The childhood we have lost: when siblings were caregivers, 1900-1970.

In an effort to highlight the shortcomings of the posrmodern family, usually dated from the 1970s, social commentators tend to mythologize the arrangements which preceded them in the modern home. In contrast to the postmodern parent, described as "work-oriented" and "disengaged," leaving the oversight of the children to day-care workers and MTV, the modem mother was supposedly always available, frequently even overly attentive, to her young. While the contemporary home serves largely as "a station," providing mainly "food, information, and transportation," the modern family offered "protection and security" and, above all, an abundance of "maternal nurturance" to the young. Perceiving children as capable of handling "any and all of life's vicissitudes," postmodern parents feel justified in "withdrawing from their role as guides for the inexperienced," while modern parents presumably recognized the immaturity of their children, and closely oversaw their development. (1)

Yet the model of the modern family these authors have drawn applied, at best, only to limited sectors of the population. In large numbers of working- and lower-middle-class households, for much of the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, young children, and even infants, spent much of their time under the watch, not of a doting mother, but a sibling--an adolescent or, not infrequently, only another child. Indeed, many of the children in these homes spent much of their youth either caring for siblings or being attended by them. Occasionally, a commentator, lamenting the lack of a critical role for the child in the postmodern home, has celebrated these earlier arrangements. A few contend that the woman who had earlier assisted her mother had little difficulty assuming the role of mother herself, and attribute the travails of many contemporary parents, in part, to the loss of this role. But, whether in the long- or short-term, the effects of a childhood spent caring for siblings or being cared for by them, were often far less felicitous than they supposed. A psychoanalyst who, unlike the commentators, had examined such families, stated flatly that mothers "who bring a behavior problem child who is approaching adolescence [to a clinic] all have a history of being placed in an assistant mother role at an early age." Thus, before bemoaning the rise of the day-care worker, we should closely observe what really came before. (2)

Historians of the family have generally accorded little attention to the auxiliary mother and her charge. Portraying working-class women as ensconced in extensive "survival networks," with neighbors, friends and kin "trad[ing] child care, shar[ing] housework," housing, and even wages and jobs, they can largely ignore the child and her charge. Often, however, even the aid they describe was circumscribed and sporadic. Moreover, few women seem to have had access to the support networks, although they dwell on those who did. In addition, often the mother is portrayed in so heroic a stance, devoted so completely to meeting her children's needs, "rush[ing] home to cook an egg or soup" "when[ever] she could get time away from her job," that once again there is little need to address the duties that may befall the young. (3)

Other historians have mentioned the assistant parent, but only in passing. Usually they study children rather than women or the family, and thus are less committed to a model of mutuality among women. In Children of the City, David Nasaw even recognized the nature and extent of the role, remarking that "in many working-class families, the babies and small children were effectively raised by their older sisters." He noted that a physician of the New York Board of Health observed that "it would be almost useless to teach the real mothers [the proper care of babies] unless the 'little Mothers' were also taught." Nasaw explained that from the time they were ten or even younger, the little mothers "were fully responsible for their charges, often from the time they got home from school until the moment the babies fell asleep," concluding that "the little ones become in point of fact, their babies." (4)

But even when historians acknowledge the prevalence of the little mother and the enormity of her responsibilities, they confine their remarks to brief statements of the girl's ready acceptance of her role. Nasaw allowed Catharine Brody, author of one article in The American Mercury, to speak for all little mothers. Brody, who "grew up in ... a lower middle class family," recalled that "all the girls on her block" were assistant mothers, but maintained that they welcomed their role, which was, therefore, without ill effects. "Baby-tending was not [even considered] a chore," but only "something that little girls did in the afternoon, like embroidering or jumping rope." Nasaw, who earlier described caring for siblings as very much a chore, nevertheless agreed that the child-parents largely "accepted their ambiguous status ... ," and found comfort in "doing their duty without complaint." Being a little mother was simply "part of growing up," something one did with little reflection, little protest, and apparently , little consequence. (5)

In short, these authors, as well as others who have considered the distribution of labor in working-class households, have, in effect, portrayed the children as robots, and their families as well-ordered machines. In their models, "family bonds" are "strengthened," "familial values" preserved, children defer automatically to parental authority, and parents' feelings for their offspring are 'more, rather than less, tender or intense" because of their critical contributions to the household. (6)

Although these historians idealized the working-class family, none had systematically explored the effects of being an auxiliary parent or being raised by one. Stephanie Coontz, for example, criticized child protection agencies' efforts to encourage the working class to adopt the pattern of "prolonged childhood" preferred by the middle class, protesting that "it is by no means clear" that this approach "produces better childhood experiences" than that favored by the working class, even though she never methodically examined the results of the latter. Sydney Weinberg relied on the recollection of one woman, who had been a child-mother decades before, that she had so carefully tended her charge that he even preferred her to his mother, to point to the fortunate circumstances of younger children in the working-class family. This deduction would have been more convincing, however, if the testimony had come from the younger sibling himself. Similarly, Nasaw's conclusions about the capabilities of the older childre n are suspect. Derived from one unpublished, undated, anonymous "report on preadolescent girls in a Polish neighborhood" in Chicago, which "noted that the girls there had 'the little mother spirit well-developed,' "he never considered what good mothering may have meant to the author, although it may have been no more than keeping the children clean. (7)

An apparent eagerness to celebrate the family in which children still retained "productive roles" also led historians to give scant attention to the consequences of spending years as an auxiliary parent. At most they mentioned that the children's domestic responsibilities sometimes caused them to miss school, although some were quick to add that often the girls did not want to attend anyway. This reluctance to consider the results of a child's spending much of her youth as a caregiver may also be traceable to their apparent assumption that since the child concurred in her fate, the role could have little effect. This syllogism is, however, problematic, since the role could have massive effects whether or not a child readily acceded to it. What mattered was how she experienced the role, not how, or if, she agreed to it. Whether the assistant parent had accepted her lot with alacrity or resignedly, her responsibilities would have forced her to handle her developmental conflicts and needs differently from the ch ild without her singular burdens. Devoting much of adolescence to caring for siblings would have a particularly powerful effect, since it is in these years that adult personality structures begin to be formed. (8)

Not only have historians neglected the child-caregiving system, but social scientists failed to provide contemporary accounts during the years in which the system was still normative. Indeed, it was only in the 1970s, after child caregiving had severely contracted in the United States, that psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists began to systematically study siblings at all, turning their focus from hierarchical relations in the family to more horizontal ones. Still, in the last decades of the 20th century, in "much of the world," including some sectors of the industrialized nations, children continued to serve as major caregivers in the family, and social scientists began to identify some of the common features and effects of sibling care. Some celebrated the arrangement as one that fostered interdependence, initially among siblings, but extended later in the life-course to cousins and peers. Sibling care formed the basis of an affiliative society, serving to "integrat[e] the child into the social context." Others, however, warned strongly against idealizing the system. One anthropologist characterized the years spent tending to siblings as "the worst period" of a child's life. Another generalized that "Things are often rough and unpleasant for both older and younger siblings." Describing the care provided by the young as "low-level" and unskilled, one psychologist denounced childcare giving as "depriv[ing] the modern child of his stimulus birthright." Several scholars observed that sibling care "restricts the development of personality differences" among children, and in the adults they become. Moreover, children under the watch of a sibling typically learned by observation and imitation, not by the "elaborate rehearsal of the rules, reasons, rationales, exceptions, and [] understandings" usually acquired in the presence of parents or other adults. And, many stressed, the system reinforced early and rigid "sex role training" for girls. (9)

Although sibling care continued to be common in the American working-and lower-middle class for much of the 20th century, during these years the system was under considerable strain. To be sure, in a rapidly modernizing society, there were some advantages to learning from an older sibling, who was likely more accepting of parts of the new culture than parents would be. But many of the core elements of the system appeared increasingly anachronistic, at odds with the larger culture, undermined by institutions and the changing economy. The culture valued autonomy and individual difference, and the consumer culture encouraged the satisfaction of personal needs. Schools rewarded individual achievement and competition, and success presupposed competence in complex cognitive and verbal modes that could not be acquired from another child. An economy organized by large and increasingly bureaucratized corporations severely constricted the role of siblings or cousins in providing security or opportunity. The system was also destabilized by an economy that expanded roles for girls, depriving the family of its more capable caregivers, the older adolescents, who were drawn to paid employment in the offices, department stores, and telephone exchanges. And it became more difficult for parents to ignore the larger culture's redefinition of childhood, with its insistence that the young were "precious beings" who must be protected and schooled. (10) Generation after generation of parents had known that their children would serve as supplemental caregivers, and the decline of the system represented a seismic shift in family arrangements. Many women, who had themselves been little mothers, and assumed that their children would alleviate their burdens, would not accept that it was they who were now expected to relieve their children of virtually all responsibilities in the home, and it was they who now came to clinics in large numbers, seeking treatment for their children or themselves.

This study is drawn from the records of 600 working- and lower-middle-class women, born between 1895 and 1940, selected randomly from those who received treatment between 1930 and 1970 at fourteen outpatient clinics which offered therapy to parents and children, families, or in some cases, individual adults. Although they sought help with a host of different ailments, in about a quarter of cases, patients discussed relationships with siblings for whom they had been a supplemental parent or charge. Indeed, many suspected that those earlier experiences had colored, and largely hobbled, their relationship with their child. Often, it was the patient who had initiated, or sustained, the discussion, since in these years, therapists, like the social scientists, rarely focused on sibling relations. As a result, when a patient's narrative appeared in a record, it had generally not been distorted or occluded by a clinician's model. Still, many therapists, convinced that the subject was inapposite, must have chosen to o mit the discussion from the record, and the extant data likely represent only the minimum number of patients who remained troubled by their relationship with an auxiliary parent or charge. Recently, clinical and experimental research has, however, confirmed the patients' presumptions about the enduring power of early sibling relations. Analysts now conclude that relationships with siblings are "almost as profoundly influential," and "at times [] more influential," than relationships with parents. One analyst now writes extensively of all the "way[s] in which sibling memory can saturate one's adult family life unhappily." But while siblings generally can have a strong impact on "both externalizing ... and [] internalizing" behavior, such as aggression and anxiety, and on attachments to peers, by its very nature, the relationship of sibling caregiver and charge can have a potent, or even decisive, effect on later relations between parent and child. (11)

Although the families examined here found their way to a clinic, it is likely that their experiences, and even their responses to them, strongly resembled those of large numbers of families in the general population. At the core of the narratives of most of the patients were memories of longing for their mothers, whom they had always felt were insufficiently accessible to them. (12) While such adults and children were certainly overrepresented in the clinical population, the circumstances that led to parental unavailability, and even those that fostered perceptions of deprivation, were widespread in the working- and lower-middle classes in the years when the patients were young. The adults and children in treatment also dwelled on their strong feelings of ambivalence or hostility toward their sibling, feelings less frequently heard in the general population, and often revealed in the consulting room only after the patients' defenses had eroded. Indeed, psychologists who survey the larger society report that " implicit cultural norms governing the acceptable range of sibling affect" have made most people reluctant to acknowledge "the dark side" of the relationship to others or themselves. The relationship between siblings, however, generally reflects in large part the quality of their relations with their parents. Thus, whether in the wider society or the clinical population, children with unsatisfying relations with their parents would have found it difficult to form positive, supportive relations with a sibling-caregiver or charge. Indeed, some of the anger and hurt expressed toward the sibling was a displacement of feelings originally directed toward the parent, the screen serving to protect the self from the latter, more damaging, wound. (13)

Not all, however, who had troubled relations with their sibling-caregiver or charge were equally likely to fall into the clinics' net. There were ways of mitigating the effects of the relationship, and ways of exacerbating them. Some of the negative effects could be vitiated, for example, when there was a substantial hiatus before the women formed a family of their own and resumed the caregiving role. Women's options, however, were limited in these years, and for many who were seen at the clinics, the sequelae, such as a hasty marriage in an effort to escape from their role, only compounded their difficulties.

