Sisters Doing for Themselves, or Not: Aunts and Caregiving in Canada
2009; University of Calgary Press; Volume: 40; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
10.3138/jcfs.40.5.791
ISSN1929-9850
Autores Tópico(s)Child Welfare and Adoption
ResumoChildcare arrangements of many wage-earning parents depend on sisters or sisters-in-law. Yet, for all their significance, aunts have been largely invisible in discussions of child welfare. “Sisters Are Doing for Themselves, Or Not” invokes the iconic Annie Lennox and Aretha Franklin to remind us that the very vocabulary of feminist solidarity celebrates an idealized kin relationship. The very popularity of notions of sisterhood contributes to the taken-for-grantedness of sibling ties and recurring failure to investigate them. This article begins with observations about women’s longstanding role in kith and kin care and then turns to Canadian aunts and their involvement with nieces and nephews over more than one hundred and fifty years. This last discussion has four parts. The first, “Alliances with the Living,” points to sibling practices of mutual aid in child rearing. The next, “Tributes to the Dead,” addresses aunts’ substitution for dead mothers. “Sibling Contests,” considers sisters in disagreement about the best interests of youngsters. The final section, “Disengagement,” acknowledges another story, the disinterest, withdrawal, or worse of some sisters from any duty of care. In all cases, women’s work as kinkeepers underpins Canada’s longstanding political economy of residualism.
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