Oregon Family Study: Siletz Sample (part 2)
Walter Kawamoto (kawamotw@ucs.orst.edu)
Fri, 9 Sep 1994 01:27:54 -0700
The other finding of interst was about the mothers in the American Indian
families and Non-Indian families. An important thing to point out here
was that I am using the phrase "mothers in American Indian families"
because many of the families were intermarried families and had parents
that were not Indian. Nevertheless, the involvement with their children
by the mothers in the Non-Indian families seemed to have a strong
relationship with how they felt about their marriage (marital sat.). In
other words, if things were bad with their husband, they weren't
interested much in taking care of the kids. And if things were good with
their husband, they had a lot of contact with their kids. This
relationship was not true for mothers in American Indian families, they
basically had the same level of contact with their kids whether things
were good with their husband or not. Again, this was consistent with
discusssions with friends and the literature. There are those that say
in addition to getting an education, a job, and becoming active in the
tribe, the modern Inidna mother also is very conscious of her traditional
role in many tribal communites as the one who manages the household and
has the revered responsibility of bringing in the next generation and
sharing tribal/family customs and traditions. Others have sad that this
finding is also consistent with many Indian communities because children
were always given respect. One friend mentioned the example of the
cradleboard propped up so that the baby can see all that is happening
instead of putting the baby down in a cradle or crib.
The Masters Thesis was only the first analysis of some of the data, and
you will another articale as soon as there is more to report to the
Siletz Community. The full Thesis is on file George Nagel at the Mental
Health Dept. of the Siletz Clinic, Selen Lynch at the Culture Office, and
Michael Darcy at the school. I am interested in knowing if you agree or
disagree with my reasonings behind these findings. I would also welcome
stories that you might be interested in sharing wich support or challenge
these findings.
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Comments from the group? I intend to work these two findings into
journal articles.
Walter