There were likely many, however, whose experiences closely paralleled those of the population studied here, but who emerged with little damage, and no need to consult a therapist. They had been insulated by interior "protective factors" which "buffer[ed] ... [their] response to ... stressful life-events." One analyst has categorized children by their "vulnerability to adversity," likening them to dolls made of glass, plastic, or steel. These last are the resilient children who, even as adults, would be less likely to need the services of a clinic. (14)

Yet even many of those who were less resilient would not come to clinics, because they could not overlook the stigma attached to seeing a therapist in these years. Still, those who were seen at the clinics did not differ significantly from them. They often spoke of their dread that someone they knew might see them or suspect them of coming to the clinic; their fear had led them to postpone seeking treatment, and led some to terminate it. In short, the clinical records provide a window, however translucent, onto the lives of large numbers of families who would never be seen. They allow us to peer into the lives of the young in the years when it was they who were burdened by the double day, and to examine the lives of the adults they became. The view, however, leaves little nostalgia for the childhood we have lost.

The Presenting Problems:

This study begins with an examination of the patients at the time they sought treatment at the clinics, identifying their current inner conflicts, their defenses, and the outlines of their endless struggles with their children. It was during the exploration of their current travails that patients often unearthed considerable residues of their relationships with their siblings and mother from a much earlier time. Only after uncovering these remains does this analysis peer into the past, following the patients as they sift through their childhood experiences, in search of the roots of their present difficulties and pain.

Large numbers of the women seen at the clinics who had earlier been locked into parent-child relations with their siblings, found it difficult to assume "the mature mother role." Therapists repeatedly observed that the women still seemed to be "the child trying to be [the] mother," and many of the women strongly agreed. They appeared "overtly adult," trying to "play the mother," but often remaining only "the deprived little girl." On their projective tests, as in their relations with their children, some continued to be "fixed more on a sibling level than on a maternal level." In one extreme case, a forty-year-old who had long been an auxiliary mother to her brothers readily acknowledged that she had become only "one of the children in her own home." She recalled that shortly after her first child was born, she had already begun to cede "the mothering and physical care" of the infant to her husband. Before long, she had not only relinquished most of "the mothering duties," but even slept with her children "un til summoned by" him. Indeed, she was quite content until he moved his elderly mother into the home, and started attending to the mother more closely than to her. (15)

Others who appear to have cared for siblings for years, or to have been in their care, attested to a lifelong wish to remain a child. Some found the wish puzzling, since they remembered their childhood largely as burdened and "unhappy," but somehow, as one put it, she had "always felt that she wanted to remain a child." In fact, she added, "Maybe she [still] didn't want to grow up." One woman in her forties explained that she had been so "obsessed with the thought that she wanted to be a five-year-old child ... that she [had] finally [come to] believe that she was five years old." Although she had begun to act out her longings when her children were at various stages of development, others indicated that the births of their children had triggered similar behavior in them. Some not only dramatized their longings at home, but "very pointedly made known [their] desires to remain a little girl" to their therapists, even coming to the clinic "dressed as a little girl." One not only came arrayed as a child, but bro ught her child attired as an adult, graphically communicating her wish for a reversal of roles. A man who had long been entrusted with the care of his siblings, could only picture himself in his projective tests as "a baby smoking [sucking on] a cigarette." (16)

Most of the patients, however, could not readily acknowledge the enduring wish to be a child instead of a parent. Most--especially those who had been responsible for their siblings--characteristically relied on reactive defenses to manage all their unacceptable desires. They boasted that they were independent, had, in fact, "become independent quite early," even as images of dependency longings dominated their childhood memories and their projective tests. Frequently, however, their defense could be seen to collapse, and their behavior to become increasingly regressed. Their interactions with their children would erupt into fierce "struggle[s] as to who [was] going to be the [parent]," and mother and child would openly "fight[] each other for the dependency gratifications that neither of them could give." Indeed, as their defenses weakened, they became progressively more dependent on their therapists. Eventually, they would call them "at all times" for advice, and would not separate from them, coming to see t hem as the "mothering figure" for whom they evidently longed. (17)

Although these women had spent much of their youth caring for others, it appeared that they may not have received adequate "mothering" themselves. Despite their earlier denials, in time they confided that "the years [they] needed [their mother] the most, she wasn't there." Ultimately, their profound "disappointment in [their] youth" "poured forth," and they recalled how difficult it had been to dispense what they had never received. Although for years they had attended their siblings without protest, they always felt their mother "didn't do enough for" them, and even those who had "always had [their] mother on a pedestal" now confessed that they "never felt [they] had a mother." They felt they had "never [been] babied enough," "never petted or made much of" as a child. (18)

Similarly, children who were seen at the clinics while they were still responsible for the care of their siblings presented themselves as miniature adults. It eventually became clear, however, that their "extreme overconfidence and [seeming] independence" were only the reactive defenses of particularly needy children. At length, like the adults who had formerly been assistant parents, the children disclosed their desperate wish "for someone to take care of [them]." In group therapy, one girl initially assumed the role of therapist's helper, assistant caretaker of the group, but as she recognized that this was neither expected nor desired by the clinic, her reactive defenses weakened, and she became regressed, almost "infantile," clinging to the therapist, and constantly asking for her protection and care. Indeed, sooner or later, in one way or another, many who spent their time diligently attending to others, revealed a pronounced "sense of deprivation" and an unconscious preoccupation with their own "needs f or nurturant closeness and oral supplies." Their fantasies were those one would ordinarily expect of a much younger child. Still longing to be "surrounded by abundance," a seventeen-year-old imagined herself in a "fairyland" where pixies offered "trays of candy cane and gingerbread houses and lollipop trees and a fudge ripple ice-cream mountain," from which she was to take as much as she wanted. The little mother's mask, it appeared, concealed "strong feelings of being deprived in fundamental ways," and powerful longings "to be the passive little girl who is fed." (19)

Like the children, many of the adults who had earlier been auxiliary parents (as well as those who had been, in effect, raised by them) were preoccupied with "oral cravings and nurturant needs," but they were also tormented by fears.

A number of the women observed that as children they had "always [been] so frightened about everything," and as adults they continued to be overwhelmed by their vast and amorphous fears. They had never overcome their fears of "spirits," of "bogeymen," and especially, of "the dark." In the voice of "a small child," a forty-year-old confided, "I'm a-scared of the dark." Such persistent fears usually indicate the presence, not only of anxieties about potentially being alone and isolated, but pressing underlying feelings of actually being unconnected--and unprotected. Indeed, the most compelling dreams, fantasies, and early memories of several of these women were of feeling unprotected, or of seeking protection, and finding none.

Some of the women had spent years trying to find a protector. From the time she was ten, when she formed a fierce attachment to a Sunday school teacher, until the present, Sharon Simmons had attached herself to a series of "older" women "in positions of authority." She explained that she had "no preferences" among these women, and had never desired a sexual closeness to them. The woman "need not even notice her, [but] as long as she [was] in the same room" as the woman, she felt "happy" and safe. Much as a very young child, she only felt secure when she was in the same room as, that is, could actually see, the would-be protector. It appeared that she had never formed, or had been unable to retain, a stable introject of the protecting mother, essential to developing a secure and separate self. (20)

The long neglected needs of some of the women who had been charged with the care of their siblings were also visible in their relentless competition with their children, in their efforts, as they put it, "to make [them] jealous." Typically, Bertha Feinman would only buy a dress for herself, even though she knew it was her daughter who "really needed [one]." She explained that she would then "tr[y] my best to make her jealous." Sometimes she would deliberately "ha[ve] it on when she came home," and was delighted when she "asked me how much I paid for it," "five dollars or ten dollars." When the therapist wondered "why she wanted to make [the child] jealous," she laughed and said, "I don't know why I do some things. They just come into my mind." Some who regularly competed with their children indicated that "sometimes" they wanted to stop, "to give in," but found that somehow, they could not. Therapists remarked that the women's compulsive competition with their children strongly resembled conflicts among sibli ngs. Indeed, the women may well have seen their children as their siblings, since in some cases the combat appeared to have begun when the child reached the age at which the woman had become an assistant mother, or the age of a sibling when he or she had been assigned to her care. (21)

Looking Backward: Recovering the Relationship between Sibling and Charge

As patients searched for the roots of their current difficulties as parents, they began to recall their own childhood. Prominent among their memories were those of being under the care of a sibling or in the role of the caregiver responsible for the younger child. For many of the patients, these experiences appear to have been filled with frustration. Notably, many who had served, in effect, as a surrogate parent to younger siblings, had earlier been under an older child's care. Analysts who have observed the interactions of such sibling pairs have frequently characterized the older child's treatment of the younger as alternating between "the extremes of benevolence, [], indulgence, ... and sadistic cruelty, unmitigated violence, and hatred." Indeed, studies of the nonclinical population today stress that commonly, and "even under good conditions," the young caregiver relies heavily, "like Lucy in Peanuts, ... [on] the mailed fist." For many of the patients seen at the clinics, the cruelty remained etched in their memories more sharply, or at least more indelibly, than the kindness. (22)

The relationship of the siblings must be considered from the perspective of each. Many of the women (and a number of men) described the child responsible for their care as a martinet, always "bossing," often "unkind," "antagonistic," exploitative, and even "abusive." Several attributed her mistreatment of them to a profound, albeit unacknowledged, "resentment" of her role. One man was convinced that at fifty, his sister had still not "forgiven him for being born, since she had [long] been saddled with his care." Several had always known that the older sibling(s) "never liked" them, and recalled that they had always seen them as "hostile giants," who wielded their authority with a heavy hand, and repeatedly threatened to destroy everything they owned. In some cases, the old pattern had never changed. Although Frieda Katz was now thirty-two, married, with children of her own, the sister who had earlier provided surrogate care continued to live with her, and remained "the boss in the home." She noted, "If [her s ister] has slapped her once, she [has] slapped her hundreds of times." "She has," Katz explained, "always wanted to have the upper hand." In other cases, the siblings simply remained estranged. Some had not spoken "at all" for years. In some families in which older siblings had all cared for the younger, "none [] felt close to one another." At forty-five, Genevieve Fowler found that her "hatred" for the sister who had been responsible for her care was still aroused each time "she sees her or gets a letter from her." Indeed, Fowler remarked that "to this day," she still "can't accept anything from my sister." She still could not believe that the sister who had so resented her as a child would want to give her anything now. (23)

The testimony of several of the women who had been auxiliary parents largely accorded with the accounts of those who had been charges. With their resentments dislodged by a therapist's empathy, or "stirred up" by what they called their own children's "constant demands" and the culture's insistence that they fully satisfy them, they recalled their earlier distress at having too "much responsibility for [the] care of younger siblings," at never having "any free time," and reflected that they had always felt "like a slave." Eventually, several confided that they had not only "dislik[ed] [their role] so much as a child," but had "disliked [the siblings] so much" as well. Some continued to express "no closeness," but "a good deal of jealousy, [] hostility," and even hatred to those who had earlier been entrusted to their care. Still, it was with some discomfort, and even regret, that they recounted how they had terrorized their charges, and described themselves as punitive satraps, "always bossing [them] around." Indeed, it was with some sadness, but little surprise, that one woman learned that her former charge still "hated" her, and "would not have her as her matron of honor" when she married, and another discovered that all her former charges refused to allow her to live with them when she wanted to leave her husband. And it was a woman's indelible memories of earlier mistreatment of her siblings, and of fears that they would tell their mother of the abuse, that led her to worry that "her husband would take her to court [and inform a judge that she was] an unfit mother." The effects of assuming too great responsibilities at too early an age could reverberate for a very long time. (24)

