Noncustodial Mothers Research Articles

Still a Mother: Noncustodial Mothers, Gendered Institutions, and Social Change

Still a Mother: Noncustodial Mothers, Gendered Institutions, and Social Change

Book Review: Still a Mother: Noncustodial Mothers, Gendered Institutions, and Social Change by Jackie Krasas

Book Review: <i>Still a Mother: Noncustodial Mothers, Gendered Institutions, and Social Change</i> by Jackie Krasas

Social Services Professionals' Views of Barriers to Supporting Homeless Noncustodial Fathers.

To investigate barriers to service for homeless non-custodial fathers from the perspective of social service professionals who work directly to assist men with securing housing while meeting the demands of fatherhood. The population of homeless fathers in the United States is increasing. Longitudinal studies show that although homeless noncustodial fathers and mothers face similar risk factors and barriers to services, research on minimizing risk factors and barriers for noncustodial fathers is limited compared with that for noncustodial mothers. The sample included 7 administrators and 12 direct service professionals engaged with fathers transitioning from homelessness. Data were collected via face-to-face, semi-structured interviews and analyzed using a qualitative inductive approach. Multiple cycle coding was employed to capture emerging themes. Three major themes, encompassing emotional, relational, and systemic factors, emerged regarding participants' experiences serving homeless noncustodial fathers. Effective approaches to supporting fathers require empathy, relationship building, and collaboration between service providers and policymakers. Future policies and interventions should be based on input from direct service professionals and homeless noncustodial fathers themselves, with the aim of best supporting their efforts toward securing housing while meeting the demands of fatherhood.

Economic Inequities in Child Support: The Role of Gender

Despite their increasing numbers, divorced families with a noncustodial mother and a custodial father have received scant research attention. Our study attempts to provide some initial insight into the economic status of these families. Examining the child support obligation, we find that noncustodial mothers face a much smaller award than noncustodial fathers, both in terms of the absolute dollar amount of the award and as a percentage of the obligor's income. This potential inequity, however, is offset by the fact that—despite the relatively lower child support obligation—noncustodial mothers experience a larger decline in their standard of living than do custodial fathers and their children. Thus although previous research has found that custodial mothers bear the brunt of familial dissolution, this conclusion does not apply to custodial fathers. Rather, mothers—regardless of custodial status—fare more poorly than fathers.

Mothering From a Distance

Notions of motherhood have been shaped by a Western ideology that encourages mothers to intensively mother their children, selflessly indulging in their child's every want and need. Failure to adhere to such criteria results in the label of “bad” mother. This understanding of motherhood has been viewed through a White, middle-class, heterosexual lens, limiting our ability to see the diversity of women's lives. In an effort to encourage exploration of women's nuanced experiences, feminist scholars have begun to explore marginalized mothers. This article adds to this research, drawing attention to noncustodial mothers. Because they do not live with their children on a full-time basis, noncustodial mothers deviate from the ideology of the “good mother,” providing an opportunity to explore the navigation of motherhood from a distance. Through qualitative interviews with 16 noncustodial mothers, strategies of resistance and accommodation of the cultural ideal emerge.

When Battered Mothers Lose Custody: A Qualitative Study of Abuse at Home and in the Courts

ABSTRACT The following study adds to research that examines child custody cases involving a history of interpersonal violence. This study contributes to past research by providing qualitative accounts of women's experiences with intimate partner violence prior to custody loss, institutional abuse at the hands of the family court, and abuse experienced after custody loss. Data come from a convenience sample of 16 noncustodial mothers from northeastern Ohio. Findings support past research, which finds corruption, denial of due process, and gender bias in the family court system. Policy recommendations are made and future research directions suggested.

The Influence of Parental Gender and Custodial Status on Perceptual Stigmatization

Although a substantial number of mothers do not have physical custody of their minor children, little research has been conducted on this population. In qualitative studies, non-custodial mothers often report being stigmatized. The current study compared perceptions of mothers without custody to those of mothers with custody as well as toward fathers with and without custody. It was expected that non-custodial mothers would be evaluated more negatively than custodial mothers and more negatively than fathers, with or without custody. Based on exploratory hypotheses, it also was expected that non-custodial mothers would be especially stigmatized when the non-custodial child was young or female. None of the hypotheses was supported. The only significant finding was that non-custodial parents were evaluated more negatively than custodial parents.

Relationship between Custodial Status and Psychosocial Problems among Cocaine‐Abusing Parents Initiating Substance Abuse Treatment

Using the Addiction Severity Index and Brief Symptom Inventory, drug use and psychosocial problems are compared between 93 custodial and 125 non-custodial mothers and fathers initiating outpatient treatment for cocaine dependence. Compared to non-custodial parents, custodial parents experienced more severe current cocaine and alcohol problems, including spending more money on cocaine and alcohol, as well as using more cocaine and being intoxicated on more days. Non-custodial parents demonstrated more psychological distress, more prior history of alcohol problems, and greater current employment and legal problems than custodial parents. Suggestions are made for differential treatment plans based on these findings.

