Books and Assorted Writing

BOOKS BY GERALDINE YOUCHA

Youcha, Geraldine. 1978, reprinted in 1985. Women and Alcohol: 
A Dangerous Pleasure. Hawthorn Books.

Seixas, Judith and Geraldine Youcha. 1985, reprinted 1986.  Children of Alcoholism: A Survivor's Manual. Harper & Row, 
New York.

Seixas, Judith and Geraldine Youcha. 1989, reprinted in 1999.  Drugs, Alcohol, and Your Children: What Every Parent Needs to Know. Penguin Books.




















Youcha, Geraldine. 1994, reprinted in 2005.  Minding the Children: Childcare in America from Colonial Times to the Present.  De Capo Press.

Publishers Weekly wrote that "Youcha, a mother of three, argues that the concept of full-time motherhood is a "myth" because other women, as well as male relatives and servants, have always helped care for offspring, full- or part-time, singly or in groups. She cites the dame schools for two-year-olds in colonial times, as well as the children's projects during WWII, "when almost forgotten federally supported centers provided everything from health care to before-and-after-school care to the children of women working in war industries." Youcha traces the effects of plantation life and the industrial revolution on the status of women and children, and the impact of more recent factors like feminism and single motherhood, the rise in the divorce rate and drug use. She rates Head Start as among the most promising current government-funded programs. Noting that each era has to find its own way of caring for its children, Youcha provides perspective for today's debates."

Library Journal wrote that "Youcha presents a fascinating historical account of the different child care arrangements experienced in America, illuminated with riveting passages from diaries, letters, and other primary sources recounting the nurturing care children received under these systems, as well as accounts of abuse and neglect. The book does not claim to be comprehensive in scope but focuses on specific time periods and social groups. For example, the Utopian communities of the 19th century are studied in detail, while the history of family day care arrangements remains unexplored. The current cry to resurrect the orphanage substantiates Youcha's belief that child care today is a look back at the past; it has all been tried before, and various systems have been rejected, replaced, or renamed to fit the ethos of a particular time. Recommended."





POEM WRITTEN AS A CHILD 
(date unknown but likely before age 12, published in Scholastic)

The road to the woods is closed to me
Oh I can walk there still
But it's just a path among the trees
That dreams no longer fill.
The things are still there for me to find
But I lost the magic key
And I don't see sense in walking there
When the road is closed to me.



Listen to Geraldine read it herself