Doing the best I can Edin, Kathryn; Nelson, Timothy J
2013., 20130601, 2013, 2013-06-01, 20130101, 20140101
eBook
Across the political spectrum, unwed fatherhood is denounced as one of the leading social problems of today. Doing the Best I Can is a strikingly rich, paradigm-shifting look at fatherhood among ...inner-city men often dismissed as "deadbeat dads." Kathryn Edin and Timothy J. Nelson examine how couples in challenging straits come together and get pregnant so quickly—without planning. The authors chronicle the high hopes for forging lasting family bonds that pregnancy inspires, and pinpoint the fatal flaws that often lead to the relationship’s demise. They offer keen insight into a radical redefinition of family life where the father-child bond is central and parental ties are peripheral. Drawing on years of fieldwork, Doing the Best I Can shows how mammoth economic and cultural changes have transformed the meaning of fatherhood among the urban poor. Intimate interviews with more than 100 fathers make real the significant obstacles faced by low-income men at every step in the familial process: from the difficulties of romantic relationships, to decision-making dilemmas at conception, to the often celebratory moment of birth, and finally to the hardships that accompany the early years of the child's life, and beyond.
This research is inspired by Michael's Rush work. In-depth interviews of 30 Swedish, German and Japanese fathers regarding their attitudes towards traditional, modern and ideal images of fatherhood ...were conducted. Three videos of fathers' normal daily life relating to their practices of fatherhood, including time spent on housework and child care are shot separately in Stockholm, Stuttgart, and Fukuoka. The following results show that the path of fatherhood in these three countries is shifting away from the traditional role. In Sweden, fatherhood is changing from traditional father to dual carer model. In Germany, fatherhood is transitioning toward a second-mother model. Finally, in Japan, fatherhood is turning toward a struggling model. Three primary factors accelerate the pace of these changes: family-friendly social policies, de-patriarchy family, and increasing individualistic-oriented socio-culture. Furthermore, three main barriers persist against a dual-carer society: hierarchical corporate culture, 'male-headed' in public areas and 'housewife keeping' in private areas. To conclude, this study suggests that globally, fatherhood keeps its second-mother or struggling status, but with an increasing emphasis on Nordic dual-earner and dual-career crystallizing in Germany and Japan. That means diminishing devoted wife and caring mother and enhancing democratic and involved father, which is also predicted by Rush (2015).
In contemporary Brazil, the number of male fathers taking care of their sons and daughters and the initiatives to produce content about fatherhood on Instagram have been significant. This article ...aims to analyze the concepts that support the digital activism of homoparenting on Instagram, based on gender studies with men. To this end, a qualitative study was conducted using the life narrative method in a digital environment. The results were analyzed and divided into the following sections: parenting project, personal experience of fatherhood, articulation with LGBT political agenda when parenthood becomes a "business", and haters, criticism, and adverse reactions. It was concluded that the reflection on the experience of fatherhood/masculinity itself is crossed by the social marker of the difference in sexual orientation and the activism for rights that sustain content production. Thus, the uniqueness of each fatherhood is highlighted since the fact of being gay constructs the fatherhood experience for each man. Despite the initiatives brought forth in this study, changes are still in progress, as rights activism coexists with the advancement of conservative forces, which limit the expressions of sexual and gender otherness.
This volume offers a variety of perspectives on contemporary fatherhood: from analyses of literature, film, drama, and popular culture, to issues tackled by psychology, gender studies, and social ...sciences. Arranged into thematic sections, the chapters cover a wide range of approaches to fatherhood, including studies and analyses based on fieldwork and interviews with participants. Each chapter discusses various culture-dependent models of masculinity in relation to the topic of fatherhood depicted in works of literary and film art, emphasizing the crucial factors and features which make all these models different from one another and using examples of such cultural contexts as Australia, China, Indonesia, Brazil, and Iran. With the use of methodological tools provided by literature studies, film studies, culture studies, psychology, gender and queer studies, and sociology, the book is a comprehensive insight into current research on both real-life and fictional realizations of fatherhood.
