U.S. mothers receive messages that they should breastfeed their babies, yet there is little cultural support for public breastfeeding and evidence of heightened opposition in African American communities. We use a social constructionist perspective to analyze 22 African American mothers' breastfeeding in public narratives. Findings show that participants use varying definitions of "public" in relation to breastfeeding that are based on geographic spaces and social relationships. Participants identify breastfeeding in public as problematic based on their interpretations of others' reactions, and discuss covering as an important component of breastfeeding in public. We conclude that the breastfeeding cover operates as a "cloak of neutralization" by creating a symbolically "private" space in a discursively constructed "public" one. Although the cover eliminates potential breast exposure, it announces a woman's use of the maternal breast-which Young identifies as challenging patriarchal claims to women's bodies-thereby failing to fully neutralize the situation.

This qualitative study explores a widespread contemporary family form, the interspecies family, to understand how people who count their cats and dogs as family members describe this process of becoming and maintaining family. We focus on one aspect of interspecies families—pet parenting. We find that even though individuals say their pets are family, not all consider themselves to be parents or engaged in pet parenting. Participants with human children differed somewhat from those without human children, suggesting that family form shapes pet parenting experiences. Childless participants draw heavily from larger cultural narratives surrounding parenting to construct the parent–pet child relationship. Those with younger human children talk about the relationship primarily from a place of difference, while those with older human children construct the relationship in similar ways to childless individuals and emphasize similarities between raising children and pets. This study contributes to the literature on family change and human–animal relationships within households.

No abstract

No abstract

This study was used to examine how practicing veterinarians protect the self when dealing with people at work. Veterinarians interact with the people attached to their patients in myriad ways in order to accomplish their organizational goals. Data collected during semistructured interviews with 17 veterinarians revealed that these veterinarians considered client interactions just as important as treating nonhuman animals. Impression management concepts were used to describe many of the interactional strategies veterinarians employ to protect the self when dealing with difficult clients. Building trust with clients and giving front stage performances were common strategies adopted. Despite veterinarians wanting their jobs to be animal-centric, these data show that they are not.