The human stories behind the headlines exposing the truth about the guardianship system.
 
The state-run guardianship system, called conservatorship in some states, is largely unregulated, ill-understood, and increasingly populated by financially motivated predators. Just how the secretive world of guardianship works and its real-life effects remained a mystery to most until the very public case of pop star Britney Spears. It suddenly became clear that those conscripted into the system lose all their civil rights in the process. Currently, there are an estimated 1.5 to 2 million Americans under court control, but precise figures are not known as no government entity keeps track of citizens who have lost the right to determine their own fate.

Established in the late 1800s, the guardianship system was designed to assist the most vulnerable citizens: the elderly and the physically or intellectually disabled. While guardianship has been beneficial to many “wards of the court,” this little-understood process can be a judicial rollercoaster from which there is seldom an escape, and which often leads to financial devastation for the ward and their families. Each year, fifty billion dollars belonging to wards are placed under the control of court appointees, an obvious temptation to bad actors who are in a position to control these funds. As investigative journalist Diane Dimond discovers, the number of exploitive and abusive guardianship cases nationwide demands our urgent attention. This book also provides concrete steps that families can take to protect themselves, as guardianship can happen to any one of us at any time.  

It was 1869 and Sarah Moses, with "a very black eye," told her father: The world will never know what trouble I have seen. What she'd seen was violence at the hands of her husband. Does the world know any more of such things today than it did in Sarah's time?

Sarah, it so happens, lived in Oregon, that Edenic state on the Pacific Coast, and it is here that David Peterson del Mar centers his history of violence against wives. What causes such violence? Has it changed over time? How does it relate to the state of society as a whole? And how have women tried to stop it, resist it, escape it? These are the questions Peterson del Mar pursues, and the answers he finds are as fascinating as they are disturbing.

Thousands of thickly documented divorce cases from the Oregon circuit courts let us listen to voices who often go unheard. These are the people who didn't keep diaries or leave autobiographies, who sometimes could not write at all. Here they speak of a society that quietly condoned wife beating until the spread of an ethos of self-restraint in the late nineteenth century. And then, Peterson del Mar finds, the practice increased with a vengeance with the florescence of expressive individualism during the twentieth century.

What Trouble I Have Seen also traces a dramatic shift in wives' response to their husbands' violence. Settler and Native American women commonly fought abusive mates. Most wives of the late nineteenth century acted more cautiously and relied on others for protection. But twentieth-century privatism, Peterson del Mar discovers, often isolated modern wives from family and neighbors, casting abused women on the mercy of the police, women's shelters, and, most important, their own resources. Thus a new emphasis on self-determination, even as it stimulated violence among men, enhanced the ability of women to resist and escape violent husbands.

The first sustained history of violence toward wives, What Trouble I Have Seen offers remarkable testimony to the impact of social trends on the most private arrangements, and the resilience of women subject to a seemingly timeless crime.

Nearly three-quarters of American mothers work full- or part-time--usually out of financial necessity--and require regular child care. How do such arrangements affect children? If they are not at home with their mothers, will they be badly behaved, intellectually delayed, or emotionally stunted?

Backed by the best current research, Alison Clarke-Stewart and Virginia Allhusen bring a reassuring answer to parents' fears and offer guidance for making difficult decisions. Quality child care, they show, may be even more beneficial to children than staying at home. Although children who spend many hours in care may be unruly compared with children at home, those who attend quality programs tend to be cognitively ahead of their peers. They are just as attached to their mothers and reap the additional benefits of engaging with other children.

Ultimately, it's parents who matter most; what happens at home makes the difference in how children develop. And today's working mothers actually spend more time interacting with their children than stay-at-home mothers did a generation ago.

Are the prerogatives of age universal? This first-ever anthropological exploration of relationships between older and younger women suggests that this may be the case. Cross-cultural in nature, the volume looks at relationships between women of different age groups in a village in Taiwan, a town in central Sudan, a rural setting in western Kenya, an Andean peasant community, a horticultural village in Melanesia, and an Aboriginal community in Australia. Adding an interspecies perspective is a study of two age groups of Japanese Macaques. Included is an ethnographic bibliography that lists books with a wealth of information on women in sixty societies. The volume will appeal not only to anthropologists but also to readers interested in women's issues, gender studies, life course studies, gerontology, and intergenerational relations.

Since smartphones have made their debut, a clear sense of frustration can be felt by parents around the globe. Be it social media, bullying, porn, gaming, tv-series or sexting; parents are overwhelmed or insecure as they struggle to keep up with the yet newest app.Drawing on stories from her past, Allison Ochs reminds us of what it was like to be a teen. She makes you smile while making fun of her teen self. Her answers to today's problems are realistic ways to approach your teens who are dealing with the same emotions we had, however, now with their ever-present digital devices in hand. The simplicity of what she suggests will enlighten you as she gently nudges you to think about how you're dealing with the your teens online world.