the youthful wedding party, who function as representatives of the rising generation on the cusp of social maturity. Appropriately, the wedding party is made up of paired cohorts of male and female peers who may be younger than the couple but who are (in most cases) structurally contrasted with the parents' generation. This twinned peer group in effect frames, and helps to create, the charged ritual space of transformation which will moments later be occupied by the couple. The transition to the adult state of marriage is thus accomplished through the simultaneous performance of generational solidarity and opposition. As they stand before the assembled, the couple is established as structurally like the youthful members of the standing wedding party, and structurally unlike their seated parents and natal families, to whom the bride and groom have turned their backs.

From the late Victorian period onwards the potent generational solidarity of the youthful wedding party, which helps in effect to break bonds between the new spouses and their parents, has been predicated on a manifest gender hierarchy. The groom should from the start of the ceremony stand by his best man and the other male members of the wedding party near the altar at the right front of the church or hall, waiting for his bride. She should enter, escorted by her father or another male who "gives her away" and process down the aisle, in full sight of the assembled, who stand in respect as she does so. She is to be met by the groom, who takes her from her guardian and with her faces the altar and the officiant. This procession enacts the classic principles in European kinship of patriarchy and virilocality; the bride is moved out of her father's family into her husband's domain, and is presented as an elaborate, decorated "gift." The walk down the aisle may also enact the European principle of mild hypergamy; the woman is, in principle, lifted up in status through marriage, as she is absorbed into the relatively superior estate of her husband's family.

The maid of honor and bridesmaids receiving the bride are thus in a significant sense differentiated from the best man and groomsmen standing by the groom, in more ways than gender per se. The line of males of the junior, rising generation, of which the groom is a part, constitutes the key fulcrum of ritual action, the base to which the mobile bride is delivered by a male figure of the senior generation. The line of young women bridesmaids offer protective solidarity to their peer, the bride, but inasmuch as they are "maids" they are destined to follow her lead as eventual brides, escorted in their turn to the altar by their own fathers. This motif is explicitly dramatized when the bride's train is held by girl bridesmaids who follow behind her, a vignette that is invariably viewed as adorable and poignant, for it anticipates the little girls' eventual journey down the aisle as brides themselves. (In contrast, little boys who are junior groomsmen would rarely process down the aisle behind the bride, but are rather expected to stand in the line of males at the front of the church by the altar.) The groom and his best man, in contrast, do not walk down the aisle but appear from another entrance to take up their place at the altar. The groom, in receiving his bride, steps forward from the community of his young male peers, while the bride, in effect, is brought forward to stand near her female peers, although she never precisely stands with them.

In this respect, the work of male generational solidarity is to constitute the fixed social base from which the groom emerges, as an exemplary embodiment of society's ascendant generation. (The groom in most cases is dressed in the same attire as his groomsmen, while her bridesmaids should never emulate the bride's attire.) In contrast to the male wedding party's solid public stability, the primary ritual work of female generational solidarity undertaken by the bridesmaids is to support the bride, through prior backstage work of preparing her for public presentation within a private space that is in principle prohibited to men (be it a changing room, powder room or bedroom). Groomsmen embody the public face of the new generation coming into its own; bridesmaids link the less visible domestic realm to public aesthetic displays, but their status as members of the junior generation would appear to be subsumed under the status of their male counterparts, who have "escorted them" down the aisle.

Significantly, the bride, and emphatically not the groom, is the center of aesthetic and affective attention throughout the rite. Thus, while the groom formally embodies the new generation that will in time succeed the parental generation, his separation from his parents is nowhere dramatically enacted during the rite. In contrast, the separation of the bride from her father or male guardian is one of the most remarked upon and poignant aspects of the ceremony, calling forth an almost obligatory sigh or muffled tear from the audience. This visible separation of bride from father at the rite's opening is complemented by the ever-popular moment at the rite's conclusion when the groom lifts the bride's veil and kisses her. In this regard it is striking that while most officiants have foregone the blatantly patriarchal "I now pronounce you man and wife" for the more egalitarian, "I now pronounce you husband and wife," few officiants can resist uttering the phrase, "You may now kiss the bride," which treats the bride as the marked epitome of desire. The audience's relief at this moment is palpable; after the solemnity of the formal ceremony the kiss is usually greeted with applause, appreciative oohs and aahs, and raucous laughter (especially if the groom and bride a little "too" amorous in their embraces.)

The net effect of these overlapping oppositions and conjunctions is to moderate or defuse the potentially troubling force of the basic narrative running through the ceremony. Children are being separated from their parents, one generation is succeeding the other, and erotic pairing is being sanctioned, but these points are, if all goes well, never made too emphatically. There would be something too disturbing, I suspect, if both groom and bride were escorted down the aisle by their parents and then simultaneously abandoned them as they took their final steps to the altar. Similarly, beginning the rite with the bride and groom lined up with the entire wedding party facing the audience might lay excessive, troubling emphasis on the structural opposition between the new and old generations. Similarly, it would too painful and unseemly if the groom, receiving the bride from his soon-to-be father-in-law, were immediately to kiss her at the very moment of transfer in the aisle. In turn, although the lifted veil and final kiss do have erotic connotations, overt sexual displays at this moment would be widely deemed inappropriate.[fn]I realize that all these untoward scenarios must have happened in some weddings, but in an ideal-typical sense these enactments would seem to violate the normative constitutive principles of the system.[/fn]

Appropriately, the rather ambiguous confounding of the identities of the wedding couple and their generational peers is typically disambiguated during the reception. The bride and groom may initially sit with the wedding party, but they are expected to circulate through all the tables of guests, reaffirming bonds with friends, parents, parents' friends, and relatives of all ages. The bride and groom should dance together, but the bride and her father should have a special dance as well. Towards the end of the reception, the bride should toss her corsage or bouquet towards the unmarried women present, and the groom should toss the bride's garter towards the unmarried men. Beyond the manifest purpose of "predicting" the next persons to be married, these acts serve to move the bride and groom out of their liminal state ('betwixt and between" youth and adulthood) into a fully married condition. By ridding themselves of these ritual paraphernalia, imbued with the interstitial qualities of their intermediate status, the couple distinguishes themselves from their former generational cohort, and thereby enters into the more fully adult citizenship status. Generational solidarity, which was necessary to accomplish this rite of passage during its central phase, is somewhat undone at its conclusion in favor of new, enduring solidarity among all married persons.