A number of the women who had found their responsibilities onerous appear to have been designated little mothers at a very young age. Some had been charged with attending to the very child who had "displaced [them] in [their] parents' favor" only a few years before. I.e., they had had to care for "the very person [they] hated," the child whose birth had precipitated their own transfer from the mother to the supervision of an older sibling. Still, their feeling had never been "all hate." Their confessions of resentment and enmity were often followed by assurances that they had nonetheless "loved [the child] to pieces." The repeated juxtaposition of opposing sentiments, however, each insisted upon with equal intensity, suggested that some had likely relied on a reactive defense to manage their resentment and rage. (Analysts specifically urge caution when encountering what appear to be idealized views of siblings. Historians have generally ignored such warnings, and the assurances they have stressed, of siblings ' great love for their charge, may have only been defenses.) But as is often the case with a reactive defense, and as the women acknowledged--albeit with considerable guilt--the defense had frequently not been strong enough to withstand the force of their anger. (25)

Similarly, many women who had been given major responsibility for a sibling when they were adolescents recalled their distaste for the role and ambivalence toward their charge. Some had vivid memories of the frustration they felt when, upon an older sister's departure from the home or a new sibling's birth, their education had been abruptly terminated so they could tend to a younger sibling full-time. A woman in her mid-forties still could not forget her profound disappointment at being forced to leave school in the middle of eighth grade when her sister married in 1910. "That broke my heart. I wanted to continue through high school with the rest of my class and enjoy the good times that were ahead of them as members of the leisure class," but she would devote all her attention to her siblings instead. Yet even adolescents whose responsibilities did not require them to withdraw prematurely from school often found caring for siblings uncongenial, because, as they complained, they "ha[d] to do it all the time, [but] do[]n't get anything for it." While even younger brothers were paid for delivering groceries or newspapers, and older sisters and some girlfriends earned money by working outside the home, the relentless efforts of the assistant mother remained uncompensated. As one father explained to his protesting daughter, "That's a woman's work." "[It's] a woman's job anyway, and doesn't count." Still, discontent mounted as the young felt the pulls of the consumer society, and as the school increasingly became a center of social life and activities.

Indeed, several women had tried to escape from the unwelcome role as soon as they could. Having spent years caring for a sister, one woman recalled that when her brother was born when she was sixteen, she was determined to avoid responsibility for him. She soon discovered that she could evade the role completely, and transfer the burden to her younger sister, if she plunged full-time into her school's heterosocial pursuits and permitted her emotionally starved mother to participate vicariously in them. Others concluded that they could escape the unwanted role only by emigrating to America, enlisting in the Army, or marrying at the first opportunity, at a very young age. But before they could relinquish the role, their discontent strongly colored their relations with their charge. (26)

The Scars of Sibling Care:

Having described the remembered relations between themselves and their siblings, several of the women who had been in an older child's care went on to explore the effects, often, the emotional scars, the experience had left on them. After assessing the impact of the relationship on the charge, the discussion returns once more to a consideration of the position and perspective of the older sibling, analyzing why the caregiver may have acted as she did, in the process possibly harming the younger child.

A number of the women who had been cared for by siblings indicated that they had always felt "inadequate." No matter how capable they were, they had always felt incompetent. An earlier sense of being "extremely inferior to" the caregiver had developed into an "intense, underlying feeling [] of [general] inadequacy." They found it difficult to accept a gift from the older sibling, not only because they could not believe she wanted to give them anything, but because they doubted that they deserved to receive anything. Some not only felt inferior, but insignificant. They confessed that they had always felt that they did not count. One woman in her mid-forties, who dwelled on a "babyhood" in which she had been attended by sisters who "resented having to take care of [her]," confided that the therapist was "the first person in my life that has made me feel important [] as a person." These women had never felt valued as children and still felt unappreciated.

Although the sense of not being valued had likely begun to form earlier, the feeling was often intensified during the years in which a sibling was responsible for their care. Several had found it particularly difficult to avoid this conclusion, as their young caretakers repeatedly and aggressively disparaged them, and informed them that by the time they were born there were no brains nor looks--nor love--left in the mother for them. And while many older siblings shared these sentiments, they were in a position to impose their views. Other women, whose siblings had not overtly belittled them, had also inferred that they were not wanted or valued, as their little mothers provided only perfunctory or grudging care, attending minimally to their physical needs and largely ignoring their emotional ones. Had the women been able, when they were older, to find a new milieu in which their traits, their "extrinsic and intrinsic qualities," were "prize[d]," their sense of their own value could have been modified. The wom en who came to the clinics, however, had never found that environment. In their mid-thirties and forties, they remained "very self-demeaning" and continued to feel unimportant, unappreciated, and even unloved. One thirty-five-year old, who had concluded that she was "just a zero," remarked that "[I] always tell my mother she should have left me behind." (27)

Several of the women believed that their family's responses to them could only be explained by their inadequacy. Those whose siblings had assumed responsibility for them when they were very young appear to have experienced the transfer as a kind of abandonment by the mother. And on a preconscious level they still retained the conviction, first formed in their "baby mind," that had they been adequate, their mother would never have handed them over to their care. Similarly, they, as well as the other women, remained convinced that the sibling-mother would never have treated them as harshly or as she had, were they not, in fact, inferior. (28)

Eventually, many had come to assume that others would also recognize their pervasive deficiencies, and some confessed that their adult lives had been dominated by efforts "to prove to everybody" that they were adequate, and therefore worthy of attention. By the time they arrived at the clinics, however, their attention had become focused largely on their adequacy as parents and on the supposed inadequacy of their children. Indeed, because they generally questioned their abilities, and were always "anxious about everything" they did with their children, they had frequently sought detailed "rules and regulations" and had tried "to follow the directions to the extreme." As a result, as observers, children, and the women themselves testified, they acted less as nurturers of their families than as guards, always standing watch "to see if [all], including the husband, behaved [according to the rules]."

Their relationships with their children were shaped, above all, by their "need to control and dominate" them. One recalled that as soon as her son was born "his troubles began, ... [as her] whole life became a round of training the poor baby, and keeping a perfect home." She knew she would be scorned if she "did not make a model of him." Moreover, the task was a large one, for no matter how able their children, these women suspected that, like themselves, they were inadequate, and whatever their age, "d[id]n't know what is right." Clearly, much was at stake, for even as they came to recognize "what terrible things [they had] been doing to" their children, and "how miserable [they had] made" their lives, they still found it difficult to diminish their controls. (29)

For a number of women, the compulsion to control was driven by more than the need to demonstrate their adequacy. These women, who erected vast arrays of controls, and insisted that "everything [be] carefully planned," were also tormented by pervasive, amorphous "internal fears." It appeared that it was only by means of their schedules and strictures that they managed to keep their anxiety at bay. They feared that if a child misbehaved, their own inner disorder would emerge, and they would have a "nervous breakdown."

Even when the women were not overwhelmed by their fears, they remained apprehensive. Some had always been afraid of "the dark," and were still terrified of "being alone." Others had felt chronically insecure, "always nervous, always afraid," worried that something dreadful was about to happen, and they would be destroyed. Apparently projecting their inner fears outward, they saw a dangerous world; they exaggerated the perils that attended every untoward incident and frequently refused to "go[] out alone." Several appear to have been transferred to their older sibling's care in the half year before they were two, when a younger sibling was born--timing that was normative for the working and lower-middle class in these years of limited fertility control. (30) They were removed to a sibling's care during the developmental stage in which children become "acutely aware of [their] separateness," and therefore of their "relative helplessness" without the mother. For women deprived of ready access to their other at t his critical cognitive stage, separation would always be problematic. Prevented from reducing their fears by clinging to the mother, and from periodically denying the separation by regressing, they had not learned to tolerate their separateness gradually, over steadily lengthening intervals away from her. And since there had often been no reassuring adult to whom they could turn in the face of a "discrepant event," but only another child who provided little comfort, and could rarely allay their fears, these women had been inordinately anxious as children. Moreover, those who had perceived their transfer to the sibling as an abandonment or rejection, may not have succeeded in forming the stable, positive introject of the mother which would have allowed them to reassure or comfort themselves. Some had not even managed to sustain an image of a benevolent God who could offer solace or protection in the face of disturbing events. Rather, they imagined a figure who was "quick [to flag] and sure to punish" every min or offense, and who rarely "reward[ed]" even "if they [did] something good;" in short, the God they internalized was a satrap, who bore an uncanny resemblance to their auxiliary mother. With no one or nothing to depend on to relieve their distress, these women could only hold onto their controls. (31)

Controls appear always to have been "extremely important" to a number of the women who had been assistant parents, as well as to those who had been in their care. Currently allowing their children no autonomy, they acknowledged that earlier they had been autocrats with their charges. Then, as now, they had been an overly "restricting, inhibiting, controlling, punitive authority." Indeed, mothers who brought children to the clinics routinely described their young assistants as "the most bossy person imaginable, ordering everyone around the house," although several found their behavior appropriate, and "blame[d] the younger [children] for resisting." Therapists, noting the terror introduced along with their controls, flatly labeled the behavior tyrannical. The assistants were seen to rely on "dictatorial methods" to keep their younger siblings under their control, and to resort to harsh or sadistic punishments if they hesitated to "obey." One little mother, absorbed in play, warned some figures that they had be tter behave "or else I will shoot you." One boasted that she "whips her [charge] every day" "to break her of her [bad] habits," and openly fantasized that she had "kill[ed]" her.

In their efforts to explain the despotic tendencies of many of the young overseers, therapists observed (and former assistant parents recalled) that, appearances to the contrary, they were often "terribly frightened" and overwhelmed by their responsibilities. Some therapists suggested that in responding to the "scary situation" they found themselves in, some of the younger overseers had tried to increase their sense of mastery "by going the other way too far." Thus one cannot simply attribute an assistants mistreatment of a charge to personal depravity. In these cases, the tight controls were only a response to the child's extreme fears. In other cases, the controls appear to have been necessitated by the unreasonable standards of behavior to which the assistants held their charges, and often, themselves. Here, too, personal shortcomings cannot explain the abuse. Analysts observed that when parents were insufficiently available and children "had to take over the job of demands," and as was often the case in t he clinical families, the expectations the children formed and the demands they made were often unrealistic and far too rigidly applied. Labeling minor infractions serious crimes, some established, in effect, a reign of terror. When their controls proved unavailing, and the charges failed to meet their exacting code of conduct, they could be seen meting out punishments that were also immoderate, disproportionate to the supposed offense. Still, some of the assistants were as punitive to themselves as to their charge, as their inordinate disappointment in their failure to manage the child effectively led them also to "turn [their] aggression on [themselves]." Withal, it appeared that the assistants were handling their responsibilities in the only way they could. (32)

Even adolescent assistants, who were not as anxious as younger ones about their ability to handle the child, often found themselves unable to respond appropriately to the charge. Because so many had themselves been attended by an older sibling, their early needs may have remained unsatisfied, their infantile conflicts unresolved. The unconscious "archaic longings" and atavistic urges that ordinarily beset adolescents would therefore have reemerged in them with particular force. Moreover, while many adolescents wrestle with these feelings, the auxiliary parents' struggles would invariably involve their charge. At times, some of the assistant parents had evidently tried to manage the "dangerously heightened wish" to regress, and resume a "slavish dependency" on the mother, with a reactive defense, adopting an independent persona while becoming extremely attentive to the supposed dependency needs of the charge. At other times, the defense having collapsed, they directed unmitigated resentment and hostility to th e child whose dependency needs they were expected to address even as their own intense longings continued to be ignored. Similarly, the adolescent assistants had tried to handle the revived infantile rage that they dared not express to their mother by redirecting it toward the charge. At other times, however, the adolescents' effort to "wage[] total war" on their furies apparently led some not only to place massive clamps on their own aggressive impulses, but also on those of their charge. Thus some of the extreme cruelty, controls, and even the benevolence that the former assistants and charges recalled, and the cycles of abuse and attention some therapists witnessed, were likely attributable to the extraordinary measures that older children took in an effort to manage the "residual and revived infantile [feelings]" that plagued them. (33)

Most analysts agree that it matters little if a child is cared for by someone other than the mother, so long as the alternate caregiver is consistently nurturant and appropriately attentive to the child's physical and emotional needs. Whatever the precise cause, the care provided by many assistant parents generally fell far short of these standards: the young caregivers were endemically inconsistent, often hostile, only infrequently nurturant, and they rarely addressed, or even recognized, the actual needs of the charge.

