Nancy Scheper-Hughes Death Without Weeping

A mother and a child. A love that transcends no bounds. To give up a child leaves a hole that nothing can fill. An empty abyss. In the heat of the moment, the mother is convinced that she is doing right by the child. Giving that child a life that they themselves will not be able to give. It hurts to leave, but they know deep down, that the sacrificing of their happiness for the child’s well-being is what is best. In the photograph Mother and child by Jerome Liebling, the mother stands, child in arms, before the steps. Before the steps of giving up the one piece of joy she has in her life. Holding a blank expression on her face, trying not to show any emotion as it would only make what she is about to do harder. She is tired, worn down by the weight of the world. Contemplating what she is about to do, although she knows it will not help.

While visiting Alto do Cruzeiro in 1965, Hughes noticed women were indifferent concerning the death of their children. Infants born dead or “waiting to die” is a common occurrence in Alto do Cruzeiro. The women of the community became use to experiencing these tragedies and decided it would be easier to cooperate with Gods plan. If an infant is born “waiting to die”, the mother will usually leave the child to die. Having this kind of attitude towards dying infants has a powerful impact on maternal thinking and practice. Already knowing that an infant will not survive makes the women less loving and nurturing. When an infant actually survives, the mother has a difficult time raising the child. Children born in this area “lack traditional breast feeding, subsistence gardens, stable marriages, and multiple adult care-takers that exists in the interior.” Since single parenting is the norm, woman are forced to leave the infant at home, many times by itself. The women cannot carry their child with them at work or by the river. They can not leave their child with the older children because if they are not in school they are working as well. Also, since women earn a dollor and day, they can not afford to hire a baby

Losing a parent is presumably an unthinkable concept for those lucky to have them alive, but sometimes the title of “parent” dies long before a body is placed in the ground. Toi Derricotte author of “Beginning Dialogues” unfortunately had to experience both the death of her mother’s title of “parent”, as well as her literal death. Derricotte’s parents had divorced when she was eighteen, and her father did not seem to play much of a role in her life; she was left to be raised by her mentally abusive mother. Her mother also had a tough road to walk growing up, having to face and deal with brutal issues like racism and bulling. Persevering through those tough times may be the underlining reason behind Derricotte’s mother’s negativity and abuse towards her daughter. Perhaps she just grew a thick skin at a very young age and had never learned how to feel, accept, or administer love. Derricotte’s had said: “She told me all my life she loved me, as if she completely forgot the hundred slights, humiliations, threats, and insinuations. Of course she loved me;

The child who died is considered a gift to the parents and family, and they are forced to give up that gift. Yet, as parents, they also strive to let their child's life, no matter how short, be seen as a gift to others. These parents seek to find ways to continue to love, honor, and value the lives of their children and continue to make the child's presence known and felt in the lives of family and friends. Bereaved parents often try to live their lives more fully and generously because of this painful experience.

When we think of childhood we think of blissful, exhilarating moments, like being pushed on a swing higher and higher feeling as if you could stretch your hand and grasp the clouds, as you experience the cooling air of a hot summer day on your blushed face, as you yelped to be pushed further into the clouds. We do not think of the anguish and questions that the sight of death brings. But that’s exactly what happens to six year old Antonio Marez in the novel Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya. When young Antonio witnesses the death of a local War Veteran, a family friend, and a classmate, it leaves him with transforming effects, prompting him to question death, sin, morality, and in the end leading him to be ambivalent towards his Catholic beliefs. Through every mortifying act that he witnesses, he has the guidance of Ultima, an elderly “curandera,” healer, who uses her wisdom to lead Antonio to answer his own questions.

Nancy Scheper-Hughes studies and observes the connections between the loss of infants and the mother’s ability to express maternal love in the shantytowns of Brazil in her article “Mother’s Love: Death without Weeping.” Studying documents, interviewing, and observing the everyday lives of mothers, were the fieldwork procedures she used to conduct her research. The results of her research provided evidence of two theoretical perspectives observed in the article, structuralism and materialism.

There are methods in the justification of aiding in the death of an impaired infant. Engelhardt outlines that there is a distinction between aiding the death of adult and children. The question of status is also explored to determine that children are neither self-possessed nor responsible. The concept of Injury of Continued Existence is given to look at the potential person the infant might become if allowed to exist. These examples are provided to give a thorough evaluation of a child before the decision is made whether or not to prolong life.