The wedding rite, then, is not solely a celebration of the bonds of love between the two members of the couple. It is also, more subtly, a public recruitment of new members into the polity of socially and economically productive actors, and to some extent celebrates the periodic integration of an ascendant generational cohort into the larger realm of the senior generations that run society. Hence, the insistence of parents, often in the face of complaints by the marital couple, that their business associates and friends must be included on the invitation list. The bride's protest, "But this is my day," may be met with a parent's explanations that the older person in question, "has known you all your life", "is a really close colleague," or "might be of help to you someday, you know." For parents at a more advanced stage in the life cycle, in contrast to those a generation younger, the wedding is not simply a drama of love and of the private self but is also a rite of collective social transition, predicated on a cycle of age-based promotion into the socially-sanctioned domain of work.

As in the mugeniso, at least three generations are implicated in the standard American wedding ceremony: the generations of the conjugal couple, of their parents, and of their hoped-for children. The latter are evoked through flower girls and junior groomsmen, the bouquet that the bride carries (usually in front of her abdomen), the rotund shape of the wedding cake, and the ribald toasts about procreation often delivered at the reception. Although there is of course no precise equivalent of the mugeniso cow in the American wedding, this realignment of inter-generational relations does, rather like Ngoni practice, depend on symbolic media that embody supreme exchange value. First and foremost, an implicit exchange underlies the substantial amount of money spent on the ceremony itself. Well into the nineteenth century, middle class marriage was centered on direct and indirect payments of dowry by the bride's parents to the groom. Dowry functioned, among other things, as a form of pre-mortem inheritance, transferring wealth from the senior generation on the bride's side to the new couple (under the husband's dominion) and ultimately to the couple's offspring, the grandchildren of the bride's parents. This logic endures in the common expectation that the bride's parents will pay for the wedding ceremony, initiating the process that ideally will culminate in "giving us grandchildren." Money transferred from generation one to generation two, in effect, will be reciprocated (or, in a sense, see its potential realized) through the eventual production of members of generation three, who will be linked by intimate emotional bonds to the generous grandparents of generation one.

Although the bride's parents traditionally shoulder the bulk of the wedding costs, every member of the wedding participates in this general process of transforming financial value into affective solidarity. All adult wedding guests, regardless of seniority, are expected to purchase and present wedding gifts, which may take the form of cash or physical objects. Through these gifts the guests project aspects of themselves into the new union (in principle, the gift should not favor bride or groom, but should be something that "they can enjoy together"). Simultaneously, each donor vicariously partakes of the hope, love, erotic energy, and unity of the new couple. Widespread ambivalence over bridal registries, which are so often derided as marketing ploys and self-aggrandizing strategies by the wedding couple, partly derives from the inchoate desire to be tangibly, directly linked to grand narrative of the wedding by choosing a gift that partly expresses the identity of the giver as well as the recipient. Nonetheless, in spite of their misgivings, many guests find themselves using the registry, since selecting a gift independently is time consuming and risky. As everyone knows, not making a monetarily-valuable gift simply is not an acceptable option. Economic value, in both its practical and symbolic dimensions, is essential to the making of the new family.

In this light, we should hardly be surprised by the enduring popularity of weddings, even in our era of frequent divorce and extensive premarital cohabitation and procreation. In real life, on television or at the movies, weddings dramatize the trials and triumphs of the self and the family in search of love, fulfillment and fortune. Weddings remain perhaps the most important ritual arena through which the periodic reproduction of society is enacted, through which our public and private lives are integrated, and through which love and work are brought into meaningful coordination, if only for a few precious moments.

All in Good Time: Temporal Progression and Ritual Sequencing

As the above analysis suggests, the enduring power of the wedding ceremony lies partly in its capacity to mark and regulate major temporal progressions in individual life cycles and in the mythic life of society. Each ceremony signals the social maturation of persons and evokes the cyclical realignment of generations, in a way that broadly encompasses divergent definitions of social value, variously grounded in love or work, self or community, autonomy or dependence. Wedding participants and guests often find themselves reflecting upon the broader shape of their lives and the changing configurations of their families over time. A woman in her sixties recently explained to me why she cried while watching her niece exchange vows with her new husband: "Suddenly, I saw my mother's face, the way she looked all those years ago on the day I married my husband. And then I started thinking about my son and whether or not he'll ever get together again with his wife and my little grandson." Smiling apologetically, she dabbed her eyes and said, "Weddings just do bring things up, don't they?"

The peculiar nature of temporal experience within American family rituals is largely a function of unusual features in our family system. As noted above, in contrast to virtually all other human kinship and descent systems, middle-class American families self-destruct in a periodic fashion; from an early age, parents train their children for autonomy, having them sleep alone, go to sleepover parties and summer camp, usually go away to college and eventually form a new family unit through a marriage or long-term romantic bond. Rites such as the wedding celebrate and solemnize this profound separation of child from parent, yet also manifest a compensatory longing for continuity and return to an imagined more secure and "authentic" past. This longing is expressed in the standard injunction that the bride wear "something old, something new," and by the emphasis on self-consciously archaic speech acts, practices, adornment and décor at many weddings. Similarly, in recent years, many couples have sought to unearth and incorporate into their weddings Old World or pre-modern practices associated with their ethnic background. In so doing, they attempt to link themselves to much earlier generations at precisely the moment of marked structural rupture from the generation of their parents.

Family time is organized through two major kinds of ritual activity, rites of passage, which mark singular transitions in a person's life, and calendrical ceremonies, which are regularly repeated, usually on an annual basis. In different ways, each of these ritual events dramatizes and mediates core conundrums in American domestic life while providing a tangible temporal framework though which people attempt to make sense of the complex events of their own lives and of their shifting relations with loved ones. Ritual time thus makes it possible to coordinate individual and social transformations, which in everyday life may be experienced as inconsistent, opposed or wildly divergent.

Rites of Passage: Coordinating the Transforming Self and Family through Time

The basic structure of rites of passage lends itself to this double temporal burden, signaling coherent transitions in the individual's life while simultaneously making sense of larger transitions in the family and collectivity.

