• Read the Pew Research: Parenting in America summary for nuanced distinctions regarding family formation, where children are living, and current parenting concerns.
• Watch this seven-minute video titled “Raising Children for a Second Time, ‘Grandfamilies’ Struggle during the Pandemic” to learn more about grandfamilies.
• An idea related to nature and nurture that has recently gained attention is “orchid children and dandelion children.” Dr. Thomas Boyce has theorized that most children are “dandelions”: resilient and hardy, able to withstand some difficulties and continue to thrive. In contrast, some children are “orchids”: more delicate and sensitive. These children may also develop well as long as their sensitive nature is acknowledged and a stable, responsive environment is provided. This kind of framing may help parents and caregivers see the importance of environmental and parenting choices. To read or listen to more about this emerging theory, click here for an article and recording by National Public Radio.
• This clip from a Crash Course video looks at both Harry Harlow’s and Mary Ainsworth’s work and gives a quick summary of Diana Baumrind’s parenting styles. Review this if you would like more information about this research and theory.
• There are many resources aimed at educating parents and caregivers on how to build secure attachments, such as the Child Welfare Information Gateway, which compiles information from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Administration for Children and Families, and the Children’s Bureau.
• For statistics about adoption and foster care, visit the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Adoption and Foster Care Statistics website.
• To learn more about the social model of disability from the perspective of a person diagnosed with autism, listen to this TED Talk with Jac den Houting.
• Listen to the “Baby Bust: Explaining the Declining U.S. Birth Rate” episode of the 1A podcast if you would like to understand more about declining childbearing rates, including its relationship to medical issues, economics, culture, and the environment.
• To read the most recent provisional birth rate data in the U.S., refer to the National Vital Statistics Systems Rapid Release Reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• Click the link to read more on the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

• Check out The National Child Traumatic Stress Network here.

1. What are the benefits to self and to society of nurturing relationships?
2. Explain the importance of caregiving relationships using a family or parenting theory or perspective.
3. In what ways do social structures such as the economy and the environment relate to changes in family size and structure?
4. This chapter focuses on the disruption of attachment for a wide range of families and children. Discuss why attachment is so important not just to individual families but also to society.
5. How does the government influence caregiving, parenting, and attachment?
6. Which families are most likely to be affected negatively by government policies?
7. What is the difference between family forms and family functions? How is this distinction critical to the health of families and society?
8. What are some social stigmas associated with parenting and with being childless?

• Attachment theory: the theory that the capacity to form emotional attachments to others is primarily developed during infancy and early childhood.
• Birth rate: the number of live births per 1,000 women in the total population.
• Caregiving: the act of providing support or watching over a person.
• Concerted cultivation: a parenting style that emphasizes adult-led enrichment programs for children.
• Dysfunction: behaviors that cause harm to self, others, or society.
• Ecological systems theory: a framework that looks at individuals within their environments.
• Family form: the structure of a family, including the members and their relationships to one another.
• Family function: the way a family’s members behave toward each other and within society.
• Fecundity rate: the reproductive rate for people who want to have biological children who are able to get pregnant and give birth.
• Fertility rate: the number of people in a specific age range who are able to give birth.
• Grandfamily: a family in which grandparents are the primary caregivers to their grandchildren; usually, the parents are not present.
• Mortality rate: the rate of death for a particular group or in a particular area.
• Multigenerational families: more than two generations of a family living together.
• Natural growth: a parenting style that emphasizes child-led games and activities, often in multi-age groups from the same family or neighborhood.
• Nature and nurture: a discussion about the relationship between biological and environmental factors in a child’s development.
• Parenting styles: usually refers to Baumrind’s four styles of parenting, which include authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and uninvolved.

“Esther,” a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was forcibly separated from five of her children during the civil conflict in the early 2000s. She spent years in a refugee camp and was eventually resettled to North Carolina without her children. Upon her arrival in the United States, she petitioned U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to bring her children here. USCIS required that Esther provide birth certificates to prove her relationship to her children, all minors, but these documents did not exist. Incurring months of extra delay, Esther contacted relatives in the Congo who procured retroactive documentation of the relationship. USCIS then approved the petition and transferred the file to the United States Embassy in Kinshasa, the Congo’s capital. In order to continue processing, the children had to travel to Kinshasa for visa interviews. But the children lived on the other side of the country, hundreds of miles away, and the journey to Kinshasa was extremely dangerous. Esther had no choice, however, and raised money from her church to fly them to the capital in a small plane. On the day of their interview, they were turned away from the embassy because they lacked the requisite paperwork, which was in the United States with Esther. Rescheduling the interview took months. During this time, the youngest child, Florence, went missing. She did not accompany her siblings to the United States to be reunited with their mother and is presumed kidnapped or dead. When the remaining four children received a new interview, their visas were approved—nearly two years after Esther filed the petition (Haile, 2015).

Discussion Questions

1. Imagine you and your family were suddenly unsafe in the United States and feared for your life. What would you do? If you would leave the country, where would you go? How would you get there? How would you provide for your family in the meantime? How do you think you would be received there?
2. Why should a country receive refugee families?
3. What helps refugee families’ well-being during relocation? Consider especially what would provide stability and nurturance for children.
4. Where did Ester run into problems with the resettlement process?
5. Are there policy recommendations you could make for this kind of scenario?