Mothering, Brothering and Othering: Socially distributed caregiving among Owambos in northern Namibia

Jill BrownCreighton University

“There is no such thing as a baby…there is a a baby and someone else” David Winnicott (child psychiatrist)

Attachment and child care

John Bowlby

Primarily mother and infant

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• Nsamenang (1992) proposed a psychological theory of human development that reflects African conceptions of “personhood.”

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Nsamenang, 1992, 144:

“ … although there may be a ‘natural’ developmental path, every culture superimposes its own imprints on it. In this sense, the developmental tasks contained in most English language developmental texts may be no more than the cultural agendas for the development of Western middle-class children. Thus the experience of childhood in West Africa, for instance, may not necessarily accord nor exactly correspond with the definition and experience of childhood as portrayed in the current developmental literature.”

Selfhood Stage Features

Spiritual selfhood Begins at conception and ends with naming. The human body is conceptualized as a frame that houses the spirit.

Newborn* Naming occurs. The name given to the child may reflect expectations or express gratitude to the “Supreme One.”

Social priming* Infants display precursors to effective social functioning (e.g., smiling, crying); generates reciprocity with caregivers.

Social apprenticing*

Children recognize, cognize, and rehearse social roles. Social roles pertain to three spheres of life: household, network, and public.

Social entrée* Secondary sex characteristics emerge. May be marked by an initiation ceremony (e.g., “puberty rite)”.

Social induction/internment*

Adolescents are allocated more responsibilities/roles and join adult social groups. A period of intense social preparation and training for adulthood. Described as a “social probation or internship.”

Adulthood* Individuals marry and bear children. Full adulthood (i.e., personhood) is achieved through marriage and parenthood. Seniority increases with the birth of each child.

Old age/death* The “epitome” of social competence. Confidence in the face of death is achieved through the production of productive offspring.

Ancestral selfhood Follows biological death. Through ritual initiation, ancestral spirits enter a higher realm.

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*One of seven “social selfhood” stages.

Nsamenang’s Stages of Selfhood Development

Extending attachment into the field Sarah Hrdy (Plesteiscene ancestors)

Barry Hewlett (Efe foragers)

Pat Draper (Ju!housi San hunter and gatherers)

Tom Weisner (Luo Kenya)

Socially distributed child careChild caretaking often occurs as a part of indirect chains of support

in which one child assists another, who assists another. Support is not always immediate and not necessarily organized around exclusive relationships between parent and child

Aggression, teasing, and dominance coincide with nurturance and support and come from the same people. Dominance increases with age

Food and other material goods are used to threaten, control, soothe, and comfort

Children are socialized within the system through apprenticeship learning of their family roles and responsibilities.

Children look to other children for support as much or more than they look to adults

Care often occurs in the context of other domestic workElaborate verbal exchanges and question-framed discourse rarely

accompany support and nurturance for children. Verbal bargaining and negotiations over rights, choices and privileges between the caretaker and child are infrequent

Social and intellectual competence is judged by a child’s ability to manage domestic tasks, demonstrate appropriate social behavior, do child care, and nurture and support others. School achievement emerges as a competency

Mothers provide support and nurturance to children as much by securing that others will support their children as by supporting their children directly. Fostering and other forms of child sharing are common

Weisner, T.S., Bradley, C., Kilbride, P.L. (1997). (Eds.) African families and the crisis of

social change. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey.

Child Fosterage

The process of raising a child (not your own)

Oluteku

Child Fosterage

Motivations: teaching discipline education gifting/sharing establishing social bonds enhanced fertility entering new relationship times of crisis apprenticeship/domestic

work

Outcomes: health and illness education work

And then there is Madonna…. Additive not substitutive

Physical and Social Setting

Child Care Practices

Psychology of theCaregiver

Child

Harkness, S. & Super, C.M. (2002). Culture and parenting. In M.H. Bornstein (Ed).Handbook of parenting, Vol. 2, Biology and ecology of parenting (2nd ed.). (pp.253-280). Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Ass.