These multilayered dynamics can be made sense of with reference to Van Gennep's classic model of the "tripartite" structure of these commonly occurring rituals, famously developed by Victor Turner.[fn]Arnold van Gennep. The Rites of Passage. (London: Routledge, 2004); Victor Turner, Betwixt and Between; The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage. in Victor Turner, The forest of symbols. Aspects of Ndembu ritual. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 1967)[/fn] Such rites commence with the radical separation of the person or persons being transformed, often marked through special adornment, locale, or comportment. The subject then enters into a special interstitial or intermediate state, in Turner's terms, "betwixt and between" conventional social statuses or categories: he or she is neither student nor graduate, child nor adult, unmarried nor married, layman nor priest. During this "liminal period" the person undergoing ritual transformation is often subject to special prohibitions and precautions; he or she may be apprehended as especially pure, sacred, stigmatized or polluted, and may be subjected to heightened risks. This in-between period is often characterized by paradoxical or dramatic reversals of ordinary behavior; one needs, in effect, to step outside of normal society in order to alter one's social position. In the final stage of re-aggregation, during which basic principles of social life are celebrated or reinvigorated, the subject is reintegrated into normal life, usually into a different (often higher ranked) social role than that occupied before the rite.[fn]The enormous ideological and emotional power of such rites of passage, which can provide such deeply meaningful frameworks through the life cycle, is evidenced by the ever-increasing popularity of innovative life-transition rites, ranging from gay and lesbian commitment ceremonies and weddings to Afrocentric coming of age ceremonies. Indeed, one might argue that given the declining formal economic rationale for the nuclear family, the family is pre-eminently a ritual order in modern American society; a "family" could increasingly be defined as a group of people who practice a set of domestic rituals, integrating them both into intimate units and into larger structures of belonging across divides of space and time.[/fn]

This tripartite sequence and the extraordinary qualities of the liminal phase make these rites highly appropriate for dramatizing transformations in persons other than the rite's formal subjects. Those organizing, performing or attending the rite often take on certain liminal, interstitial qualities during the ceremony and undergo significant (if subtle or backgrounded) transformations and shifts in status. Rites of passage are thus nearly always collective enterprises that proceed upon multiple tracks, establishing important connections and distinctions among varied persons and groups beyond the proximate, central foci of ritual attention.

For example, birth in modern American society has emerged as a multileveled ritual process through which the newborn child is produced as a social person, the woman giving birth is produced as a socially legitimate mother, the mother and her husband or partner are together produced as a socially legitimate parental couple, the parents and their child or children are produced as a "family" and a wider network of relations with kin and friends are readjusted and coordinated. The elaborate technological management of modern birth and neonatal care has occasioned subtle linguistic and ritual markers for distinguishing between different kinds of newborns, which, if all goes well, culminates in pronouncing this liminal being "a baby ready to go home."[fn]Yaya Ren, personal communication. [/fn] Middle-class expectant mothers are usually expected to conform to a self-improving regimen of regulated health and conditioning during pregnancy, and may feel some pressure to demonstrate their moral fitness as mothers by forgoing pain medications during birth and recapturing a trim figure during the postpartum months.[fn]R.E. Davis-Floyd, Birth as an American rite of passage. (Berkeley: University of California Press. 1992)[/fn] Middle-class fathers are widely expected to participate in birthing classes, watch ultrasound images of the fetus with the mother, and serve as "coaches" during birth. In so doing, fathers vicariously partake in the liminal status of the neonate and birthing mother, and are eventually reintegrated along with them into normal space and time, now as a unified nuclear family. To be sure, like all processes of unification this new social entity rests upon subtle role distinctions; even in couples that strive for gender egalitarianism, the father may, within minutes of successful birth, take on the traditional male role of mediating relations between the domestic unit and larger social domains, phoning friends and relations and handing out cigars to passersby and business associates.

Similarly, the rites of christening or bris (the Jewish circumcision), while manifestly directed towards transforming the moral and spiritual status of the infant, also confirm or help establish important shifts in other persons' conditions, especially in generations one and two. The parents are established in front of the family and the religious community as persons of tradition, substance and faith. Grandparents from both side of the family are, if possible, prominent at a christening, and often exhibit considerably warmer, less formal relations with one another than they did at the wedding itself (shades of the mugeniso?) At the Jewish bris, the paternal grandfather usually holds his grandson as the foreskin is excised, evoking a line of patriarchal authority that in principle stretches back through the generations to the original covenant between the Lord and His chosen people. In this ambiguous, liminal position, holding his male flesh and blood in the face of a knife, the grandfather takes on aspects of the early patriarchs themselves, recalling Abraham's abortive sacrifice of Isaac and Moses' role as the first circumciser. In this sense, the bris is equally a rite of passage for the grandfather and his grandson, who emerge from it confirmed respectively as patriarch and novice within the family and the wider community.

Birthdays may be conceived as special kinds of repeated rites of passage, marking progressive phases in the life of the individual person and in the life of the family units to which he or she is attached. In addition to celebrating the physical and mental maturation of a young child, early birthday parties may mark status shifts for young mothers or engender growing solidarity among the parents (especially mothers) in attendance. The birthday party (for the most part, a 20^th century invention) manifestly celebrates the pleasure-seeking self (complete with chocolate cake) and is sometimes dismissed as a narcissistic indulgence. Yet the rite also emphasizes the progressive middle class disciplining of the willful self. Through successive birthday parties, children are expected to learn to play with one another, and are socialized into middle class codes of collaboration, appropriate degrees of formality and informality, and principles of reciprocity. For example, I recall that at my fourth birthday party, my young friends James and Leon in turn, by coincidence, each gave me identical plastic Indian headdresses. Thinking that the second headdress was superfluous, I tried to give it back to Leon, but my mother quickly intervened to tell me to graciously accept both gifts, whispering rhetorically to me, "don't you still want to be Leon's friend?" Such staged events and the moral pedagogy they occasion gradually lay the groundwork for the child's later integration into generational cohorts at school and in the workplace.

Sweet sixteen birthday parties, like high school proms, debutante balls or cotillion, celebrate the coming eligibility of young women for marriage and may be interpreted as "dress rehearsals" for eventual wedding ceremonies.[fn]Felicity H Paxton, America at the Prom: Ritual and regeneration. (Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Pennsylvania. 2000)[/fn] In turn, adult birthday parties, especially for "milestone" years such as forty or seventy, may help solidify relations with peers at work and may spark reflections on the changing shape of the family as well as meditations on mortality.

