Download or read book Good Enough Mothering? written by Elizabeth Bortolaia Silva and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lone mothers and their children currently comprise almost 20 per cent of all families with dependent children in Britain. Their numbers have nearly trebled since 1970. Politicians and the media have focused on them as a symptom and cause of a broader social breakdown, yet little is known about the causes, consequences and conditions of lone motherhood. Good Enough Mothering? provides accounts of historical patterns of mothering and ideologies of the family, cross-national comparisons of policies and experiences of lone mothers in developed and developing countries. It analyses recent social policies and legislative changes in family law, the Child Support Act and discourses about the creation of an underclass in Britain and the USA. This edited collection, with contributions from leading academics in their fields, builds on feminist scholarship on motherhood and 'the family' and contributes significantly to the feminist and social policy literature on lone mothers. Good Enough Mothering? will be essential reading for all students of social policy, women's studies and sociology.