Blue-Ribbon Babies and Labors of Love: Race, Class, and Gender in U.S. Adoption Practice (Louann Atkins Temple Women & Culture) [Hardcover]

Christine Ward Gailey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2010 | Series: Louann Atkins Temple Women & Culture

Most Americans assume that shared genes or blood relationships provide the strongest basis for family. What can adoption tell us about this widespread belief and American kinship in general? "Blue-Ribbon Babies and Labors of Love" examines the ways class, gender, and race shape public and private adoption in the United States. Christine Ward Gailey analyzes the controversies surrounding international, public, and transracial adoption, and how the political and economic dynamics that shape adoption policies and practices affect the lives of people in the adoption nexus: adopters, adoptees, birth parents, and agents within and across borders. Interviews with white and African-American adopters, adoption social workers, and adoption lawyers, combined with her long-term participant-observation in adoptive communities, inform her analysis of how adopters' beliefs parallel or diverge from the dominant assumptions about kinship and family. Gailey demonstrates that the ways adoptive parents speak about their children vary across hierarchies of race, class, and gender. She shows that adopters' notions about their children's backgrounds and early experiences, as well as their own 'family values', influence child rearing practices. Her extensive interviews with 131 adopters reveal profoundly different practices of kinship in the United States today. Moving beyond the ideology of 'blood is thicker than water', Gailey presents a new way of viewing kinship and family formation, suitable to times of rapid social and cultural change.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

CHRISTINE WARD GAILEY is Professor of Women's Studies and Anthropology at the University of California, Riverside. She is also the author of Kinship to Kingship: Gender Hierarchy and State Formation in the Tongan Islands.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 199 pages
• Publisher: University of Texas Press (February 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0292721277
• ISBN-13: 978-0292721272
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,148,836 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Should be Required Reading, July 31, 2010

By 

J. - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blue-Ribbon Babies and Labors of Love: Race, Class, and Gender in U.S. Adoption Practice (Louann Atkins Temple Women & Culture) (Hardcover)

This book should be required reading for any parent(s) that are considering adoption. The author experienced and has interviewed many parents. The book describes adoption as it actually is, over many years of a child's life. Not as adoption is depicted by the media. It is real, it is weighty, and not something to view with starry eyed ignorance.

5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended for college-level collections strong in family studies and social issues, December 13, 2010

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blue-Ribbon Babies and Labors of Love: Race, Class, and Gender in U.S. Adoption Practice (Louann Atkins Temple Women & Culture) (Hardcover)

BLUE-RIBBON BABIES AND LABORS OF LOVE: RACE, CLASS AND GENDER IN U.S. ADOPTION PRACTICE is recommended for college-level collections strong in family studies and social issues. It analyzes how class, gender and race influence public and private adoption in this country, comparing U.S. experience with international practices. Interviews with adoption social workers, lawyers, and would-be parents blend with the author's own long-term participant observation and analysis in this fine survey.