Table 1. Patterns of fostered children as a percentage of all children under age 15 in selected countries

Living with

Country Survey Year # Surveyed Both Mother onlyFather only Foster/neither

Southern (median) 50.7 18.4 2.7 11.3Namibia DHS 2000 13,641 26.4 29.2 3.6 26.3Zimbabwe DHS 1999 11,313 45.6 20.5 3.6 12.5Botswana MICS 2000 9,950 26.1 33.1 2.1 19.4

Eastern (median) 70.7 10.7 1.8 5.2Kenya MICS 2000 16,394 57.9 20.5 2.3 7.0Uganda DHS 2000 19,538 60.4 12.4 4.0 9.9Tanzania DHS 1999 8,293 62.5 13.8 4.3 9.4

Western (median) 66.3 9.8 3.1 9.0Ghana DHS 1998 9,379 49.1 26.3 4.5 13.2Sierra Leone MICS 2000 10,131 60.9 8.8 5.0 10.3Nigeria DHS 1999 17,027 72.0 5.1 2.4 5.8

Central (median) 65.6 12.1 3.2 7.9C.A.R. MICS 2000 47,516 68.1 10.0 4.7 6.4Gabon DHS 2000 12,481 41.4 28.1 6.6 14.6

Cameroon MICS 2000 10,979 65.6 11.5 3.8 7.9

Adapted from Monasch, R. & Boerma, J.T. (2004). Orphanhood and childcare patterns in sub-Saharan Africa: an analysis of national surveys from 40 countries. AIDS, 18(2), S55-S65

The North of Namibia

1%

2% 4%

37%

42%

14%Son/daughterGrandchildBrother/SisterOther relativeAdopted/fosteredNon relative

Distribution of Owambo children’s kinship relationship to head of household

Fosterage Chains What is the cultural logic of fostering

among Ovambos in Northern Namibia?

Brown, J. (in press). Child fostering chains among Owambo families in Namibia.

Journal of Southern African Studies.

Fosterage Chains The Case: 4 families 3 connected through fostering

(one not) September –November 2006

Interviews audio taped Field notes audio taped Transcribed in English

Equality as a cultural ideal

Refusing, Appeasing,Withholding

Maintaining the relationship:After the exchange

The actual exchange

Negotiation

Reasons to foster

Themes

Research Question How do Owambo women remember and

make sense of their experiences of child fosterage?

Brown, J. (under review). Sisters and Brothers over Others: Life history interviews of child fosterage with Owambo women in Namibia.

Memories of Fosterage11 Life history interviews with Owambo

speaking women in Namibia 1.5-4 hours eachn=6 ruraln=5 urban

Aged from 25-67 at time of interview Aged from 3 months-13 years at time of

first fosterage

Participant Age whenFostered

Relationship with foster family

Reason (primary arrangement when multiple)

Number of arrange-ments

Years inFosterage(out of 18)

Emily 3 months Relative of paternal grandmother

Namesake, childless woman

1 12

Karen 6 months Maternal great aunt

Mother working couldn’t afford childcare

2 17

Emelia 1 Maternal grandmother

Young mother 1 17

Liberty 1 ½ Non-kin Mother went into exhile due to war

7 13

Cecelia 3 Maternal grandmother

Help mat. Grandmother pound mahangu

1 15

Loide 5 Maternal aunt Orphan 2 18

Francina 7 Maternal aunt Mother died, went to childless woman

1 8

Erica 7 Paternal aunt Namesake 1 11

Nangula 7 Maternal grandmother

Education 1 6

Ndapewa 13 Maternal cousin Wedding gift 1 5

Berta Young (before school)

Paternal relative namesake 1 2

Children are not people…they are children

“So when we go for holiday at Christmas I am together with my parents and they treat us nicely and every time we want to talk to our mother and father about our problems, like I have this problem and that problem, I had to keep it inside myself. Even the bad treatment I get from my grandmother I have to keep it strictly to myself. “

“You must trust the family, but you don’t have power over it. Even if the child is telling me about the treatment, we are the adults and we do not listen. To adults it is just talk.”

Preservation and Dissolution of Sibling Groups

“We played together. The time we are fetching water we can yell for each other. ‘Come on Olivia ‘let’s go’. The time we go to pick up omauni [fruit] or evanda [spinach] in the bush we are together. We go to church together. And we go to Sunday school together. It was very good.”

“At first it was very difficult. I am oshivele (firstborn) and it is difficult because the one that came after me, that I use to wash and carry, I saw her when she was grown up. I wasn’t even thinking she is my sister. They said, yeah this is your sister, but it didn’t feel like it. I was happy to meet her but it didn’t feel like she was my sister. That was the tragedy in this, you see.”

Moral development “My mother died earlier so I got

that love but not too much let me say that if you are staying longer with your mother then you have to learn more, how to suffer, how to survive. That is what I used to tell my kids ‘don’t think you will always stay with your parents’.”

“I feel I am lucky being raised by my grandparents because my attitude compared to my brothers and sisters who were raised by their own parents is quite, quite different. I can’t say that I am better than them but I have different ideas. I think I am stronger in the mind and I have developed into a person who can endure and does good for others.”

