Family Studies ch 11 Flashcards
Procreative Liberty and Pronatalism
The freedom to decide whether or not to have children
Identifying the attitudes that encourage childbearing which include culture, family, friends, religion and in some countries government
People today can chose:
- to be parents or not to be parents.
- when to have children
- how many children they want to have
- at what point in their lives.
Becoming a Parent
About 72% of American adults have children, but almost half of U.S. pregnancies are unintended.
Different parents worry about different things:
Planners
Acceptance of fate
Ambivalent couples
Yes-no couples
Benefits of Having Children
Benefits: Children bring a sense of joy, happiness, and completeness to families.
Lifestyle changes
Costs of Having Children
It is expensive.
the mommy tax
emotional costs
Fathers and mothers spend time caring for the children, often neglecting their own relationships.
Pregnancy
When pregnancy is planned and welcomed it can be exhilarating. It can draw a couple together.
There are several discomforts for moms at all stages of pregnancy:
Some Effects of Parenthood
A negative effect of parenthood tends to be a higher divorce rate.
Some parents think having a baby will bring them closer, but it often drives them apart.
How Many?
A majority of Americans say that two children is the ideal number, and few people want more than three
Why Have U.S. Fertility Rates Changed? Micro Level Factors
Micro-level factors—whether to have intercourse; timing of first intercourse; percent of women who have intercourse; time spent in marriage; frequency of intercourse
Why Have U.S. Fertility Rates Changed? Macro Level Factors
Macro-level factors—improvements in contraception for moms and an increase in opportunities for women in higher education.
Infant Mortality
The U.S. has the highest rate of infant mortality for any high-income country in the world.
Causes: defects, preterm birth, and low birth weight.
Impact of access to health care
Postponing Parenthood
The number of first-time older mothers is rising.
4% of American women having first babies were 30 or older in the early 70’s
Why is this Happening?
Macro-level factors—
When there is high recession, many young people don’t have the financial resources to start a family.
Many young couples still live with their parents.
Some young couples are disturbed by the high divorce rate.
Advanced reproductive technology has put less stress on the biological clock.
Our country does not support young families in the same ways that some other high-income nations do.
Some Characteristics of Older Parents
Advantages—
Women who give birth between 22 and 34 have healthier babies.
Older mothers are more likely to be married and have a higher education.
Older mothers tend to feel more secure.
Older dads also have some advantages in that they can retire when their children are younger and get to spend more time with them.
Infertility
Infertility is the inability to conceive a baby. It often goes undiagnosed until the couple have been together for a while and are trying to have a child.
Infertility is due about equally to problems in males and females; each sex contributes about 40% to the problem.
In approximately 20% of cases, doctors cannot determine the cause.
Reactions to Infertility
Couples tend to be devastated.
Two cultural reasons seem to be at play:
Married couples want to reproduce.
Couples get married so they can reproduce.
Fertility Rates variability factors
Education
Economic means ( experiences, opportunities)
Non working mothers have higher birthrates
Cultural beliefs
Reproductive options
Adoption: The Traditional Solution to Infertility
In the past, women were concerned that if anyone knew she gave up her baby they would judge her harshly.
Open and Closed Adoptions
Open adoption is the practice of sharing information and maintaining contact between the biological and adoptive parents throughout the child’s life.
Closed adoptions, where there was no contact between any of the parties, used to be used much more common
Adoption by Same-Sex Partners
Another controversial issue in the past, it has become much more common for gay and lesbian couples to adopt children.
International Adoption
Adopting children from other counties has become easier and more accepted.
In the past decade, approximately 216,000 children have been adopted from 20 different countries.
Some rewards of adoption
The most obvious reward is that an unwanted child finds a home where he or she is loved and wanted.
Compared with children raised in foster homes or by never-married mothers, adopted children are economically advantaged, more likely to complete high school and hold a skilled job, and less likely to use drugs and commit crimes.
Some costs of adoption
Adoptive parents sometimes worry that the birth mother may not have had adequate prenatal care and the baby many have birth defects.
About 3-8% of adoptions are dissolved because the adoptive parents can’t cope with the adopted child’s difficult behavior problems.
Medical and High-Tech Solutions to Infertility
Artificial insemination—a medical procedure in which semen is artificially introduced into the vagina or uterus at about the time of ovulation.
In vitro fertilization—involves surgically removing eggs from a woman’s ovaries, fertilizing them in a petri dish with sperm from the husband or other donor, and then reintroducing them back into the uterus.
Surrogacy—a woman who is capable of carrying a pregnancy to term serves as a substitute for a woman who cannot bear children.
Genetic Engineering: Benefits and Costs
Some worry that genetic engineering, because it mettles with nature, is unnatural and unethical.
Benefits—it has been valuable in detecting prenatal genetic abnormalities.
Costs—increases the risk of birth defects, especially in the case of twins or multiple births.
Abortion
Has been and continues to be controversial.
The number of abortions is on the decrease.
Who typically has an abortion? Young women in their 20s, white and African American, never married.
Contraceptives
The use of contraceptives has increased over the past 20 years, especially with the invention of the birth-control pill and now the morning-after pill.
Teenage Motherhood
Problems: Stigmatized and marginalized Poverty among single teen mothers and their children Poor health habits Lower academic achievement Deficit nurturing skills Anxious/depressed teen father