Scheper-Hughes provides a controversial breakdown of the mothers' evident lack of concern to the death of their babies as not a repression of grief, but as a plan for endurance. The mothers, by allowing themselves to form attachment to only the babies who have already verified their capability to survive by doing so during early infancy, these women can increase the existence odds of their strongest children. Modern ideas about "mother love," and about mother-infant bonding as a naturally occurring process that in general occurs in the first few moments of a baby's life, are the cultural result of the statistical differences which allows women to give birth to just a few children, each of which she may be expecting to raise to adulthood.

According to Corr, Corr, and Bordere (2013), death is a term that is used to indicate one’s end of life, while dying is the process that one undergoes before he or she loses his or her life. The author talks the reader the numerous aspects of death and dying, as well as bereavement. This book incorporates classical and modern material, contemporary task-based methods for a person or family coping with death. The article is divided into sub-sections including introduction chapters and conclusion chapters, which revolve around the subject of death and how people, including relatives of the deceased, survive. There are four chapters in this book which explain how children, teenagers, young, and middle-aged adults cope with death. From this point of view, it is clear that this book discusses various aspects of religious and cultural perspective that affects one’s understanding as well as the practices associated with death.

Marco 's morals regarding the unborn fetus arise from the theory that only humans have moral status (Sebo, n.d.). In this case, due to severe prenatal deformities, the fetus will not possess human capabilities, which will make it less human and, therefore entitled to less moral respect (Wilson, 1994). Marco considers having an abortion owing to the monetary weight it will place on his family. It is, likewise clear, Marco’s concern about her wife. Many people tend to think that the grieve of the mother could usually be more difficult after the death of a born child than over the loss of fetus (Wilson, 1994). This make the author infer that Marco could be trying to evade her wife to go thru deeper suffering in the future.

The focus of this story is laid upon the child who is kept in the damp room without windows in a basement. He is filthy and devoid of any sunlight in the room being removed from any social contact. On the contrary, some of the citizens come and peer at the child to see who brings them a sort of joy and comfort in their lives. “Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children...depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery” (Guin 3). While adults accept the situation with the child, little children come feeling rage and shock as well as considering how to help the imprisoned. At this stage, they feel despair and compassion to him; however, they can not exchange their beautiful life for the sake of one child.

With swayed feelings, and an ambivalent heart, I write on “Brother, I’m Dying”: a grim depiction of past and modern Haitian family life and another evident instance of blatant racism. Edwidge Danticat presents a number of opportunities for analysis and deductions to be drawn, however through the piece, the most evident and most inspiring facet is how communicating affection, whether through speech, writing, acts of service, etc, enables the family experience to be possible through hardship, distance, solidarity, and even death.

The article, “Mother’s Love: Death without Weeping” by Nancy Scheper-Hughes is about mothers in the Alto do Cruzeiro and how the mothers take the death of an infant. The mothers have been thought not to morn for their babies and to not become attached. They do this because the high rate of mortality because the infants are left at home while the mother is at work. No one is there to tend for the babies and the mother cannot take the babies to work with them. No funerals are done with the death of these babies some of the babies never even got a name because the mothers are thought not to get attached to the child until they know the child will survive. This is all due to the malnourishment in the children because the mothers are in poverty

The loss of an adult child is devastating just as is the death of a younger child. However, there are differences as to how both the parents react to such losses. In this case the paper focuses on loss of an adult child and how the parent copes with the situation. The paper will give insight on the situation that precedes the demise of the child such as trajectory of illnesses which is more recent. A review on how the parents deal with the loss after it occurs will be discussed as well as the various issues the parent faces. The impact on the parent after the child’s loss is also featured. There will be a summary of the findings then finally a section that will give the implications of the research and its importance to the field of psychology and an improvement in human beings

I believe she did the right thing by nursing the baby back to health because it was done in good faith to stop the baby’s suffering. However, Dr. Scheper-Hughes’ decision to treat the baby went a little further than simply observing, describing, and analyzing the events in the Brazilian shantytown. Some of the costs of her decision include judging the Brazilian shantytown’s culture based on her own culture. For instance, she critiques the medical system and religious institutions of Bom Jesus, which promote ideas that are central to their culture, as malevolent actors in the routinization of child death. This might cause others to argue that Dr. Scheper-Hughes’ argument is similar to the imperial “civilizing” process and that it is judgmental