Minding the children

by Geraldine Youcha

How should society care for the children of parents who cannot, will not, or choose not to care for their sons and daughters full time? What is the best way to bring up children when both parents work? These are contemporary concerns, yet the same questions have been asked - and answered - throughout American history. In Minding the Children, Geraldine Youcha gives us the first well-documented overview of the different ways children in this country have been reared, showing how the myth of the full-time mother does not fit the complex realities of the past any more than it does the challenges of our own time. From the apprenticeship system in Colonial times, when men commonly acted as surrogate parents, to the largely forgotten federally funded day-care centers of World War II, when Rosie the Riveter toiled in the factories, Youcha vividly demonstrates that children in the past have often been cared for by adults other than, or in addition to, their biological parents. Shared mothering