Educational rites, which subtly mediate between the symbolic practices of the internal family and the wider public sector, may also help reconcile individual life trajectories and the developmental cycles of middle class families. School theatricals, concerts, dances, ballet recitals, and sport events are staged as dramas of symbolic detachment, celebrating a student's increasing autonomy from family-bound roles and integration into horizontal peer groups. At the same time, these events often occasion emotionally-laden family gatherings, in which family members are cast in the roles of "supporters" or "audience members" (or in the cases of proms, as "chaperones") and reflect upon the shifting organization of their family. Parents often report a mixture of pleasure and anxiety in seeing their child skillfully perform dramatic roles, which may remind them that the child is capable of becoming a new and different person than the one that they know. As one father recalled, "Of course, I loved seeing my daughter in school plays, but you know as she got older, I had to steel myself each time. The better she got, I was so proud, but I found myself saying to myself, 'she's just not daddy's little girl anymore!'" Perhaps because of this implicit drama of looming separation the most beloved and effective performances by young people often center on the vanishing horizon of childhood experience and coming-of-age narratives of detachment, such as Peter Pan or the Nutcracker.

Multiple, at times discordant planes of experience are also evident in graduation and commencement exercises, which in addition to marking passages in the life of individual students and of student cohorts, help constitute shifting phases in the life of the graduate's family, at times signaling the coming of the "empty nest" for parents, or representing socioeconomic upward mobility for the entire family. While high school and college graduation ceremonies at one level signal a graduate's fitness for entry into the labor force (and in that sense help mediate detachment from one's natal family and the process of eventually founding one's own family), they also often celebrate the authority of the academy and the contemplative life, and in that sense may signal enduring anxiety over the capacity of the "the real world" or marketplace to provide ultimate meaning in life. Individual and family trajectories are both interlaced and juxtaposed in class reunions and homecoming games, which are often characterized by intermingled nostalgic elegies for lost innocence, celebrations of material success and family vitality, and anxiety over failed opportunities.[fn]Sherry Ortner, Ethnography among the Newark: The class of '58 of Weequakic high school. Michigan Quarterly Review. 32. 1993. , pp. 411-429.[/fn]

As suggested above, these multi-track, contradictory processes culminate in the modern wedding. On the hand, the rite simultaneously celebrates the free, co-equal autonomous selfhoods of the individual persons being married, recognizes the gradual ascension of an entire younger generation, and honors the couple's parents (and often their grandparents). At the same time, it subtly re-instantiates principles of patriarchy, attenuates the couple's relationships with their natal families, asserts that the couple is "one flesh," directs them to procreate, and disciplines the parties into the rigors of married life and bourgeois convention. It is striking that these diverse objectives, implicating so many different persons and overlapping relationships, are all dramatized and mediated through obsessive ritual attention to a single person, the bride herself. Dressed in white, she visually dominates the entire proceeding, and becomes, during the central phase of the rite, a veritable vessel of the eternal and the sacred. (The wedding rite might in this respect be regarded as a curious resurfacing of the ancient cult of the goddess, or a sanitized Protestant rendition of the medieval cult of the virgin.) The blessings of life itself seem to flow from her as marches down the aisle, greeted by an appropriately reverential sighs.

Various objects associated with the bride carry traces of the numinous qualities that temporarily inhabit her; like ritual paraphernalia in other societies these objects are characterized by what Turner terms the "polyvocality" of ritual symbols, the capacity of a given object or act to evoke different meanings or associations at various levels of experience.[fn]Victor Turner, The forest of symbols. Aspects of Ndembu ritual (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967)[/fn] Initially, her elaborate white dress connotes virginity, purity, aristocratic bearing, demureness and sacredness. Yet later in the ceremony, when her veil is drawn back for the dramatic kiss, her attire takes on more erotic and procreative associations, anticipating her "deflowering" on the wedding night and her hoped-for fertility. (These associations are dramatically accentuated by the increasingly popular practice, at some receptions, of the groom crawling beneath the bride's billowing skirts, to the raucous cheers of onlookers, to retrieve her garter belt.) Similarly, the bouquet she carries down the aisle initially has extensive associations with her hoped-for fertility (a single flower, after all, would usually seem as inappropriate as a single handful of rice). Yet when the bride tosses the bouquet a different set of meanings comes to the fore: she is not discarding hopes of fertility but is rather, as noted above, shedding her liminal state as wife-to-be. She thus dramatizes her new married state through a playful (but ultimately serious) contrast with her unmarried former peers.

At one level, the white wedding cake, the same color as the bride's dress, evokes the sweetness and pleasure of conjugal unity (on the anticipated marital bed), as emphasized in the (quasi-erotic) moment when the bride and groom feed one another, as well as the resplendent and unique status of the couple, as often signified by small dolls of the couple atop the wedding cake. The cake may also be said to signify the collective investment of the assembled guests in the future procreative generativity of the couple and the hoped-for fecundity of the bride's body. After the couple has exchanged bites, all the guests are expected to eat a piece of the cake, in effect sealing through a shared act of commensality their united witnessing of the marriage and their common hopes for fruits of the union. The cake's associations with fecundity are further emphasized by its large, rotund shape (anticipating the bride's pregnant body) and by the practice of saving a piece to be consumed one year after the wedding, the idealized moment when a newborn baby is expected. In turn, the many handfuls of white rice thrown by the wedding party's members simultaneously re-emphasize their collective commitment to recognizing the marriage and evoke the union's hoped-for fecundity; appropriately, this action both marks the formal end of the rite and signals the commencement of a new liminal period, the honeymoon, during which the couple is traditionally supposed to initiate the sexual union that will lead to conception and birth.

In short, the bride's body and its symbolic extensions function as polyvalent symbolic media through which all members of the wedding are brought into close relationship with one another and with the mythic narrative of conception, fertility and the regeneration of life. The wedding is thus a supreme bourgeois ritual, producing a tangible, optimistic vision of a viable future, centered on the symbolic "birth" of a new nuclear family.

At the other end of the spectrum, the American funeral rite also centers on a single body, that of the corpse, in order to orchestrate another set of complex social and temporal relationships. The dead person may be thought of as moving from initial separation (through special treatment, including embalming), into the ambiguous liminal status of funeral corpse, to a final state of integration into the domain of the dead (signified through burial or cremation). This close attention to the dead body not only manages the deceased's social transition out of the living world, but separates the mourners as a collective social unit out of ordinary life, placing them into an ambiguous interstitial space and time. They wear special somber clothes, adopt a solemn demeanor, and may even be expected to view or kiss the corpse, before the coffin lid is closed and the service begins. At the rite's conclusion, they are collectively reintegrated into ordinary life, often through actions, such as food and lively conversation at a reception, that emphasize the renewal of life.

