Maternal Crack Cocaine Use: Ethnographic Reports

• NCJ Number: 158392
• Author(s): S Murphy; M H Kearney; M Rosenbaum
• Date Published: 1991
• Length: 31 pages
• Sale Source: Institute for Scientific Analysis
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: DCC. Presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, San Francisco, CA, November 21, 1991.

Annotation

This report presents an ethnographic perspective on the issue of mothers who use crack cocaine.

Abstract

The report discusses various feminist theories of motherhood, focusing on its historical, economic, and social-psychological context in American society. Mothering, in its contemporary configuration, is intrinsic to individual women's sense of self and identity. Preliminary qualitative data collected from crack-smoking mothers are used to describe their strategies for combining crack and motherhood, managing their feelings of guilt, and relinquishing the mothering role as both a consequence and a strategy of their drug abuse. The paper discusses some links between 19th-century political solutions for so-called unfit families and child removal policies enacted recently. 5 references