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Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage :: 0520248198
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Millie Acevedo bore her first child before the age of 16 and dropped out of high school to care for her newborn. Now 27, she is the unmarried mother of three and is raising her kids in one of Philadelphia's poorest neighborhoods. Would she and her children be better off if she had waited to have them and had married their father first? Why do so many poor American youth like Millie continue to have children before they can afford to take care of them?
Over a span of five years, sociologists Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas talked in-depth with 162 low-income single moms like Millie to learn how they think about marriage and family. Promises I Can Keep offers an intimate look at what marriage and motherhood mean to these women and provides the most extensive on-the-ground study to date of why they put children before marriage despite the daunting challenges they know lie ahead.Editorial Descriptions are usually submitted by the manufacturers, publishers and authors. Contact us if you are one of them, and wish to change the above description. |
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Author: Guest
I thought this book was an excellent insight into the women of the poor; their values, their reasoning behind their early pregnancies and the world in which they live. It's well written and I would recommend that all mothers, including myself, encourage their young daughters to read this novel. My daughter thought it was a real "eye opener". I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to my friends.
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Author: Guest
As a physician in an urban health center, I am often frustrated by my patients who are 16, out of school, pregnant and elated. I often probe into the available support for the future child and despite the dismal job prospects, chaotic families and low educational attainment, abortion doesn't seem to be an option. I have been called to task by the patients and their equally young mothers for even mentioning that there may be an option in this situation.
This book through its in depth interviews with poor women gets to the heart of why a pregnancy at 16 though unplanned is often desirable. It answers the questions I have as an upper middle class care provider as to why a moment that would have been devastating for me is seen as an opportunity for them. I can see it will be a valuable resource in interacting with these patients of mine in the future by shedding light on how pregnancy and parenting are not an obstruction to a brighter future but the future itself.
For a less "clinical" assessment of poverty and its effect on the family, I would recommend "Random Family" by Adrien Leblanc. This is another intriguing look at adolescents who also grow up in impoverished environments and the toll it takes on their pregnancies, relationships and families.
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Author: Guest
this is such an exquisite study, and is also accessible to non-scholars. i encourage everyone to read this, especially those with preconceived notions about what it means to be an underprivileged single mother.
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Author: Guest
Often when the question is posed as to why do poor women continue to have children before they are obviously -at least to the majority of Americans it is obvious-in the most opportune position to accomplish the task of parenting successfully, several common responses are usually offered. The most common retort may be that poor women don't have access to low-cost or free contraception and/or abortion providers, followed by claims that these women are just irresponsible and possess low ( or completely lack) moral values. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, poor women have less access to inexpensive contraceptive supplies and behavior that may be common in the ghettoes of America can be starkly contrasted against what is deemed acceptable in middle and upper-class communities. Yet it turns out that these differences have surprisingly little to do with why poor women consistently put motherhood before marriage.
Sociologists Edin and Kefalas spent 5 years interviewing, studying and interacting with a group consisting of one-hundred and sixty-two women from eight impoverished communities to find the real answer to this perturbing question. Along the way Edin and Kefalas dispell the myths and stereotypes pertaining to poor men and women and their attitudes regarding motherhood and marriage. It turns out that rather than viewing marriage as an inconsequential and outdated institution, the interviewies revered marriage. What the authors discovered was that the women held marriage to such a high-standard and erected so many hurdles to be jumped before they would consider getting married that they effectively placed the hallowed institution outside of their reach in the near future. While the middle and upper-class follow the line of thinking that says "first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage", poor women women more often than not say "first comes infatuation, then comes the baby, then you move in together and plan for the wedding to take place in 5 or 6 years once the two of you are satisfied that you really know each other". Many of the things that these single-mothers say and do appear inexplicably contradictory, and at times, almost absurd. Yet to the women it all makes perfect sense. This book has numerous examples of "you have to read it to believe it" moments: for instance, there are the single mothers of two or three children who say that they don't want to get married just yet because marriage is such "hard work," as if raising several children in the heart of the ghetto while seemingly mired in abject poverty is a far easier task.
The differences between the attitudes and behavior of poor and upper-class women is as stark as night and day when it comes to marriage and motherhood. Anyone genuinely interested in exploring these differences and crafting real responses to teen pregnancy and the high rates of out-of-wedlock childbearing in ostensibly dire circumstances should begin their exploration by reading this book.
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Author: Guest
Even though I don't have any kids, I always wanted to step inside of the world of single mothers and see what they really go through, and why is it that they put marriage aside. I also notice how single motherhood is on the rise these days. And it is very true that low-income girls and middle-class girls live their lives differently from each other. Not only this is a well-written non-fiction book, but I also think that the two authors did a great job on their research for the book too.
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