The ultimate consequence of the funeral's double tripartite structure is an achieved marked separation between the categories of life and death, Paradoxically, this ritual distance enables subsequent moments of communion between the living and the dead, as in visits to the cemetery, which are often tied to key moments in the annual calendar, such as Christmas, Memorial Day, or Mother's Day.[fn]Richard Huntington and Peter Metcalfe, Celebrations of death: The anthropology of mortuary ritual. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).; Lloyd Warner, The living and the dead: A study of the symbolic life of Americans. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959); John Gillis, A world of their own making; Myth, ritual and the quest for family values. (New York: Basic Books, 1996)[/fn]

The Annual Ritual Cycle: Integrative and Dispersive Tendencies in the "Holiday Season"

Rites of passage thus primarily concentrate upon individual life stage transitions, while simultaneously evoking collective transformations in family and kinship configurations. Conversely, calendrical family rites tend to foreground the collective institutional existence of the family, while secondarily highlighting personal life course journeys through successive family spheres.

To some extent, our major calendrical rites can be conceived as compensatory retreats from the external domains of commerce, getting and spending. Anthropologist Gwen Neville suggests that the modern family reunion (a North American practice developed after the Civil War) is an inverted kind of Protestant pilgrimage.[fn]Gwen Neville Kennedy, Kinship and Pilgrimage: Rituals of Reunion in American Protestant Culture. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); see also, Gwen Kennedy Neville Kinship and Pilgrimage: Rituals of Reunion In American Protestant Culture(Working Paper 023-03, Emory Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life, 2003)[/fn] The medieval Catholic pilgrim typically set off from a rural kinship-based setting and moved across a sacral landscape into the wider world toward a distant site, often marked by holy relics, through which he or she might come into intimate contact with the divine. In contrast, as Weber argued, the modern Protestant subject moves through a disenchanted landscape, sensing divine election only through disciplined work and persistent self-actualization in the marketplace. Hence, Neville, maintains, the modern longing, epitomized by the family reunion, to return periodically to the bonds of kinship within a nostalgic agrarian setting, such as the "old home place" or a state park.[fn]This argument is developed in reference to Protestant camp meetings by Bradd Shore, in his Spiritual Work, Memory Work: Revival and Recollection at Salem Camp Meeting (Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life, Working Paper 024-03, 2003). For a discussion of American family reunions, with particular attention to African American reunions, see Mark Auslander, Something we need to get back to: Mythologies of Origin and Rituals of Solidarity in African American Working Families. (Working Paper, Emory Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life. 2003)[/fn] This insight may be extended to other modern calendrical ceremonies, which are also grounded in an imagined agrarian past, including the harvest festival (Thanksgiving and Halloween), the midwinter rite of sun return (Christmas, Kwanza and Hanukah) and spring fertility festivals (Easter and Passover). In contrast to earlier public festivals, however, the celebration of these rites has been privatized since the mid-nineteenth century, more and more confined to the interiors of nuclear family households. During the past century and a half, these rites have been increasingly homogenized, as regional variations have been leveled (although some distinguishing ethnic markers are often reinserted). These annual holidays thus function as apparent refuges from the wider world of work, enclaved from the rationalized calculations of the economy. Yet, paradoxically, the rites also celebrate the integration of the family into the larger nation and economy.

To appreciate the multiple dimensions of calendrical rites, let us briefly concentrate on the annual "holiday season," stretching from Halloween through Christmas. This two month period--centered on the image of pure child surrounded by a loving family--is characterized by mounting mass commodity consumption, during which all Americans are surrounded by the sights and sounds of marketing, from blinking lights, to storefront displays to Christmas carols. Building on Warner, Bellah approaches Thanksgiving as an integrative rite, binding discrete families into the national "civic religion" of shared sacrifice and imputed grace.[fn]Warner, op cit; R. Bellah, Civil religion in America. in Bellah, Beyond belief: Essays on religion in a post-traditional word. (pp. 168-187). (New York: Harper and Row. 1970)[/fn] The turkey might in this light be conceived of as symbolizing both the solidarity of the family (hence the common prohibition on cutting the turkey before all members and branches of the family have assembled at the table!) and the unity of the nation. In partaking of a piece of the turkey (partly consecrated by a common prayer or murmured words of thanks) family members are thus more intimately bound to one another and to their fellow citizens-symbolically integrated into what Benedict Anderson terms the "imagined community" of the nation. [fn]Benedict Anderson. Imagined communities: Reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism.( London: Verso. 1983)[/fn] In some families, this integration is hierarchically ordered; all "children," including unmarried persons of any age, are confined to the "children's table."[fn]The Thanksgiving rite also enables degrees of ethnic and family-specific variation. Cuban Americans, for example, may tend to serve as a special shredded turkey dish. Individual extended or nuclear families often consume a particular dish, or follow a particular practice that they consider unique to their family.[/fn]