The supplementary care currently provided by a worker in a day-care facility is considerably different from that formerly offered by many older siblings in the home. Although studies have not yet determined who become day-care workers, as adults, most are probably less likely than their younger counterparts to wish they were the child receiving the attention and solicitude. Having received some training, they are presumably somewhat less disposed to act out their intrapsychic conflicts with the charge. In any event, they are less resentful of the child, for unlike the siblings, who had to devote all their "leisure" to caring for the charge, the workers know that evenings and weekends are their own. Nor do the professional caregivers ordinarily insist on a narrow range of acceptable behavior or, in any case, enforce it with a club. They have usually been instructed to ignore much aggressive behavior or, at least, not to overreact to it. And as adults, they are more able to understand the child's perspective, t o recognize the source of her anxiety, and have a range of strategies to help the child cope. But although the professional normally provides more enlightened care than the sibling, often it was the young caregiver who had been more salient to the psychological development of the charge. Not only was the ratio of children to the sibling much lower than the ratio of charges to the worker, but since the turnover of personnel at day-care centers is high, a child remained under the watch of a given sibling for a much longer period than he or she stays with a single worker. Moreover, since the mother's young auxiliary was more clearly a representative of the parent; since her responses were less predictable than those of the worker, her frequent and arbitrary interventions forcing themselves on the consciousness of the child; and since, unlike the worker, she often attended the child at times when "emotional feelings ... [were] highly charged," at "the morning wakening and the evening preparations for bedtime," an d when the child was sick, (34) it is likely that she was more highly cathected than the modern day-care worker. Thus, as the worker has replaced the sibling as the supplementary caregiver of choice, the mother's psychological impact on the young child has likely increased.

Unavailable Mothers:

Although young assistants generally played a large role in the lives of their siblings, the likelihood that they would respond appropriately to the younger children's needs was problematic. Some, however, found it particularly difficult to provide proper care since their own needs had been largely overlooked. (35) Several of the women who suffered from a want of parental attention indicated that their mothers had always spent "long hours" at work while they were "left to care" for the home. A number of the mothers, especially those who were first- or second-generation Americans, had owned small shops, which they ran with their husbands or, often, alone. One woman who, like her mother, owned a small store, described these ventures as "slavish enterprise[s]" that produced "negligible" returns, but required constant attention from four in the morning until eight at night, precluding any "home life" at all. Other mothers, often those whose husbands worked irregularly after developing convulsions, mill cramp, drop sy, or "epileptic spells," were "never home much," as they spent their days working in factories or restaurants or as scrubwomen in offices or homes. Some had expressly chosen to work evenings or weekends, when their young assistant would be home from school. A few of the women recalled that for a time a grandmother or an aunt had tended to the family while their parents were at work, but debility, transportation difficulties, conflicting desires, or the pressing needs of other family members often led the caregiver to withdraw her services before long. But throughout the years in which these women were young, from the 1890s through the mid-1950s, many mothers did not hesitate to transfer "most of the responsibility of running the house" and caring for the younger children to a young assistant, who often was no more than nine or ten years old.

Some historians, recording the claims of women who worked, have pictured them dashing home at every opportunity to attend to their children and care for the home. But the women who had earlier served as their mothers' auxiliaries, those who had been in their care--and even the children seen at the clinics while they had responsibility for the home--spoke mainly of their mothers' unavailability and "how often [they] had been disappointed by [them]." Several expanded on the vast burdens they had transferred to them. Bertha Feinman recalled that her father, who "did not approve of education for women," withdrew her from school at thirteen, and she was soon assigned almost full responsibility for the home. "I did everything," she stated. "My mother did the shopping and, of course, took care of the business. But Iran the whole house. I prepared everything. I did the cooking." And "I always took care of my brother." "I really raised him," she explained. Thus even as her needs and the others' remained unattended, th ey were "expected [] to do everything" for their families, who, some added, took their "services [] for granted," and offered "no credit or appreciation" for all they had done. (36)

Other women who had assumed considerable responsibility for their family and the home recalled that their mothers had been particularly inattentive to them. They had always felt that their mothers "had not really wanted" them, one adding plaintively that her mother "still doesn't seem to want her." A few attributed their mothers' indifference to their ordinal position in the family, observing that they had only been attached to "the first [child] of each sex," or the youngest child, or had vastly preferred their seventh daughter, since the seventh girl was always "thought to be psychic." Some indicated that their mothers had been distant from them because they had been born, or even conceived, too soon after marriage, while several had concluded that they had been virtually rejected because they had "appeared" too late, after mothers in their late thirties or early forties had been convinced that their child-bearing years were over. During these years, the working class had exercised, or achieved, only limite d fertility control, and several maintained that their mothers had been particularly estranged from them or a sibling because they were born too soon after, or before, another child's birth. One mother, who had had her first child at fourteen, and an eighth at twenty-seven, had apparently been inaccessible to most of her children. (37)

Several women who had felt unwanted or disfavored recognized that they had agreed to assume so much responsibility for their siblings and the home in an effort to gain acceptance and "to get praise." Some who felt particularly "insecure" had hoped to lessen the chance that their mother would "reject" them or "leave" them, or to reduce the number and intensity of her assaults. Jacqueline Caroli explained that she had always done so much because she knew her mother would "just as soon kick her down the stairs as not." (38)

A number of the women explained that sickness, or more often, "sickliness," in the family had led them to bear a particularly large share of the burdens of the home. Some described their mothers as preoccupied for years with a "sickly" or seriously ill parent or child, for whom the family could never afford the services of a nurse. More told of mothers who were themselves often incapacitated, and sometimes ill. Several always suspected that their mothers had exploited their debility, exaggerating or prolonging it, to induce them to share their burdens and attend to them. Although "a suspicion of TB" was "eventually ruled out," or a diagnosis of "heart dropsy during an early pregnancy" was never confirmed, and the symptoms never recurred, mothers clung to their diseases, discovered new aches and pains, and insisted that their children render extensive services to them. A number of unidentifiable ailments first appeared during a pregnancy, often an unwanted one, sending mothers to their beds for months, or year s, after the birth of the child. While one cannot be sure that the mothers employed the device consciously, one can be sure that it was often successful, and that they used it for a very long time. (39)

Jacqueline Caroli's mother was born in 1880, one of fourteen children of French-Canadian tenant farmers. At four, her parents placed her permanently in the care of her oldest brother, who was married and living in a New England mill town. At eleven, she left school to work full-time in a mill, until she married in her early twenties and began to have ten children of her own. As the children grew up, she increasingly prevailed on them to care for each other, "to do most of the housework," and attend to her. Caroli recalled that in addition to threatening her with physical harm, her mother relied on a variety of real, imagined, and exaggerated debilities, including goiter, rheumatism, and shortness of breath (a possible legacy of a youth spent inhaling lint), to induce her to assume her burdens. She noted that her sister had only "escaped her mother's [demands]" by running away from home, and remembered that she used to dream of "buying her freedom" by getting a job. Although Caroli never "escaped her mother's domination," she did succeed in leaving home when she eloped with a man she had "dated [] for two weeks." In time, she managed to have her own needs addressed, as she too discovered incapacitating ailments that compelled the services and solicitude of her children, physicians, and, eventually, a therapist. (40)

In other cases, when the women found themselves with more children than they could handle, they sent them to live with relatives for a few years, retrieving them only when they deemed them capable of assuming an auxiliary parent role. Vincenza Perricelli, who was born around the turn of the century to parents who ultimately had eleven children, was one of several siblings to be sent, one at a time, to live with their grandparents for several years. Although Vincenza became very attached to her grandmother, and even called her "Maw," she was summoned home as soon as she was "old enough" to be assigned responsibility for younger siblings "as they came along." She recalled that this was a "tremendous adjustment" for her, and stated that she never came to feel like her mother's child. (41)

The circumstances that had led the mothers of these women to withdraw from them were familiar ones in these social strata through much of the period, and although most mothers in the general population may not have been as overwhelmed or unavailable or insensitive as these, many probably responded in similar ways. And like the women treated at the clinics, their children may have willingly assumed considerable responsibilities in the home. Analysts point out that children will go to great lengths "to comfort parents or to protect them from psychological collapse," and one way to "preserv[e] parents" is to relieve them of much of the burden of caring for young children. Certainly, the embrace of a "subidentity" as an auxiliary parent is preferable to an identity simply as a deprived child. But the role often comes with considerable costs, and the veneer of responsibility can mask "intense [inner] conflict" and a psychologically depleted child. Moreover, the caregiver's sense of mastery, enhanced ordinarily by bludgeoning and applying massive controls, can severely damage the ego development of the charge. (42)

From Sibling Caregiver to Ambivalent Parent:

Large numbers of the women seen at the clinics found it difficult to respond adequately or appropriately to their children, in part because of their mother's earlier failure to meet their needs. Their internal representation of the mother remained "ambivalently cathected with an excess of unneutralized aggression," and they never formed a stable, positive identification with her. Indeed, their earlier embrace of "the mothering activity," their effort to be a mother to their mother's children, may have been an attempt to reduce the distance between themselves and their mother by identifying with her. But the identification could not be sustained, and their struggle to be little mothers (and later, to be mothers themselves) was observed frequently to founder. (43)

Still, only some of their difficulties could be attributed to their troubled relationships with their mothers. In most cases, the women's earlier experiences as auxiliary parents strongly colored their feelings about parenthood and constrained their interactions with their child. Indeed, some viewed their new position as little more than a continuation of the burdens of the old, and consistently confused their children with their charges. Nancy Chodorow has suggested that girls readily identify with the parent of the same sex and readily learn the parental role. But this supposition applies only in a limited way to the women considered here. The women may have learned the ins-and-outs of the maternal role, but they often formed, at best, an ambivalent identification with the mother, and absorbed decidedly mixed feelings about motherhood. Similarly, Christopher Lasch's contention that since parents in the past had "practical experience, during their own childhood, in taking care of children, nursing the sick, and housekeeping," they must have had confidence in their own judgments about how to rear their young, and therefore did not seek the advice of experts, finds little support in the families examined here. Contrary to his deduction, many of the women who had been assistant parents distrusted their impulses toward their children or, in some cases, wanted desperately to be wholly different from their mothers, if only finally to disidentify from them, and thus implored their therapists to give them "specific advice" on how to respond to their children. It was the therapists who refused to provide the guides, insisting that all the answers to their difficulties were "inside." (44)

Even pregnancy elicited a strongly negative response in several of the women who had been little homemakers. These women recalled "being very upset" when they learned their mother was going to have another child, as they knew this meant their own burdens would increase, and then remarked that they still found pregnancy repellent. Rose Stein noted that "to this day [she] feels she looks at [all] pregnant women with repugnancy because of her own mother's pregnancy," adding that the sister who had been her charge, and who later became a caretaker herself, "feels the same way." (45)

Even some of the girls who were seen at the clinics while they were still assisting their parents insisted they would never have a family of their own. Having "too many grown-up responsibilities already," they were sure they wanted no more. As one adolescent informed her therapist, she would never have "kids.... Not for me," she vowed, adding that she thought marriage "would be okay till the kids come." To be sure, these girls had time to change their minds. But a number of the women, who had, in part, married to escape the caregiver's role, recalled that when they married they had been determined to postpone having children for as long as they could, or not to have children at all.