Cultural models of parenting What is unique to Owambo parenting?

Maternal ethnotheories Tradition Benevolence Agency/Self Direction Power Relatedness

Table 1Demographic Characteristics of Sample (N=42)________________________________________________________

M S f(%)Age of mother (16-80) 34.62 14.23Age of father (19-70) 36.43 12.32Education mother (0-14) 9.13 3.23Education father (0-12) 8.21 4.54Income (N$) $1,307.0 1,503Adults in household (1-43) 6.08 6.8Head of household

Male21(56)

Female 18(43)Fostered

No 23(56)Yes 19(43)

Aaumbo US Tradition and

conformity Power and

Achievement Benevolence and

prosocial Relatedness Agency Separateness

Agency/Self direction

Benevolence and prosocial

Tradition and conformity

Relatedness Power and

achievement

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

Tradition/C

onform

ity

Power/Achievement

Benevolence

Relatedness

Agency/Self Dire

ction U

S

Aa

um

bo

US

Aaumbo

Mean scores on Values and Goals (Suizzo, 2007) for Aaumbo and US mothers

Table 2.Correlations Among Sociodemographic Variables and Goals Scale (N=42)

Age mother

Age father

Educmother

Educ father

Income

Fost Trad Power Related Agency Ben

Age mother

1

Age father

.907** 1

Ed mother

-.31* .13 1

Ed father -.39* .22 -.31* 1

Income -.13 -.04 .31 .26 1

Fostered .14 .13 -.26 .06 -.1 1

Tradition .15 .22 .12 -.08 -.14 .01 1

Power .24 .12 -.21 -.35 -.22 .05 .47** 1

Related .40* .27 -.47** -.48** -.13 .01 .31 .61** 1

Agency .35* .41* -.06 -.18 .05 .15 .36* .59** .64** 1

Benevol -.09 .23 -.27 -.17 .04 .07 .34* .49** .53** .56** 1

*p<.05, **p<.001

Why might this matter? Fosterage is a critical part of the social

welfare system of many African communities.

Conclusions Children’s agency within cultural context that

favors obedience, discourages verbal exchanges and bargaining

Sibling caretaking overlooked in most studies of child fosterage

Education

Fosterage is increasingly important as over 20 million orphans are being cared for within the system (UNICEF, 2007)

Developmental research questions illuminated by fosterage What are the psychological implications for

an infant when his mother’s initial response to him, as well as her availability over time, is contingent nor just on her own past experience and physical condition but also on her perceptions about who else is around and willing to help?

How does dependence on (and perhaps attachment to) multiple others affect an individual’s outlook during his lifetime, as well as over the many lifetimes that cumulatively add up to evolutionary change?

Future Research Look at attachment and not assume

that multiple caregivers means multiple attachments

Explore sibling relationships

References Bledsoe, C. (1990). The politics of children: Fosterage and social management of fertility

among the Mende of Sierra Leone. In W.P. Handwerker’s (Ed), Births and1 42Power: Social Change and the Politics of Reproduction, (pp.81 100.)

Bledsoe, C., Ewban, D., & Isiugo-Abanihe, U.C. (1988). The effect of child fostering on feeding practices and access to health services in Sierra Leone. Social Science &Medicine, 27(6), 627-636.

Brown, J. (2009). Child fosterage and the developmental markers of Ovambo children in Namibia: A look at gender and kinship. Childhood in Africa: An interdisciplinary journal, 1, 4-10

Creswell, J.W. (2003). Research design: qualitative, quantitative and mixed methodresearch. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Goody, E. (1973). Contexts of kinship: An essay in the family sociology of the Gonja ofnorthern Ghana. London: Cambridge University Press.

Harkness, S. & Super, C.M. (2002). Culture and parenting. In M.H. Bornstein (Ed).Handbook of parenting, Vol. 2, Biology and ecology of parenting (2nd ed.). (pp. 253-280). Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Ass

Levine, R.A., Dixon, S., Levine, S., Richmean, A., Leiderman, P.H., Keefer, C.H., &Brazelton, T.B. (1994). Childcare and culture: Lessons from Africa. CambridgeUniversity Press: Cambridge.

Monasch, R. & Boerma, J.T. (2004). Orphanhood and childcare patterns in sub-Saharan Africa: an analysis of national surveys from 40 countries. AIDS, 18(2), S55-S65

Weisner, T.S., Bradley, C., Kilbride, P.L. (1997). (Eds.) African families and the crisis ofsocial change. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey.

Whiting, B.B. & Edwards, C.P. (1988). Children of different worlds: The formation ofsocial behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.