Prompt
1) This week we are discussing the somewhat late involvement of the state in creating laws targeted at specifically child protection. In most of the Western context, urbanization and child labor created a new problem in the 19th century; the abundance of poor, abandoned, homeless and and destitute children. Both The Orphan Train film and Clay Gish’ article focus on one of the solutions for those children: placing them in foster homes across the country. Based on either the film or article, what do you think were some of the practical problems of such campaigns (for example, with finding placement for children, their integration into society and foster families, profile of children that the program encompassed, or anything else you find important)?
2) At the same time, the idea of protected child brought forth the emergence of strong figure in the process of child rearing: the mother. Contrary to the ancient medieval and even early modern period when fathers’ authority was unquestionable, late 19th century public discourse re-introduced the immense importance of the mother in the child’s physical and mental development. The “new” kind of motherhood was to be aided by an abundance of medical and scientific advice from the burgeoning field of child-oriented medical and scholarly domains. Based on information in Rima Apple’s article, comment on why you think these “scientific” aids were widely accepted on the part of mothers and public in general.
Practical Problems for the Foster Home Campaigns
A sweeping movement got developed to protect the orphaned, poor, and homeless children before foster care or social welfare. The campaign got conducted to remove the children from the poverty and squalor of the city and assist them in providing a workforce in the farms out west. Many immigrants had moved into the city, and there was a rise of financial depression and panic that led to unemployment (Gish, 126). Brace proposed that the disadvantaged children and orphans be fostered by families in the west rather than institutionalizing them. There emerged challenges during the foster home campaigns such as getting placement for the children, the profile of the children that the program encompassed, and the children’s integration into foster families and societies.
The technique of placing the orphans and the impoverished children with strangers led to mass adoption and could be considered dangerous and cruel. Some children would get placed with individuals who treated them as servants if the probable parents were to get vetted at all (Gish, 127). The children that got fostered were separated from their sibling groups, and those who got abandoned or their new guardians died could get relieved from the situations that made them be fostered. Some of the children who went to the west were due to their parent’s inability to support them in the city. Therefore, the foster parents who were resourceful and impoverished took advantage of the services offered by the children for their purposes, which included temporary caretaking at times of economic crisis. Therefore, the children were projected to execute a grueling workforce in exchange for adoption or foster care. In addition, the impoverished children and the orphans to be fostered were viewed as potential criminals in society, which was a problem during the campaigns.
Why Scientific” Aids were Widely Accepted on the Part of Mothers and Public in General.
Scientific motherhood inspired mothers to be actively involved in making decisions concerning the health of their families, evaluate and find information for themselves. In addition, scientific aid got broadly accepted because individuals believed it would figure out domestic work dates. The domestic work included nursing and cleaning, cooking, gardening, child-rearing, offering the scientific rationale for the woman’s advice, and household maintenance. Women had to get educated for their mothering work just as men did for their profession (Apple, 166). Motherhood was then considered a profession. Thus, they had to assucixme the male scientific approach.
Last Completed Projects
| topic title | academic level | Writer | delivered |
|---|