Despite their resolve, all became pregnant long before they planned, often within a few months of marriage. Several attributed the unwanted conceptions to a husband who never "considered [their] part very much," and who was "very conscientious about doing his job for the Church, as far as [having] children [was] concerned." Others blamed the physician who refused to provide them with any "means of prevention," because he was so "afraid of the Catholic Church." Still others, whose efforts at birth control often failed in these years, recalled that they had been "very eager for an abortion." Indeed, several had tried to terminate their pregnancies, but since they relied on procedures recommended by friends, or on "medicine" they supplied, they usually failed. (46)

Like the women, men who had had considerable responsibility for siblings wanted "to put off having children," or "resist[ed]" having any at all. Although year after year Dave Fischer told his wife that they could not yet afford to start a family, she always knew that it "made little difference financially whether they had [] children sooner" or later. As he frequently complained bitterly of all the time he had spent attending to his sister, she strongly suspected that he wanted an indefinite respite from the caregiver's role. Other men did not insist that childbearing be postponed, but were nonetheless displeased at the prospect of parenthood. Doug McKenzie always maintained that he "slapped [his wife] around [only] when she deserved it," but she deserved it mainly when she was pregnant. Although he finally agreed to pay the hospital bill when she went to give birth, he did so grudgingly, and only if the child were a boy. When she returned with a son, he informed her that he had always found "babies boring," but might "take an interest" in the child when he was "older." But as he also announced that "since he [had] raised one family" already, he had no desire to care for another, she recognized that his interest would not develop for a very long time.

Some of those who had felt particularly taxed by their responsibility for their siblings displaced their hostility from their sibling to their child. Dave Fischer, who always "had a lot of resentment toward his younger sister," and who agreed to have children only after a decade of marriage, openly encouraged his son's relentless hostility toward his daughter. Even some of the men who had been cared for by a resentful brother were wont to be indifferent or highly punitive to their sons. With his brother as a model, or with his enmity to the brother redirected toward the child, Al Lane was occasionally attentive to his son, usually "ignored him," and frequently "beat[] him unmercifully." Just as his brother had made him "toe the mark," he was determined to do the same with his son, although, he noted lamely, "nothing worked." Indeed, the boy, who always "wondered ... [if] anyone ... cared for him," repeatedly "ran away" from home. (47)

Like the men, many of the women who had assisted their mothers found it difficult to be parents. Whether they accepted their pregnancy or remained disappointed, all their "anger about being the one to be responsible for a [] family ... [was] stirred up" with the birth of the child. While some "did not resent the child," many strongly "resented the necessity to care for [it]." As Catherine Levy explained, she "feels she has always been doing for children and resents [her child's] constant demands as a continuation of this." Seeing little romance in caring for children (or "keeping house"), they saw only the work and sacrifice it entailed. Indeed, a number of the women whose early needs were slighted, and who had tended largely to the physical needs of their siblings, could do little more for their children. They would "do for [them] materially" and, at least at times, "meet [their] physical needs," but generally seemed unable to "understand or meet [their] emotional [ones]." (48)

Many had so much difficulty responding to their children because they so readily confused them with their charges. When Doris Janssen became angry at her children and their demands, she also became angry at her mother, as if the children were her siblings and it was her mother who was forcing her to care for them. And no sooner did she tell the therapist of her animus toward her children than she went on to recall her "hostile feelings to her siblings" "when she used to have to take care of [them], when she could have been doing something [for] herself that she liked much more." Maureen Romano stated that "it is because of her feelings about her younger brothers [whom she looked after as a child] that she doesn't like boys, and prayed that she would not have any boys herself." Her assumption, that negative feelings for one's charges would only be displaced to children of the same sex, was not, however, borne Out in practice. Gladys McGuire recognized that "her feelings [] toward her brother [her charge] as a child" were "just like her reaction to her own baby [daughter]." In each case, she complained, she had "expected a personality and got a baby." Although her child was almost three, she insisted that she would not be able "to relate to [the] child until it develops some personality," although it was unclear when that would be. (49)

The Last Struggles over Sibling Care:

A number of the women who found childcare so onerous transferred a great deal of responsibility to their children. Although their families were generally smaller than their mother's, throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s, they continued to insist that their children tend to each other and, often, maintain the home. Even those who had hoped to avoid burdening their children ultimately found that they could only overcome the hostile and competitive feelings they had transferred from their siblings to their children if the children became, in effect, devoted servants to them. To be sure, few openly announced, as one parent did, that their children must be employed at endless jobs in the home in order to earn their way. Yet, through these years, few displayed any defensiveness about placing demands on the children for services that consumed much of their time.

Historians and an historical sociologist have traced a "cultural redefinition of a child's place" from "object of utility to object of sentiment." By the 1930s, they contend, "the sentimentalization of childhood [even] cut across social class distinctions." "[R]egardless of social class," parents now recognized that children "belonged in a domesticated, nonproductive world of lessons, games, and token money." The cases examined here, however, suggest that many working- and lower-middle-class parents, who had spent much of their youth caring for siblings or being attended by them, would, or could, not accept, or act upon, the new norm. Cultural proscriptions continued to be overridden by their need to repair, or be compensated for, remembered narcissistic injuries inflicted by an insufficiently responsive mother or sibling charged with their care. (50)

Increasingly, however, a number of children refused to serve as their mother's surrogate or aide. Women constantly complained about children who "showed no sensitivity to [their] burdens" and "will do nothing for [them]," while therapists observed the children only "fighting [their] mothers ... against being used." While some of the women, such as Nellie O'Rourke, were unable to "form a ... positive relationship" even with a son who tended his six siblings and did "numerous household chores," others rejected only the child who declined to assist in the home. To Sadie Bloom, the son who "help[ed] all the time" was "a diamond," while the daughter who resisted was "bad," "stupid," "such an ungrateful child," and, pointing to her head, "nor right here."

These women directed so much hostility to the children since their refusal to help released a flood of painful memories of their own childhood burdens, which they had been unable to evade. Soon after Ethel Wald began to speak of her deep "disappointment in a daughter" who was unwilling to assist her in the home, her own "disappointment in [a] youth" spent tending her siblings "pour[ed] forth," and she began to sob uncontrollably. The girl responded only by dismissing her experience as "too bad, ... but [] that's life." It would not, however, be her life. Refusing to identify with her "embittered, burdened, and complaining" mother, she would not care for her siblings or the home. Her brother, by contrast, who was not threatened by identifying with the mother, "wept with [her]," "pitied his mother for her past hardships, felt it," and always helped in the home. Sometimes a child's reluctance to assist the mother dislodged memories of siblings who "didn't do their share of the housework," and the mother's identi fication of the child with the sister or brother who had "increased her burdens" intensified her rage at her child. In some cases, the women seemed particularly incensed by a son's refusal to alleviate their burdens. These women, whose mothers were immigrants who had assigned vast responsibilities to their daughters and few to the sons whom the girls had attended, demanded that their sons "compensate[] [them] for [their] hurts and low position in [their] parental family," and became highly distressed when they demurred. In some cases, however, old feelings of resentment did not fully explain the women's anger, for as some pointed out, the child's refusal to act as a caregiver or homemaker had precluded their working and confined them to the home. With relatives often unavailable, neighbors undependable, and day-care too expensive, they could only demand the services of the child. (51)

Some of the women found their children's increasingly individualistic outlook and behavior inexplicable, as well as intolerable. They had expected them "to be interested in [their] condition," to do "things ... for [their] sake," and were stunned to find that they "want[ed] a lot of attention [themselves]" and insisted that they cater to them. The women demanded that the children cook, clean, and feed their younger siblings, but found that the children would even "go without food unless [they] serve[d] [them]." Indeed, when Bertha Feinman planned to buy herself a new suit and give the one she had outgrown to her daughter, the child insisted that if a suit were "to be bought for one of them," it had to "be bought for her." Maintaining that they had at least struggled to suppress their own rebellious desires, they would not countenance their daughter's refusal to do the same. They would not permit the world they had known, or the one they had anticipated, to be turned upside down. (52)

Some held the schools responsible for luring the children away from their work in the home. They singled out the schools' extracurricular activities for special condemnation, furious that they provided the children with their excuse to return home too late each day to be of much assistance to them. Indeed, the historian Paula Fass has shown that in an effort to Americanize the ethnic young, school administrators sponsored extracurricular activities, which increasingly became an expected, even a virtually mandated, "part of [the] school experience." More of the women, however, decried their husbands' role in emboldening their children, especially their daughters, to ignore their pleas to help in the home. They portrayed them as occasional, "lax," and indulgent fathers, and insisted that the children would never be so "unrestrained, willful, [or] domineering" without their support. The women recalled that their fathers had always asserted, or at least conveyed, authority, and insured that the children fulfilled their responsibilities in the home. There had always been "a barrier" between them and their father, and they complained that there was none between their husband and children. Rarely home, and lacking authority, the men had crafted a role as pal, as protector, indulgent of the wishes of the child. As Bertha Feinman declaimed, when her husband is with the defiant child, they are "just like two kids." He is "always joking with her," never reproves her, even "babies her" much of the time. The men, in turn, accused their wives of wanting their daughters to be grown up already," and of placing too many burdens on them. The women complained that even when the children were twelve or fourteen, the men acted as if they were still "very little girl[s]." They could only protest that when they were their age, they had already left school, accepted vast responsibilities, and left childhood far behind. These women were, however, increasingly isolated: the schools, many fathers, therapists, and even a spreading cultural focus on the psychological needs of the child, were on the other side. Indeed, in the 1970s, the psychological approach to parenting, formerly favored largely by the educated elite, began to be more widely adopted, along with the attendant concern about the child's emotional development and personal growth. Increasingly, mothers who were inclined to transfer their household burdens to a child, or to assign a child to a sibling's care, hesitated to do so, as they considered the impact it might have on the development of each. (53)

By the 1970s, child caregiving, once normative, had become uncommon. As families became smaller, the need for the services of the child had declined. And even working-class daughters had become less available to care for their siblings. Parents came to accept the need for all children in an advanced- or post-industrial economy to remain in school. (By 1970, 75 percent of 17-yearolds were graduating from high school, versus 50 percent in 1940, and by the end of the century fully 91 percent of 17-year-old girls, and 89 percent of the boys, remained in school.) A soaring divorce rate, as well as the women's movement's stress on expanding girls' options, further convinced parents that their daughters' adolescence should be spent preparing for work outside the home. Although few had assigned children to the caregiver's role to provide an apprenticeship for motherhood, parents now agreed that their daughters should not just be exposed to the maternal role. And as parents increasingly embraced the concept of the psy chological child, they became reluctant to risk their children's development by entrusting their care to a child, or by consigning them to the caregiver's role. Moreover, few years separated siblings in the small, postmodern family, and parents had become loath to rely on the parenting skills of a child only two or three years older than the charge. (54)

Still, the decline of the auxiliary parent has not necessarily led to a significant increase in the mother's availability to the child. Arguably, as the divorce rate has climbed, and half of children will spend some time in a single-parent home, these children will be left with only "the distracted attention of their [] custodial parent. And as women go to work while their children are at ever younger ages, today only the mothers of about one third of preschoolers are home with them all day. At least for the working- and lower-middle class, the "era" in which children routinely received the full attention of mothers all day was very brief indeed. (55)

Large numbers of young children now spend much of their time at day-care centers, which have proliferated and become more affordable over the last three decades. A limited, though significant, number of parents, however, have set aside their strong reservations, and leave an older child in charge. When 30,000 sixth graders were asked by the Weekly Reader in the early 1990s about their after-school care, half indicated that they remained home alone, while another 7,000 were with a sibling, although it is not clear how many of the older siblings were formally in charge. Still, some teachers and psychiatrists suspect that "America's big secret" is that considerable numbers of children are attending to their siblings, "because there is no one else" to care for them. There can be no reliable estimates of the extent of the practice, however, because parents are extremely reluctant to admit to it. Unlike in earlier generations, sibling care-giving is widely stigmatized, and even parents who acknowledge relying on a child as a caregiver, confide that it is wrong and unfair, and "may hurt [the child] some day." Still, contemporary sibling care differs significantly from the earlier system, when older children in intact families were routinely responsible for their siblings, whether or not their mother worked outside the home. Today, the young caregiver is found largely in poor, single-parent households in which the mother is employed outside the home. (The incidence is particularly high among African-American single-parent families.) And in contrast to the past, when a child generally cared for the siblings for much of the day, until they went to sleep, the child is now in charge only briefly, from the time the younger child comes home from school, or from after-school activities, until the parent returns from work. In short, the young caregiver no longer serves as a parent surrogate. The long era of the 'little mother' is over. (56)

Department of History

Denton, TX 76203-0650

ENDNOTES

(1.) Quotes are from David Elkind, Ties That Stress: The New Family Imbalance (Cambridge, MA, 1994), pp. 58, 118-19 and Kay S. Hymowitz, Ready or Not: Why Treating Children as Small Adults Endangers Their Future--and Ours (New York, 1999), pp. 12-15.