Although commentators have for generations dutifully denounced the "commercialization" of Christmas as contrary to the day' spiritual and religious principles, it is manifestly a festival of mass commodity consumption, arguably the most important context through which the domestic domain is integrated into the broader public sphere. [fn]L.E. Schmidt, Consumer rites: The buying and selling of American holidays. (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. 1995.)[/fn] Preparatory mini-pilgrimages to department store or shopping mall Santas are de rigeur in many families. [fn]W.B. Waits, The modern Christmas in America. (New York: New York University Press. 1993);J.M. Golby, & A.M. Purdue, The making of modern Christmas. (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. 1986.)[/fn] A Christmas morning featuring only homemade toys would hardly count as Christmas; enormous emphasis is placed on obtaining fashionable and expensive industrially manufactured gifts, especially those celebrated in the mass media. The common myth that Santa Claus, and not the parents, miraculously places the gifts under the Christmas tree could be interpreted as poetically evoking the nearly magical status of the commodity at the symbolic heart of the American family system.[fn]Indeed, Belk argues that Santa is a secular, capitalist transformation of Christ: while the anti-materialist Jesus "reigns in the realm of the spirit," Santa is "first and foremost a symbol of material abundance and hedonistic pleasure." See Ressell W. Belk. A Child's Christmas in America: Santa Claus as Deity, Consumption as Religion. The Journal of American Culture. 10 (1); 87-100. On Christmas and capitalism see also Lloyd Warner, The living and the dead: A study of the symbolic life of Americans. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959).; Daniel Miler, (Ed.).Unwrapping Christmas. (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1993); L.E. Schmidt, Consumer rites: The buying and selling of American holidays (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).; E.H. Pleck, Celebrating the family: Ethnicity, consumer culture, and family rituals. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000).; R. Horsley, & J. Tracy (Eds.), Christmas unwrapped. Consumerism, Christ, and Culture. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International. 2001)[/fn] The gifts, after all, really do come from somewhere else (if not the North Pole) and through interacting with the outer world of the marketplace the parents have translated mere money into expressions of love, the foundation of the family unit. As Nancy Munn perceptively notes, the polyvalent symbol of the wrapped Christmas present effectively conflates two kinds of parental love.[fn]Nancy Munn. Symbolism in a Ritual Context: Aspects of Symbolic Action. (1973) pp.607-8[/fn] The outer colored wrapping evokes nurturing affection, classically associated with maternal love and aesthetics, while the material value of the store-bought gift within the wrapping evokes the parents' monetary contributions, classically associated with the wage-earning working father. Significantly, on Christmas morning, all these gifts, evoking the multiple relationships (parent-parent, parent-child, sibling-sibling) that constitute the nuclear family unit, are assembled around a singular ritual object, the Christmas tree. There should be only one tree per family, topped by one single star, but the tree itself should have been previously decorated through the collaborative work of the entire family, using objects that often evoke previous Christmas celebrations and key persons and events in family history. The idealized tableau of Christmas morning--children and parents delightedly opening gifts under the tree--is an exemplary model of the American family system, in which close relatives are bound together as a single unit by exchanging tokens of love derived from the wider market-driven culture.

The Christmas tree, while sometimes spoken of as a sign of family continuity, is also a potent sign of rupture between successive nuclear families. Once a new couple has established their own household, they are likely to have a tree of their own, and are considerably less likely to receive presents under their parents' trees in their natal households. Each newly established Christmas tree embodies the virtual sanctification of the new bourgeois home and nuclear family. Santa Claus, significantly, is believed to deposit his gifts at the symbolic core of domestic space, descending the chimney and entering the "living room" through the fireplace/hearth, an eminently maternal site.

These symbolic complexes may be read as striking evidence of the enduring resonance of premodern and pre-Christian symbolism in modern American culture. Levi-Strauss proposes that Father Christmas carries traces of a pagan quasi-shamanic figure, the King of Saturnalia, who embodies the seasonal cycles of death and the regeneration of life.[fn]Claude Levi-Strauss. Killing Father Christmas, in Daniel Miller, ed. Unwrapping Christmas. (Oxford: Claredon Press. 1995)[/fn] By giving gifts to children--who for the three months following Halloween incarnate the spirits of the Dead--adults propitiate Death and enhance the vitality of the human world. Hence, parents tenderly struggle to maintain children's faith in Santa Claus for as long as possible. "Is it not that, deep within us," asks Levi-Strauss, "there is a small desire to believe in boundless generosity, kindness without ulterior motives, a brief interlude during which all fear, envy and bitterness are suspended? No doubt we cannot fully share the illusion, but sharing with others at least gives us a chance to warm our hearts by the flame that burns in young souls."[fn]Claude Levi-Straus, Killing Father Christmas, p.50[/fn] In a similar vein, ethnographer Cindy Dell Clark observes that Christmas is not so much for children as it is a "a holiday in which other members of the culture socially situate themselves vis-à-vis children."[fn]Clark, Cindy Dell. Flights of fancy, leaps of faith: Children's myths in contemporary America. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1995) p.40[/fn] In the wedding rite, as we have seen, the assembled take pleasure in the eventual prospect of the bride's fertility and the birth of children; in turn, on December 25th all are expected to rejoice in the realization of this promise, reveling in dramas of childish energy and vitality.

Pagan symbolism also runs through the rite that inaugurates the holiday season, Halloween, the night during which the souls of the dead were classically thought to roam the earth. Like Christmas, Halloween also centers on children, but with a different set of emphases. Disguised as ghosts, goblins and other supernatural beings, children would seem to function as temporary vessels of the dead traveling from house to house. The requirement that adults give gifts to these masked beings, on penalty of destructive mischief, could be read as an attempt to propitiate the forces of death, at precisely the moment in the northern hemisphere that the darkest and coldest season of the year descends. In this regard, illuminated jack-o-lanterns made of grimacing, carved pumpkins and placed on threshold sites such as porches might be interpreted as polyvalent (and prophylactic) talismans, simultaneously simulating feared goblins and guarding the home against intrusions by the dark spirits of the night.

Perhaps because of this underlying symbolism of inversion, death and disorder, Halloween celebrates the emergence of children's autonomy and individuation over their normative, vertical integration into the social collectivity. In spite (or perhaps because of) parental and mass media anxiety over child abduction and rumors of poisoned candy, children avidly campaign for trick-or-treating, a practice that dates only to the 1930s.[fn]Elizabeth H. Pleck, Celebrating the family: Ethnicity, consumer culture, and family rituals. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2000)[/fn] Costumed trick-or-treating could be interpreted as a kind of "deep play" a symbolic rehearsal of adolescence and adulthood, as children try on new roles and identities (in the form of masks and costumes, often associated with miraculous powers) and venture out into the wider world, especially into the normally prohibited domains of other households -precisely the kind of sites they will come to know once they leave the nest of their parents' homes. In contrast to the integrative communion meals of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Passover or Easter, Halloween is centered on a kind of anti-meal, candy, which is not consumed in a collective context. As in classic carnival or saturnalia the world is "turned upside down" during Halloween.[fn]On saturnalia, see Mikhail Bakhtin Rabelais and his world. Translated by Helene Iswolsky. (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press. 1968)[/fn] Children shout out commands to adults, venture out into the darkness, violate social conventions of decorum, flirt with the grotesque by over-eating and hanging toilet paper, and actively seek out frightening experiences. In temporarily taking control of instruments of secrecy, children may be tentatively exploring more pervasive mysteries and secrets of the adult social world. Each year, the complex dance of collaboration and conflict between parents and children over the precise nature of Halloween activities dramatizes in microcosm parents and children's deeper ambivalence over the maturation process: how much dependence or independence is desirable and tolerable?