Nonresidential Parents: Nonresidential Mothers, Schools, and the Reform Process

The Australian Commonwealth Government is about to initiate widespread changes to family law. Central to the reform proposals is the introduction of Family Relationship Centres (FRCs), as alternatives to current adversarial approaches to settling family separation. This discussion paper raises two issues in relation to the forthcoming reforms. Firstly, within community debates, nonresidential (noncustodial) mothers are typically subsumed under nonresidential (noncustodial) parents, often without recognition of their particular needs, as nonresidential mothers.1 The article draws attention to the social stigma nonresidential mothers suffer and its implications for the reform process. Secondly, we include both nonresidential mothers and nonresidential fathers in a critique of the lack of educational initiatives by educational research and schools to involve nonresidential parents in their children’s schooling. We believe that in the spirit of the forthcoming reforms, schools need to reach out to all parents. This means that school personnel (school psychologists, social workers) need to be available to families and consultants during negotiations within the proposed FRCs, to assist both nonresidential mothers and fathers in securing school involvement.

Divorce and the Adjustment of Children

Divorce and the Adjustment of Children

Noncustodial Mothering

This article interrogates the cultural experience of being a noncustodial mother. Framed by the discrete event of child visitation, the author provides a personal account of her struggles to perform successfully in such a constraining context of discourse. Employing a dramatistic metaphor, she extends the praxis of autoethnography by critically exploring the semiotic and phenomenological nature of this communicative experience. She reveals that noncustodial mothering presents a cultural paradox that foregrounds the dialecticalmovement between a competent performance and a performative competence of mothering. She discusses the implications of this cultural phenomenon in light of the concepts of performativity and la parole that deepens our appreciation of the communicative praxis of ethnography.

Stepchildren's Perceptions of Noncustodial Mothers and Noncustodial Fathers: Differences in Socioemotional Involvement and Associations With Adolescent Adjustment Problems.

Caucasian stepchildren (aged 10-18) in the Nonshared Environment and Adolescent Development (NEAD) project rated noncustodial (NC) parents' socioemotional involvement. Stepfamilies had been together at least 5 years. Adolescents with NC mothers (n = 56) reported more phone calls, mail, overnight visits, and social support than adolescents with NC fathers (n = 143). The association between perceived social support and adolescent adjustment was compared for NC mothers versus NC fathers by using structural equation modeling; the association was stronger for NC mothers. No effects for sex of child or interactions of sex of child/sex of NC parent were obtained. NC fathers might increase their influence in adolescents' lives by behaving more like NC mothers (more frequent phone calls, overnights, etc.).

'I Only Want Trust': Norms, Trust and Autonomy

'I Only Want Trust': Norms, Trust and Autonomy

Nonresident Mothers' and Fathers' Social Contact with Children

This study investigates sex differences in nonresident parents' level of contact with biological children with whom they do not live. With data from the 1987-1988 National Survey of Families and Households, I assess social contact using nonresident parents' own reports of frequency of telephone calls and letters, in-person visits, and extended visitation. Multivariate results show that nonresident mothers and fathers are similar with respect to in-person visits, but mothers exhibit higher levels of telephone and letter contact and extended visitation. These results suggest that nonresident mothers' and fathers' relative frequencies of involvement with their absent children are not as straightforward as previously thought. Although traditional gender roles may encourage greater contact between nonresident mothers and absent children on some dimensions of contact, results suggest that nonresident mothers and fathers may encounter circumstances that make frequent in-person contacts with absent children difficult to maintain. Key Words: gender differences, noncustodial, nonresident, parenting, visitation. A consequence of increased divorce and nonmarital childbearing is that roughly half of all children will live apart from at least one biological parent during some part of their childhood (Bumpass & Sweet, 1989a). Since the tender years doctrine of the 1800s until quite recently, mothers have nearly always retained custody of the children following divorce (Luepnitz, 1982). However, child custody decisions, now based on the best interests of the child rather than the parent's sex (Maccoby & Mnookin, 1992), are gradually altering the composition of resident and nonresident parents. About 1.6 million or 14% of custodial parents are now men (Scoon-Rogers & Lester, 1995), the result of never-married and divorced fathers increasingly receiving physical custody of their children (Garasky & Meyer, 1996). At the same time, the number of noncustodial mothers in the United States has grown to roughly 1 million (Herrerias, 1995). Previous empirical studies of nonresident parenting do not reflect these trends. First, what we know about nonresident parents' contact with children is based almost entirely on children with nonresident fathers (Furstenberg & Nord, 1985; Furstenberg, Peterson, Nord, & Zill, 1983; King, 1994; Mott, 1990; Seltzer & Brandreth, 1994). Studies using nationally representative data consistently find that father involvement with nonresident children is extremely low-a large proportion of children see their fathers infrequently or not at all. Nonresident fathers' pattern of disengagement from biological children has been explained by men's tendency to view marriage and child care as an inseparable role-set based on coresidence (Furstenberg, 1990; Furstenberg & Cherlin, 1991). However, despite their growth as a proportion of all nonresident parents, a comparable body of empirical research does not exist for nonresident mothers. Information about nonresident mothers comes mainly from small and highly select samples of women (Christensen, Dahl, & Rettig, 1990; Greif & Pabst, 1988; Herrerias, 1995). As a result, we know little about the sociodemographic characteristics of nonresident mothers, their level of involvement with absent children, or how the characteristics of nonresident mothers affect contact. A second issue is that sex differences in social ties with absent children remains unresolved. Nonresident mothers are considered to be more highly involved nonresident parents than are nonresident fathers. Indeed, high levels of contact between children and nonresident mothers is often suggested as an explanation for resident stepmothers' greater difficulty with stepchildren (Clingempeel & Segal, 1986; Furstenberg & Nord, 1985). Yet empirical evidence of nonresident mothers' level of involvement with absent children, compared with the level of nonresident fathers, is actually quite weak. …