(2.) Psychological Summary, [1968] [Martelli], Family Counseling Facility [FCF]; Milton Rosenbaum, "Psychological Effects on the Child Raised by an Older Sibling," American Journal of Orthosychiatry 33 (1963): 518; Joseph Adelson and Marjery J. Doehrman, "The Psychodynamic Approach to Adolescence," in Handbook of Adolescent Psychology, ed: Joseph Adelson (New York, 1980), p. 108; Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and die Sociology of Gender (Berkeley, 1978), pp. 136-37, 173-77; Christopher Lasch, Haven inaHeardess World: The Family Besieged (New York, 1977), p. 172. Quote is from Martelli. (In accordance with my contracts with the facilities whose records I utilize here, I have disguised the names of the patients and clinics. A key to the identities of records and clinics will be available from me or from Columbia University Library in 2004.)

(3.) Beverly Stadum, Poor Women and Their Families: Hard Working Charity Cases, 1900-1930 (Albany, 1992), pp. 19-23,39,45-48, 83-84, 114; Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Never Were: American Families and die Nostalgia Trap (New York, 1992), p. 230. Quotes are from Stadum.

(4.) David Nasaw, Children of die City: At Work and At Play (New York, 1985), pp. 1105-8; J. Robert Wegs, Growing up Working Class: Continuity and Change Among Viennese Youth, 1890-1938 (University Park, PA, 1989), pp. 87-88; Sydney Stahl Weinberg, The World of Our Mothers: The Lives of Jewish Immigrant Women (Chapel Hill, 1988), p. 156. See too: Elizabeth Roberts, A Woman's Place: An Oral History of Working-Class Women, 1890-1940 (New York, 1984), pp. 22-25 and Leslie Woodcock Tentler, Wage-Earning Women: Industrial Work and Family Life in die United States, 1900-1930 (New York, 1979), pp. 157-59.

(5.) Nasaw, Children of die City, pp. 106-7, 110, 113-14; Steven Mintz and Susan Kellogg, Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of American Family Life (New York, 1988), p. 94; Brady, "A New York Childhood," The American Mercury XIV (1928): 60, cited in Nasaw, pp. 106-7. See too: Roberts, A Woman's Place, pp. 23, 34

Only Linda Gordon, whose focus was on cases of child abuse, acknowledged the intense conflicts that flared as mothers "overwork[ed]" their daughters and "demanded that [they] share responsibility for domestic work." Gordon did not distinguish, however, between the girls' responses to their childcare duties and their other household tasks, and, more importantly, sustained the discussion only for one paragraph. Heroes of Their Own Lives: The Politics and History of Family Violence, Boston 1880-1960 (New York, 1988), pp. 181-83.

(6.) Nasaw, Children of the City, pp. 107, 113; Mintz and Kellogg, Domestic Revolutions, pp. 85-88, 94; Roberts, A Woman's Place, p. 25; Tentler, Wage-Earning Women, p. 160; Coontz, The Way We Never Were, pp. 213-14. The first three quotes are from Mintz and Kellogg; the last is from E. P. Thompson, "Happy Families," New Society, 8 September 1977, p. 501, quoted approvingly by Coontz, p. 213.

(7.) Coontz, The Way We Never Were, pp. 130, 139, 212-13; Weinberg, World of Our Mothers, p. 153; Nasaw, Children of die City, pp. 107-8.

(8.) Mint and Kellogg, Domestic Revolutions, p. 88; Stadum, Poor Women, pp.39,59, 84; Wegs, Growing Up Working Class, pp. 87-88; Nasaw, Children of the City, p. 112; Roberts, A Woman's Place, p. 25. Quote is from Mint and Kellogg.

(9.) Thomas S. Weisner, "Sibling Interdependence and Child-Caretaking: A Cross-Cultural View," in Sibling Relationships: Their Nature and Significance Across die Lifespan eds: Michael Lamb and Brian Sutton-Smith (Hillsdale, N.J., 1982), pp. 307-12; Thomas S. Weisner and Ronald Gallimore, "My Brother's Keeper: Child and Sibling Caretaking," Current Anthropology (June 1977): 178-81; Emmy E. Werner, "Child Nurturance in Other Cultures: A Perspective," in Child Nurturance v. 2: Patterns of Supplementary Parenting, eds: Marjorie Kostelnik, Albert Rabin, Lillian Phenice, and Anna Soderman (New York, 1982), p. 224; Susan Scarf Merrill, The Accidental Bond: The Power of Sibling Relationships (New York, 1995), p. 145; Wyndol Furman and Duane Buhrmester, "The Contribution of Siblings and Peers to the Parenting Process," in Child Nurturance, p. 70. Quotes are from Weisner, Werner, Weisner and Gallimore, Weisner, Brian Sutton-Smith (Comment in Weisner and Gallimore), Sutton-Smith, Weisner and Gallimore, Weisner, and Weis ner and Gallimore, resp.

(10.) The quote is from David I. Macleod, The Age of the Child: Children in America, 1890-1920 (New York, 1998), p. 117.

(11.) Theodore Lidz; The Person: His Development Throughout the Life Cycle (New York, 1968), p. 520; Stephen Bank and Michael D. Kahn, "Freudian Siblings," Psychoanalytic Review 67 (Winter 1980): 493; Stephen Bank, "Remembering and Reinterpreting Sibling Bonds," in Children's Sibling Relationships: Developmental and Clinical Issues, eds: Frits Boer and Judy Dunn (Hillsdale, N. J., 1992), p. 140; Judy Dunn, "State of the Art: Siblings," The Psychologist 13 (May 2000): 245. Quotes are from Lidz, Bank/Kahn, Bank, and Dunn, resp.

(12.) Such longings may nor surface frequently in societies in which children are attended almost exclusively by siblings, where the young" tend to be ... uncomfortable in intensive interactions with adults." But the patients considered here had been raised in a system in transition, and they dwelled on their chronically frustrated desires for access to their mother. Quote is from Weisner, "Sibling Interdependence," p. 309.

(13.) Victoria H. Bedford, "Ambivalence in Adult Sibling Relationships," Journal of Family Issues 10 (June 1989): 211-22; Bank, "Remembering," pp. 143, 145, 149. Quotes are from Bedford.

(14.) Emmy E. Werner, "Protective Factors and Individual Resilience," in Handbook of Early Childhood Intervention, eds: Samuel J. Meisels and Jack P. Shonkoff (New York, 1990), pp. 98-100.

(15.) An in-house conference of therapists [hereinafter cited as Conference], 22 October 1954; Thematic Apperception Test [TAT], 1955 [Fischer], FCF; Conference, 15 February 1957 [Dumont], FCF; Treatment, December 1957-June 1958 [Lane], FCF; Conference, 24 June 1955 [MacGowan], FCF; Sessions: 14 November 1966, 17 April, 18 July 1967, September 1968-March 1969 [Cernigliaro], Parents' and Children's Counseling Center [PCCC]; Session, 18 September 1959; Conference, 8 June 1960 [Stein], FCF; Session, 28 February 1947 [Dimitriyevich], Comprehensive Therapy Center [CTC].

(16.) Sessions: February-May 1955, December 1955-September 1957 [Dumont]; Session, 4 February 1957 [Anderson], FCF; Sessions: l4November, 14 December 1952 [Simmons], CTC; Session, 29 May 1948 [Reynolds], CTC; Sessions: 6 October 1950,4 January 1951 [Rye], CTC; Sessions to June 1954; Conference, 22 October 1954; TAT, 1955 [Fischer]; Session, 19 May 1955; Conference, 8 June 1960 [Stein]; Session, 2O June 1946 [Sullivan], CTC; Session, 28 February 1947 [Dimitriyevich]; Psychological and Interaction Test Reports, March 1967 [Beck], Family Therapy Center [FTC]; Summary, 18 July 1967 [Cernigliaro].

(17.) Sessions, 31 December 1948-14 March 1949 [Rosenzweig], Parents' and Children's Mental Health Center [PCMHC]; Sessions, May 1958 [Klein], FCF; TAT [Fischer]; Intake, 3 January 1961 [Robey], CTC; Conference, 8 June 1960 [Stein]; Intake, 6 January 1961; Closing, [7 June 1963] [Neumann], CTC; Sessions: [February], 4 October 1948; Social History, [n.d.] [Grey], CTC; Report, [1966] [Labowitz], FTC.

(18.) Conference, 22 July 1959 [Stein]; Sessions, [February 1948] [Grey]; Sessions: 20 November 1947,31 December 1948-14 March 1949 [Rosenzweig]; Sessions: 21 October 1954, 12 February 1958 [Klein]; Diagnostic Evaluation, July--September 1967; Notes, October--December 1967 [MacGregor], FTC; Intake, 31 January 1967 [Wald], FTC; Session, November 1955 [Dumont]; Session, 29 May 1948 [Reynolds]; Intakes: 6, 20 January 1961 [Neumann]; Sessions: 9 May, 20 June 1946 [Sullivan]; Session, 10 June 1943 [Bloom], PCMHC; Session, 4 February 1947 [Dimitriyevich]; Session, 9 February 1954; Social Service, 24 June 1955 [MacGowan].

(19.) Treatment, December 1957-June 1958; Group Therapy, 4 February 1959 [Lane]; Sessions: 8 October, 5 November 1954 [Blake], FCF; Psychological Report, [January 1959] [Romano], FCF.

(20.) Sessions, May 1967 [Beck]; Session, 1 February 1938; Conference, 14 February 1938 [DiGiovanni], FCF; Sessions to 28 February 1955 [Fischer]; Notes, October--December 1967 [MacGregor]; Treatment, September 1961 [Levy], FCF; Session, 23 April 1948 [McGuire], CTC; Session, 20January 1947; Conference, 29January 1947 [Dimitriyevich]; Sessions: 13 April 1948, 14 November 1952, 24, 30 July 1953; Closing, 27 April 1954 [Simmons].

(21.) Sessions: 3 September 1959, 7 April 1960; Conference, [n.d.] [Stein]; Sessions: 5 December 1966,18 July 1967, September 1968-March 1969 [Cernigliaro]; Psychological Test Report, March 1967 [Beck]; Sessions, 7 November 1958-23 January 1959 [Klein]; Session, 15 September 1950 [Janssen], CTC; Session, 6 June 1946 [Sullivan]; Session, 17 March 1958 [Romano]; Sessions: 9 July, 20 November 1934, 1 April 1935, September 1935-July 1936 [Feinman], PCMHC; Session, 4 December 1940 [Schwartz], PCMHC; Psychological, [1958] [Martelli]; Conference, 24 June 1955 [MacGowan].