Like the other family rituals we have considered, Halloween ambiguously dramatizes both the centrifugal and centripetal tendencies in American kinship. On the one hand, the rite exemplifies the child's growing horizontal integration into a socializing peer group, within which solidarity will be increasingly established (especially in adolescence) through carefully calibrated exercises in common risk-taking. On the other hand, Halloween also occasions intimate collaboration and solidarity between parents and children. The whole family often works together on elaborate scary decorations in the front yard, parents help dress the children in costume, and adults increasingly escort their children through the neighborhood on trick-or-treat ventures.

Taken as a whole, then, the entire holiday season may be regarded as a ritual drama evoking and "solving" the forces of dissolution and dispersal that threaten the American kinship system in a society that has radically separated the family from economic production, and which, in so doing, periodically pre-empts tri-generational households. The season begins on Halloween night, as children make ambiguous, experimental forays out to other households, testing the limits of parental forbearance and anxiety. Grandparents are often not present at Halloween, but the disturbing specters of more distant antecedents, in the form of the dead unleashed from the graveyard, are sensed and must be placated through ritual play. In turn, on Thanksgiving, at least three living generations should ideally be present to engage in joyous commensality. Significantly, Norman Rockwell's now mythic "Freedom from Want" World War II poster prominently displays loving grandparents at the top of the table, and places happy, expectant grandchildren at the table's base, evoking the affective solidarity between generations one and three. Finally, at Christmas, the ritual focus shifts from alternate generations (who may have traveled to be together) to the adjacent generations inhabiting a single nuclear family household. The white-haired Santa Claus makes a purported appearance as a substitute grandfather, but he is not, appropriately, to be seen by the children. In playing at being the grandfatherly Santa Claus, the parents, in effect, transfer the affective solidarity of alternate generations into the compressed nuclear home, reconciling proximate generations at the end of yet another year of inevitable parent-child negotiation and conflict. (One week later, on New Year's Eve, parents are rewarded with a night that is in principle for adults only, marking the final conclusion of the holiday season.)

Conclusion: From Contradiction to Paradox

Rather like the Ngoni mugeniso ceremony, modern middle-class American family rituals poetically encapsulate and work upon a set of pervasive conundrums at the heart of our kinship and economic system, revolving around problematic generational sequencing and ambiguous signs of abstracted exchange value. When these rituals "succeed," the radical formal divides between love and work, between family of origin and family of procreation, and between dependence and autonomy are, in effect, translated from the level of overt contradiction to a more inchoate level of paradoxical coexistence. In the context of a well-performed wedding, for instance, the costumed bride functions as a composite symbolic paradigm that simultaneously evokes separation and union, filial piety and conjugal eroticism, youth and maturity, poignant loss and the joyous regeneration of life. She is in one respect pure and authentic, an oasis of aesthetic perfection unsullied by the crude logic of the market. She is another respect the embodiment of financial solidity and the fruits of hard work, a tangible celebration of the wealth of her parents or of the marital couple itself. She makes her advent in the rite as a child, being passed away from the hand of her father; she disappears from view at its conclusion as a wife clutching her new husband's hand, showered by rice that evokes the new child she will, in principle, bring forth.

In a comparable fashion, Christmas promises to collapse everyday distinctions between emotion and economy, affection and rationality, juniors and seniors. On the one hand, Christmas is the annual culmination of the cult of domesticity, promising a tableau of unconditional love equally available to rich and poor like. On the other hand, Christmas celebrates the cornucopia of commodity consumption, and is the apotheosis of every dream and fantasy the market has to offer. It celebrates the transcendental self, rewarded through gifts and the pleasures of unbridled acquisition, yet locates that self within a coherent familial framework, under the encompassing sign of the Christmas tree. Each Christmas evokes the benevolent presence of grandfatherly figures, even it subtly moves the actual incumbents of generations one off stage, towards the mythical, invisible domain of Mr. and Mrs. Claus at the North Pole. Successive Christmases provide temporal benchmarks as persons move through the life cycle, from their natal family to new nuclear family units, allowing for periodic reflections on the shape of one's life and for what Shore terms "identity-updating."[fn]Bradd Shore Autobiographical Memory and Identity Updating Salem Camp Meeting (Emory Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life, Working Paper 048-06, 2006)[/fn]

Our greatest mythic narrative of Christmas, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, directly addresses both the intertwining of the market and the holiday and the complex intersections of personal biography and intergenerational temporal sequencing. Scrooge, the embodiment of soulless capitalist rationality, demands that Bob Cratchet work on Christmas Day, then fires him on this day, of all days. He is punished by successive visitations (significantly, brought to him by the dead themselves) of the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. In his visions of the past, he re-experiences the pain of love lost and friendship betrayed. In the present, he sees the immediate consequences of his action. In the future, he glimpses the possible legacies of his selfishness, in his own unlamented death and in the preventable death of Cratchet's young son, Tiny Tim. Finally, embracing the spirit of Christmas through joyous commodity consumption and distribution, Scrooge saves Tiny Tim and, in so doing, remakes the future and saves himself. He thereby grasps the basic paradox of Christmas and of the sentimental domestic cult: in giving unstintingly to the junior generation that will in time replace both the middle and senior generations, elders actively secure their own vitality and achieve symbolic immortality. Appropriately, it falls to the youngest child, Tiny Tim, to pronounce the closing words of salvation over the elderly Scrooge and the extended family of Christmas revelers: "God bless us, everyone."

As A Christmas Carol reminds us, although family rites produce powerful visions of the past, present and future, they do not, in themselves, determine whether or not the future will be bleak or joyous, alienating or transcendent. As most of us have learned, family rituals can trigger moments of devastating isolation, or afford exquisite glimpses of the sublime. Ritual provides microcosmic, condensed models of the contradictory texture of lived experience, yet these models are not fixed templates, but are only the potential building blocks out of which we may, under certain conditions, come to know ourselves, our antecedents and our descendants more deeply. In creatively manipulating these building blocks, we may improvise more effective and meaningful relations with love ones.

Here, then, lies the greatest paradox of our family rituals: in subordinating ourselves to pre-existent structures that we neither fully understand nor control, we are afforded the possibility of discovering novel aspects of ourselves and our relations with others, living and dead. Such visions may be as fleeting as a bride's tossed bouquet, a Christmas gift's wrapping, the menorah's flickering flame, or a tossed clod of earth. Yet it is out of such glimpses that we may fabricate meaningful trajectories of self and collectivity. In our ritual performances, enigmatic dramas of the insolvable puzzles of our common world, we pursue the enduring double task of reconciling our love with our work, our predecessors with our posterity.