The Differential Effects of Marital and Custodial Status on Perceptions of Mothers and Fathers

While divorced persons are viewed more negatively than married persons, there has been no research on the effects of marital and custodial status on perceptions of parents. Half of each of 60 male and 60 female adults were randomly assigned to rate either three mother or three father stimulus persons, each briefly described as a married parent, divorced with custody, or divorced without custody on tour different scales developed by Hoffman and Willers (1996): Interpersonal Adjustment, Psychological Deviance, Morality, and Professional Competence. Married mothers were the most highly rated group and were more positively evaluated than custodial mothers; both groups were more positively rated than noncustodial mothers. Ratings for married and custodial fathers did not differ from one another, with both groups evaluated more positively than noncustodial fathers. Gender differences were interpreted in relation to differential normative parenting roles for mothers and for fathers, particularly in the aftermath of divorce.

Coping Outside Traditional Roles

In an attempt to discover how noncustodial mothers cope with the highly stressful situation of living apart from their children, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a culturally diverse group of 26 noncustodial mothers. While a majority of the women reported clinically significant levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms on the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25, all were functioning adequately in social and occupational or academic domains. In addition, they were engaged in a wide variety of coping strategies as measured by the COPE scale (Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub, 1989). The findings suggest that despite the psychological distress and pain associated with being a noncustodial mother, these women were coping well and had much to offer other women in similar circumstances.

Working with Noncustodial Mothers

Mothers who live apart from their children are often mistreated and misunderstood. Clinicians are increasingly called upon to treat this growing population. The author describes some of the key issues facing these mothers: money and child support, visitation, relations with the father, relations with the child, court involvement, and the impact of the social system. Suggestions for assisting them in a therapeutic relationship are offered.

The Feminism &amp; Psychology Undergraduate Prize 1995: Prizewinning Entry No-Woman's Land: The Story of Non-Custodial Mothers

The Feminism &amp; Psychology Undergraduate Prize 1995: Prizewinning Entry No-Woman's Land: The Story of Non-Custodial Mothers

Noncustodial Mothers Following Divorce

Historically women have been responsible for pro- viding the primary care of their children. This notion of responsi- bility for the care and well-being of children is central to the definition of motherhood. When mothers relinquish custody of their children prior to their 18th birthday, they elicit suspicions of deviance and nonnormality. There are an estimated 500,000 to 1,200,000 noncustodial mothers in the United States, with approxi- mately 75% being voluntary relinquishers. This chapter identifies, through a review of the social science literature on maternal noncustody and examination of a specific study, the broad range of reasons for becoming a noncustodial mother, as well as provides a clearer picture of the noncustodial mother-child relationship pursuant to relinquishment. An overall theme from the literature was a general societal disapproval regarding maternal custody relinquishment, which in the study described, negatively affected respondents self- perceptions. This study describes the soci...

Noncustodial Mothers: Developing Strategies of Support

Despite the fact that the number of noncustodial mothers is increasing, very little is known about the experience of these women. This study sought to gain a greater understanding of this growing number of women by examining issues surrounding the decision to relinquish custody and exploring their postdivorce relationships with their former spouses and children. Qualitative and quantitative interview data collected from 13 noncustodial mothers granted divorces in southwestern Virginia between 1986 and 1990 were analyzed. Based on the results of the study, suggestions for intervention are discussed.