(22.) Rosenbaum, "Psychological Effects on the Child Raised by an Older Sibling," p. 519; Stephen P. Bank and Michael D. Kahn, The Sibling Bond (New York, 1982), p. 134; Weisner, "Sibling Interdependence," p. 312. Quotes are from Rosenbaum and Bank and Kahn.

(23.) Sessions: 14 April, 24 November 1959, 7 April 1960 [Stein]; Sessions: 20 June, 18 November 1946 [Sullivan]; Sessions: 17 March, December 1938,8 February 1940,31 July 1942 [Fowler], FCF; Session, 11 October 1967 [Soterakos], PCCC; Sessions: 19 March, 9 April 1941 [Schwartz]; Sessions: 3 March 1958, November 1961 [Lane]; Sessions: 4 February 1957,3,10 March 1958; [Anderson]; Sessions: 14,21 June 1937 [Karz], PCMHC; Conferences: 24 June 1955, 6 June 1956 [MacGowan]; Session, 8 October 1954 [Blake]; Sessions: 20, 22 January, 4 February, 6 March 1947 [Dimitriyevich]; Session, 13 May 1940; Summary, 15 November 1944 [Caroli], General Counseling Facility [GCF].

(24.) Nor was such abuse confined to clinical populations. Recent studies have found serious physical and emotional abuse among siblings generally to be "far more common than is typically recognized." One study of a nationally representative sample discovered "severe" abuse in more than half the families tracked for one year. The incidence of abuse is particularly high, however, when there is inadequate parental supervision, or when a child is in charge. Moreover, recent surveys of the larger population have confirmed the enduring effect of the abuse on attenuating or severing sibling bonds. Brenda K. Bryant, "Sibling Caretaking: Providing Emotional Support during Middle Childhood," in Children's Sibling Relationships, p. 61; "Sibling Conflicts Leave Lasting Effects," Jet, 8 September 1997, p. 24+; Arthur Green, "Child Abuse by Siblings," Child Abuse and Neglect 8 (1984): 311. Quotes are from Bryant.

Sessions: 14 April, 5 May, 24 November 1959,7 April 1960 [Stein]; Sessions: 15 April 1954, February--May 1955, December 1955-September 1957; Conference, 1 May 1957 [Dumont]; Evaluation and Treatment, 3 September 1969-7 January 1970 [Cannistraro], Family Guidance Group [FGG]; Sessions: 16 January 1958, 22 October-3 December1958; Conference, 25 February 1959 [Levy]; Group Therapy, 4 February 1959 [Lane]; Session, 8 October 1938 [Wexler], FCF; Diagnostic, 28 May 1948 [Rosenzweig]; Sessions: 25 July, 21 August, 12 September 1947 [McGuire]; Session, 9 October 1967 [Cernigliaro]; Conferences: 24 June 1955, 6 June 1956 [MacGowan]; Session, 3 October 1934 [Feinman]; Sessions: 14 May 1948, 29 January, 14 November, 14 December 1952, 28 February 1953 [Simmons]; Session, 25 January 1951 [Rye].

(25.) Session, 25 January 1951 [Rye]; Session, 10 June 1943 [Bloom]; Sessions, 22 October-3 December 1958 [Levy]; Session, 14 April 1959 [Stein]; Session, 25 July 1947 [McGuire]; Conference, 6 June 1956 [MacGowan]. See Merrill, The Accidental Bond, p. 126.

(26.) Letter from Woman, 19 February 1938 [Fowler]; Sessions: 1 October, 20 November 1954 [Blake]; Session, 8 October 1938 [Wexler]; Letter from Welfare Department, 13 September 1949 [MacDowell], CTC; Session, [16 March] 1950 [Rye]; Sessions: 21 October 1958, 10 December 1959, 7 April 1960 [Stein]; Evaluation and Treatment, 3 September 1969-7 January 1970 [Cannistraro]; Session, 9 April 1941 [Schwartz]; Conference, 11 April 1958 [Romano]; Session, 19 November 1941 [Xanthos], Family Mental Health Facility [FMHF]; Sessions: 14 May, 16 August 1948 [Simmons]; Sessions, [3, 10 February 1959] [Gross], Family Casework Clinic [FCC]. See Stephen H. Norwood, Labor's Flaming Youth: Telephone Operators and Worker Militancy, 1878-1923 (Urbana, 1990), pp. 9-11 and Weinberg, World of Our Mothers, p. 152.

(27.) Even a strong attachment to a teacher might have offset the negative effects of sibling care. But, as some recalled, when they went on to become caregivers themselves they were forced to miss school so often they could no longer even follow the lessons.

This is likely one way in which the women who came to the clinics differed from those with similar childhood experiences, who did not. As children or as adults, the latter had found a milieu in which their earlier views were disconfirmed.

Sessions: 22 October-3 December 1958, 17 December 1959-28 January 1960; Transfer, 28 May 1958; Conference, 25 February 1959 [Levy]; Social History, [1948] [Grey]; Sessions: 17 March, 6 April, 7 July 1938, 8 February 1940 [Fowler]; Sessions: 4 February 1957, 3, 10 March 1958 [Anderson]; Sessions: 20 January, 4 February 1947 [Dimitriyevich]; Session, 11 October 1967 [Soterakos]; Session, 5 November 1941 [Schwartz]; Jerome Kagan, Richard B. Kearsley, and Philip R. Zelazo, Infancy: Its Place in Human Development (Cambridge, MA, 1978), p. 37; Sessions: 15, 22 November 1944, 2 November 1951 [Caroli]. The first two quotes in the second paragraph are from Infancy.

(28.) The powerful effect of sibling care on self-esteem has been found far beyond the clinics' boundaries. A recent study of the general population found significantly lower scores on measures of self-esteem--on feelings of "global self-worth, social acceptance, and [about] physical appearance"--for children cared for by a sibling as compared to those in self-care, under the watch of a nonparental adult at home, or elsewhere. The relation remained even when "age, socioeconomic status, marital status, [and] length of time in care were held constant. Brad Berman, Marilyn Winkleby, Elizabeth Chesterman, and W. Thomas Boyce, "After-School Care and Self-Esteem in School-Age Children," Pediatrics 84 (April 1992): 654-57.

(29.) Although the tendency to overly control was prevalent among those who had been cared for by an auxiliary parent or had served as one, there are other correlates of the overpowering need to control, and the impulse was not confined to them.

Sessions: 10 February, 17, 23 March, 6 April, 7 October, December 1938, 31 July 1942; Letters from Woman: 16 March, 1 July 1938; Conference, 20 April 1938 [Fowler]; Conference, 29 January 1947 [Dimitriyevich]; Sessions: 15 January, 19 March, 10 December 1941; Note, 29 January 1941; Conferences: 17 [April] 1941, 20 April 1942 [Schwartz]; Conference, 22 July 1955 [Parker], FCF; Home Visit, 1966 [Labowitz]; Sessions, 22 October-3 December 1958; Transfer, 28 May 1958; Conference, 25 February 1959 [Levy]; Session, 4 February 1957 [Anderson].

(30.) Although the records are opaque, it would be important to know if some mothers were more likely to turn over their daughters to a caregiver at an earlier age than their sons, although this probably varied by ethnic group, and declined over time.

(31.) To be sure, some mothers managed to ease the transfer of their child to a sibling's care, their behavior showing that the child was still cherished, that she was not being deserted or spurned. All else being equal, such children would be less likely to need the services of a clinic. Still , psychologists have found that the likelihood of a child developing into a "resilient youth," able to handle "stressful life events" adequately, is greatly diminished when two or less years separate her from her siblings. Children who do not have "to share their parents' attention with a younger sibling during the first twenty [or twenty-four] months of their lives" will be less likely to come within a clinic's purview. In these years, however, in the social classes considered here, when children were transferred to a sibling's care at the time of, or even shortly before, the next child's birth, few had the parent to themselves for the optimal time. Moreover, even when a child was turned over to a sibling later, the c hild could still fail to learn how to regulate anxiety adequately, since one of the ways in which child caregiving differs most from that of adults is in the limited range of strategies the child has to deploy in helping the charge or herself to cope with emotional stress. Werner, "Protective Factors," pp. 98-101, 107; Bryant, "Sibling Caretaking," p. 67. Quotes are from Werner.

Sessions: 8 October, 22 October--3 December 1958; Conference, 25 February 1959; Treatment, September 1961[Levy]; Session, 25 October 1967 [Soterakos]; Conference, 29 January 1947 [Dimitriyevich]; Evaluation, July-September 1967 [MacGregor]; John B. McDevitt, "Preoedipal Determinants of an Infantile Neurosis," in Separation-Individuation: Essays in Honor of Margaret S. Mahler, eds: John B. McDevitt and Calvin F. Settlage (New York, 1971), pp. 211, 216; Kagan, Kearsley, Zelazo, Infancy, pp. 106-7, 112; Sessions: December 1938, 31 July 1942 [Fowler]; Sessions, 7 November 1958-23 January 1959 [Klein]; Sessions: 19 March, 10 December 1941, 7 January 1942 [Schwartz]; Sessions: 4 February 1957, 10 March 1958 [Anderson]. The first two quotes are from "Preoedipal Determinants;" the third, from Infancy.

(32.) Sessions, October-3 December 1958; Transfer, 28 May 1958; Conference, 25 February 1959; Meeting with Teacher, 24 February 1958 [Levy]; Session, 3 October 1934 [Feinman]; Psychological, [1958]; Evaluation, March-June 1958 [Martelli]; Session, 2 November 1951 [Caroli]; Evaluation, July-September 1967; Notes, October-December 1967 [MacGregor]; Sessions: 6 January-10 February, 17 March, 2 June 1958; Conferences: December 1957-June 1958, 6 June 1958 [Lane]; Sessions: 9 April, 24 June 1941, 24 February 1942 [Schwartz]; Conference, 28 February 1958 [Riordan], FCF; Sessions, 7 November 1938-23 January 1939, 8 February 1939 [Perricelli], FCF; Conference, 27 October 1954 [Klein]; Session, 23 April 1948 [McGuire]; Session, 1 February 1938; Conference, 14 February 1938 [DiGiovanni]; Session, 17 January 1955; Conference, 1 May 1957 [Dumont]; Sessions: 14 April, 5 May 1959 [Stein]; Social Service, 24 June 1955; Conferences: 24 June 1955, 6 June 1956 [MacGowan]; Session, 4 February 1957 [Anderson].

(33.) Adelson and Doehrman, "Psychodynamic Approach to Adolescence," pp. 103-8; Session, 1 February 1938; Follow-up, March 1942 [DiGiovanni]; Psychological, [1958] [Martelli]; Sessions: 9 February, 23 March 1954; Social Service, 24 June 1955; Conferences: 24 June 1955, 6 June 1956 [MacCowan]; Conference, 27 October 1954 [Klein]; Conference, 25 February 1959 [Levy]; Session, 14 April 1959 [Stein]. Quotes are from "Psychodynamic Approach."

(34.) On the day-care worker, see Kagan, Kearsley, Zelazo, Infancy, pp. 150-51, 180, 262-64.

