Chapter 5: Child-Keeping Summary and Analysis

Along with food, money, and furniture, children and their various needs are also among the things which the people in the Flats exchange with one another in their intricate swapping network. Though most children will reside, for at least most of their non-adult lives, with their mother, it is very common for children to be raised by an older woman related to the mother, an older woman related to the father, or by a family which is unrelated to the child but simply wants to have a baby. It is important to distinguish between temporary arrangements and seemingly permanent arrangements. The first is so common that probably nearly every child has experienced it, and it is not viewed as anything different from a normal favor, like helping fold clothes.

Permanent child-keeping, however, can lead to significant changes in who...