Related Resources:

Mark Auslander's blog: http://culturalproductions.blogspot.com/

Academic Resources

Mark Auslander, Rituals of the Family. 2002. http://wfnetwork.bc.edu/encyclopedia_entry.php?id=253

Mark Auslander, Rituals of the Workplace, Sloan Work and Family Encyclopedia. 2003 http://wfnetwork.bc.edu/encyclopedia_entry.php?id=254

James Howe. Syllabus on "Myth, Ritual and Symbolism" (MIT OpenCourseWare) http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Anthropology/21A-212Spring2004/CourseHome/

Sharon Morris. Bibiliography of Social Anthropological Theories of Ritual Meaning and Function http://pages.swcp.com/~ldraper/slim/biblios/morris.html

Popular Resources

Janet Dengel. Family Rituals and Traditions: Now More Important than Ever. http://www.childrentoday.com/articles/family/family-rituals-and-traditions-3064/

Simplemom: The Importance of Family Rituals http://simplemom.net/the-importance-of-family-rituals/

Family Rituals http://www.familyritual.org/

Putting Family First: Family Rituals http://www.puttingfamilyfirst.org/family_rituals.php

References:

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Content Type for Views:

Research Article

Table 1. Sample Characteristics: Percent Distributions.
	All Men (N=110)			All Women (N=135) [1]
	M	SD	Range	M	SD	Range
Paternity confirmed by genetic test	0.56	0.02	0-1	0.90	0.01	0-1
Putative father saw focal child in last 30 days	0.44	0.02	0-1	0.39	0.02	0-1
Putative paternal grandparents saw focal child in last 30 days	0.32	0.02	0-1	0.29	0.02	0-1
Focal child's age
Younger than 1 year	0.32	0.02	0-1	0.23	0.02	0-1
1 to 3 years	0.32	0.02	0-1	0.41	0.02	0-1
4 or older	0.36	0.02	0-1	0.36	0.02	0-1
Mean father's age (SD)	30.8	9.90	18-65	31.2	8.90	18-61
Mother has custody of child	0.87	0.01	0-1	0.91	0.01	0-1
Perceived odds of a positive match
50-50 or less	0.69	0.02	0-1	0.15	0.01	0-1
A pretty good chance	0.16	0.01	0-1	0.14	0.01	0-1
An almost certain chance	0.15	0.01	0-1	0.71	0.02	0-1
African American	0.67	0.02	0-1	0.62	0.02	0-1
Household income
Less than ,000	0.17	0.01	0-1	0.25	0.02	0-1
,000 to 29,999	0.29	0.02	0-1	0.22	0.01	0-1
, 000 or more	0.32	0.02	0-1	0.29	0.02	0-1
Do not Know	0.22	0.02	0-1	0.24	0.02	0-1
Education
High school diploma or more	0.89	0.01	0-1	0.82	0.01	0-1
Less than high school	0.11	0.01	0-1	0.18	0.01	0-1
Does putative father do anything to help mother?
Nothing	0.53	0.02	0-1	0.77	0.02	0-1
Something	0.47	0.02	0-1	0.23	0.02	0-1

Number of children
None	0.2	0.02	0-1	0	0.00	0-1
One	0.32	0.02	0-1	0.34	0.02	0-1
Two	0.25	0.02	0-1	0.31	0.02	0-1
Three or more	0.23	0.02	0-1	0.35	0.02	0-1
Mean mother's age (SD)				27.4	6.50	18-44
Only one sexual partner the month focal child was conceived				0.58	0.02	0-1
Relationship quality
Romantically involved and steady	0.8	0.02	0-1
On again, off again	0.12	0.01	0-1
Just friends	0.18	0.01	0-1
Hardly ever talk	0.25	0.02	0-1
Never talk	0.37	0.02	0-1

Table 2: Concordance between mother's and father's reports of variables for matched couples [1]
	Men in Couples			Women in Couples			P-Value
Perceived Odds of a Positive Match	M	SD	Range	M	SD	Range
50-50 or less	0.66	0.03	0-1	0.2	0.02	0-1	<0.05
A pretty good chance	0.23	0.02	0-1	0.25	0.03	0-1
An almost certain chance	0.11	0.01	0-1	0.55	0.03	0-1	<0.01
Putative father saw focal child in last 30 days	0.54	0.03	0-1	0.57	0.03	0-1
Putative paternal grandparents saw focal child in last 30 days	0.36	0.03	0-1	0.34	0.03	0-1
Does putative father do anything to help mother?
Nothing	0.47	0.03	0-1	0.63	0.03	0-1	<0.05
Something	0.53	0.03	0-1	0.37	0.03	0-1	<0.05

Table 3. Socio-Demographic Background by Later Paternity Confirmation Status
	Paternity Excluded (N=62)				Paternity Confirmed (N=183)			P-Value
	M	SD	Range		M	SD	Range
Father's Age	30.46	10.15	19-65		31.25	8.99	18-61
Father saw child last 30 days.	0.42	0.03		0-1	0.41	0.02	0-1
Pat. Grand parents saw child last 30 days.	0.32	0.03		0-1	0.30	0.02	0-1
Child resembles father	0.12	0.01		0-1	0.16	0.01	0-1
Child has father's last name	0.30	0.03		0-1	0.42	0.02	0-1	<0.05
Father at delivery	0.29	0.03		0-1	0.40	0.02	0-1	<0.05
Man's belief test will confirm paternity 1-5	3.12	0.1		1-5	3.08	1.29	1-5
Child is a boy	0.45	0.03		0-1	0.51	0.02	0-1
Child's age (years)	4.48	4.8		0.3-15	4.06	4.37	0.03-23
Fathers fertility (Children ever fathered)	1.32	1.24		0-5	1.9	1.37	0-5	<0.05
Odds of marrying mother (1-5)	1.49	1.14		1-5	1.42	0.91	1-5
Promised mother financial support	0.47	0.03		0-1	0.59	0.02	0-1	<0.05
Couples' relationship duration (yrs)	7.49	6.39		1-30	7.07	5.75	0-30
Both partners enrolled in study	0.73	0.03		0-1	0.37	0.02	0-1	<0.01