(35.) Session, 15 March 1955 [Callahan], CTC; Conferences, 6 June 1956 [MacGowan]; Sessions: 27 April, 16 July 1934 [Feinman]; Session, 20 November 1947; Diagnostic, 28 May 1948 [Rosenzweig]; Sessions: 17 March 1938, 22 June 1939; Letter from Woman, 1 July 1938 [Fowler]; Sessions: 13 January 1955, May, 10 October 1958 [Klein]; Session, 10 June 1943 [Bloom]; Session, 18 January 1939 [Perricelli]; Sessions: 21 August 1947, 23 April 1948 [McGuire]; Session, 27 May 1948 [Grey]; Session, 24 February 1942 [Schwartz]; Sessions, 22 October-3 December 1958; Conference, 25 February 1959 [Levy]; Sessions: 24 November, 3 December 1959, 21 January 1960 [Stein]; Summary, 15 November 1944 [Caroli]; Sessions: 8 March, 15 December 1948 [Segal], PCMHC; Intakes: 6, 20 January 1961 [Neumann]; 6 October 1950 [Janssen]; Sessions: 5 February, 14 November 1952 [Simmons]; Session, 8 November 1949; Letter from Welfare Department, 13 September 1949 [MacDowell]; Summary, 18 July 1967 [Cernigliaro]; Evaluation and Treatment, 3 September 1969-7 January 1970 [Cannistraro]; Session, 8 March 1939 [Gottlieb], FCF.

(36.) Sessions: 14 April, 12, 24 November, 3 December 1959, 21 January 1960; Conferences: 22 July 1959, [1959] [Stein]; Sessions: [February], 27 May, 23 August 1948; Social History, [1948] [Grey]; Sessions, December 1955-September 1957 [Dumont]; Sessions: 28 February, 2 March, 12,21 June, 27 September, 3 October 1934,18 March1935 [Feinman]; Session, 8 March 1939 [Gottlieb]; Sessions: 29 September, 8 October 1938; Conference, 28 October 1938 [Wexler]; Sessions: 23 September 1954, May 1958 [Klein]; Session, 10 June 1943 [Bloom]; Session, 15 February 1956 [Eberhart], FMHF; Stadum, Poor Women, pp. 83-4; Sessions: 26 February, 9 April 1941, 24 February 1942 [Schwartz]; Conference, 6 June 1956 [MacCowan]; Session, 1 October 1954; Conferences, 22 October 1954 and 25 October 1955 [Blake]; Session, 22 December 1948 [Janssen]; Session, 23 April 1948 [McGuire].

(37.) Session, 26 September 1944; Summary, 15 November 1944 [Caroli]; Session, 16 [March] 1950 [Rye]; Summary, 24 October 1934-5 August 1935 [Bloom]; Session, 8 November 1949 [MacDowell]; Session, 10 March 1958 [Anderson]; Session, 2 March 1955 [Blake]; Session, 12 October 1947 [Reynolds]; Sessions: 27 January, 17 March 1938, 22 June 1939 [Fowler]; Data, 1951 [Xanakas], CTC; Sessions: [3, 10 February 1959], 5 May-10 July 1962 [Gross]; Data, 1939, 1961 [Sawyer], CTC; Sessions: 16 January, 22 October-3 December 1958 [Levy]; Session, 21 December 1938 [Perricelli]; Session, 4 February 1947 [Dimitriyevich]; Session, 23 August 1948 [Grey]. See too: Sessions, December 1955-September 1957 [Dumont]; Diagnostic, [1966] [Moss], FTC.

(38.) Session, 16 February 1955 [Blake]; Sessions, 24 October 1934-5 August 1935 [Bloom]; Sessions: l2 January-2 March, 21 September-30 November 1955 [Parker]; Session, 23 April 1948 [McGuire]; Sessions: 23 November 1954, 22 March, 10 May 1955 [Callahan]; Summary, 15 November 1944 [Caroli]; Session, 5 June 1951 [Xanakas].

(39.) Session, 8 November 1949 [MacDowell]; Sessions: 18, 20 January 1947 [Dimitriyevich]; Sessions: 21 October 1954, May 1958; Conference, 27 October 1954 [Klein]; Session, 28 June 1955 [Callahan]; Session, 17 March 1938 [Fowler]; Session, 30 January 1967 [Zelnick], FTC; Sessions: 16 [March] 1950, 1 February 1951 [Rye].

(40.) Sessions: 26 September, 22 November 1944; Summary, 15 November 1944 [Caroli].

(41.) Session, 21 December 1938; Conference, 16 December1938 [Perricelli]; Evaluation, July-September 1967 [MacGregor]; Sessions: 24 September 1946, 15 March, 20 October, 15 December 1948 [Segal].

(42.) Bank and Kahn, The Sibling Bond, pp. 126-38; Gene H. Brody, Zolinda Stoneman and J. Kelly McCoy, "Contributions of Family Relationships and Child Temperaments to Longitudinal Variations in Sibling Relationship Quality and Sibling Relationship Styles," Journal of Family Psychology 8 (1994): 275. Quotes are from Bank and Kahn.

(43.) Women who never married are underrepresented in these records. This is in part because adults in these classes in these years were less likely to seek help for themselves than for their children or families. Their experiences were seen here largely from the perspectives of their siblings who had married and had children of their own.

McDevitt, "Preoedipal Determinants," p. 215; Rex W. Speers et al., "Recapitulation of Separation-Individuation Processes When the Normal Three-Year-Old Enters Nursery School," in Separation-Individuation, p. 313; Sessions: 13-21 September, 1 November 1948 [Rosenzweig]; Sessions, February 1956; Treatment Conference, 25 February 1955 [Kornfeld], FCF; Sessions: 14 April, 23 June 1959 [Stein].

(44.) Chodorow, Reproduction of Mothering, pp. 136-37, 173-77; Bertram J. Cohler and Henry U. Grunebaum, Mothers, Grandmothers, and Daughters: Personality and Culture in Three-Generation Families (New York, 1981), p. 22; Conference, 22 October 1954 [Fischer]; Sessions: 17 January, December 1955-September 1957, 10 December 1957; Conference, 1 May 1957 [Dumont]; Sessions, 22 October-3 December 1958 [Levy]; Sessions: 16, 23 June 1959; Conference, 22 July 1959 [Stein]; Evaluation and Treatment, 3 September 1969-7 January 1970 [Cannistraro]; Lasch, Haven in a Heardess World, p. 172; Sessions: 8, 15 November 1948 [Rosenzweig]; Psychological, [1958] [Martelli]; Session, 11 April 1934 [Bloom].

(45.) Session, 24 November 1959 [Stein]; Sessions: 4, 28 February, 6 March 1947 [Dimitriyevich]; Session, 14 May 1948 [McGuire]; Session, 15 February 1954 [Fischer].

(46.) Session, 4 February 1955 [Blake]; Sessions, 7 November 1958-23 January 1959 [Klein]; Home Visit, 13 October 1938; Session, 18 November 1938 [Perricelli]; Session, 20 April 1938 [Fowler]; Session, 15 February 1956; Sessions to 11 June 1956 [Eberhart]; Sessions: 23 March 1934, 9 July 1934 [Feinman]; Session, 2 May 1951 [Rye]; Data, [1951] [Xanakas]. See too: Sessions, 5-19 May 1960 [Silberschlag], PCMHC; Session, 7 December 1955 [Gallinari], FMHF; Session, 11 January 1961 [Weiss], CTC; Transfer, July 1959 [Riordan].

(47.) Sessions to 28 February 1955 [Fischer]; Sessions: 21 May, 21, 25 June 1962 [McKenzie], Family Counselors [FC]; Sessions: 30 December 1957, 4, 25 January, 11, 18 April, 22, 29 November 1960, 10, 17, 24, 31 January, 7, 14, 24, 31 [sic] February 1961 [Lane]. See too: Interview, 8 March 1961 [Sawyer].

(48.) One scholar of contemporary families agrees. He comments, "My informal observations suggest that adults who had extensive experience, as children, caring for other children find the business of bringing up children relatively uninteresting." Paul C. Rosenblatt, "Comment" in Weisner and Gallimore, "My Brother's Keeper," p. 184.

Evaluation and Treatment, 3 September 1969-7 January 1970 [Cannistraro]; Sessions: 18 July, 18 October 1967 [Cernigliaro]; Conference, 25 February 1959 [Levy]; Letter from Welfare Department, 13 September 1949 [MacDowell]; Sessions: 23 April 1941, 10 Match 1942 [Schwartz]; Session, 12 November 1959 [Stein]; Session, 21 November 1944 [Caroli]; Session, 15 February 1956 [Eberhart]; Session, 15 September 1950 [Janssen].

(49.) Session, 15 September 1950 [Janssen]; Sessions, April-12 June 1958; Conference, 11 April 1958 [Romano]; Sessions: 21 August, 12 September 1947 [McGuire]; Sessions, 13 January-1 June 1944 [Xanthos]; Closing, [1950] [MacDowell]; Session, 28 January 1960 [Riordan]; Report, March 1955 [Fischer]; Transfer, 28 May 1958; Conference, 25 February 1959 [Levy]; Session, 22 January 1947 [Dimitriyevich]; Session, 4 October 1948 [Grey]; Session, 15 October 1951 [Caroli].

(50.) Viviana A. Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children (New York, 1935); Macleod, Age of the Child. Quotes are from Zelizer, pp. 13, 7, 131, 11.

(51.) Sessions: 5, 27 February, 27 August 1934, 16 September 1935-23 July 1936, 10 June 1943; Report, 10 March 1934; Home Visit, 14 March 1934 [Bloom]; Sessions: 2 March, 27 April, 6, 8 June, 21 September, 3 October 1934, 29 January, 26 February, 18 March 1935 [Feinman]; Sessions, September 1968--March 1969 [Cernigliaro]; Letter from Woman, 15 June 1966 [O'Rourke], Therapy for Families and Children [TFC]; Sessions: 13-21 September 1948, 28 March-16 May 1949 [Rosenzweig]; Report, January 1938 [Khomiakov]; Intake, 31 January 1967 [Wald]; Conference, 28 February 1958 [Riordan]; Session, 2 November 1951 [Caroli]; Session, 10 January 1955 [Dumont].

(52.) Sessions: 2, 23 March, 24 April, 6, 12 June, 21 September 1934, 1 April 1935; Telephone Call from Woman, 8 June 1934 [Feinman]; Sessions: 5 February, 5 April, 27 August 1934, 10 June 1943 [Bloom]; Sessions, 28 March--16 May 1949 [Rosenzweig]; Session, 10 January 1956 [Sluberski], FMHF.

(53.) Fass, "Creating New Identities: Youth and Ethnicity in New York City High Schools in the 1930s and 1940s," in Joe Austin and Michael Nevin Willard, eds: Generations of Youth: Youth Cultures and History in Twentieth-Century America (New York, 1998), pp. 96-7; Sessions: 8 March, 11 April, 27 August 1934; Home Visit, 14 March 1934; Report, 10 March 1934 [Bloom]; Sessions: 23 March, 27 April, 6 June, 16 July, 21, 27 September 1934, 18 March, 30 April 1935; Meeting with Teacher, 28 March 1934 [Feinman]; Conference, 22 July 1959 [Stein]; Session, 22 October 1954 [Blake]; Intake, 31 January 1967; Termination, 13 March 1968 [Wald]; Session, 1 September 1938 [Levinson], FCF; Session, 31 March 1958 [Lane]; Sessions, September 1968-March 1969 [Cernigliaro].

(54.) Arguably, the alienation of some women in the home during these years was in part a function of their inability to transfer some of the drudgery of childcare to another child.

Table 101, Digest of Education Statistics, 2000 (Washington, D.C., 2001); <www.census.gov/population/socdemo/school/ppl.148/tab02.txt>.

(55.) Mintz and Kellogg, Domestic Revolutions, n. 44, p. 302; Hymowitz, Ready or Not, pp. 12, 15. Quote is from Hymowitz.

(56.) Linda Creighton, "Kids Taking Care of Kids," U.S. News & World Report, 20 December 1993; Merrill, The Accidental Bond, p. 143; Deborah Belle, The After-School Lives of Children (Mahwah, N. J., 1999), pp. 69, 92. The first two quotes are from Creighton; the third is from Belle.