In the cooperative breeding common marmoset monkey, Callithrix jacchus, fathers share the care responsibility and energetic load with their mate from the time their infants are born. However, not all ...fathers show the same level of participation in direct infant care. Here we present the first results demonstrating that fathering style can improve both survival and growth trajectory of a male's offspring during the first 30 weeks of life and that these infant outcomes are consistent within a father throughout successive births. Twenty-four marmoset fathers were tested for their responsiveness to an infant distress call when their infants were approximately two weeks old. These fathers were categorized as either responsive (RS) or nonresponsive (NRS) based on their response to the calls. Survival past 1 month was then determined and bi-monthly weights of current infants through 30 weeks of age were taken. Infant survival to the first month was significantly higher with RS fathers than with NRS fathers during this critical time period. Infants from RS fathers also had a higher growth trajectory with significant differences in body weight in the 28.sup.th and 30.sup.th week after birth. Only the RS fathers showed a significant increase in serum testosterone in response to infant cries suggesting a physiological role of testosterone in the motivation to search for the infant. Furthermore, all offspring born to RS fathers from subsequent births also showed a significantly higher survival rate and higher growth trajectory than for offspring of NRS fathers. These results suggest that fathering style is a consistent trait and responsive fathers improve infant survival rate and growth during the first 30 weeks. Such fathering style traits may be passed on to the male offspring due to environmental or genetic factors.
The five Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, are well-known for their extensive welfare system and gender equality which provides both parents with opportunities to earn ...and care for their children. In this topical book, expert scholars from the Nordic countries, as well as UK and the US, demonstrate how modern fatherhood is supported in the Nordic setting through family and social policies, and how these contribute to shaping and influencing the images, roles and practices of fathers in a diversity of family settings and variations of fatherhoods. This comprehensive volume will have wide international appeal for those who look to Nordic countries and their success in creating gender equal societies.
Fathers in the fifties tend to be portrayed as wise and genial pipe-smokers or distant, emotionless patriarchs. This common but limited stereotype obscures the remarkable diversity of their ...experiences and those of their children. To uncover the real story of fatherhood during this transformative era, Ralph LaRossa takes the long view—from the attack on Pearl Harbor up to the election of John F. Kennedy—revealing the myriad ways that World War II and its aftermath shaped men.Offering compelling accounts of people both ordinary and extraordinary, Of War and Men digs deep into the terrain of fatherhood. LaRossa explores the nature and aftereffects of combat, the culture of fear during the Cold War, the ways that fear altered the lives of racial and sexual minorities, and how the civil rights movement affected families both black and white. Overturning some calcified myths, LaRossa also analyzes the impact of suburbanization on fathers and their kids, discovering that living in the suburbs often strengthened their bond. And finally, looking beyond the idealized dad enshrined in TV sitcoms, Of War and Men explores the brutal side of family life in the postwar years. LaRossa's richly researched book dismantles stereotypes while offering up a fascinating and incisive chronicle of fatherhood in all its complexity.
The development of prosocial skills in children is a key predictor of long-term social, cognitive, and emotional functioning. However, the role of fathers' psychological characteristics in fostering ...prosocial development, including during the prenatal period, and the mechanisms underlying their influence, remain relatively unexplored. This study aimed to examine whether a higher tendency of alexithymia, a difficulty to identify and verbalize emotions, in expectant fathers predicts prosocial behavior of two-year-old toddlers through the quality of coparenting and whether greater testosterone increase during a stressful parenting task moderates this indirect effect. A sample of 105 couples and their children was tracked longitudinally starting from the third trimester of pregnancy (T1), at three months (T2), and at two years postnatally (T3). Using self-report questionnaires, fathers reported on alexithymia (T1) and mothers and fathers reported on coparenting quality (T2). Additionally, fathers provided saliva samples before and after engaging in a stressful parenting task (the Inconsolable Doll Task) to measure testosterone reactivity (T1). Children's prosocial behavior was observed during an out-of-reach task (T3). A moderated mediation analysis using structural equation modeling showed that higher levels of alexithymia pre-birth predicted lower coparenting quality three months after birth, which in turn predicted lower prosocial behavior of two-year-old children, but only among fathers with mean or high testosterone increases. This study illuminates a potential mechanism by which fathers' alexithymia and testosterone reactivity forecast their toddlers' prosocial behavior.
•Poorer coparenting predicts fewer expressions of prosocial behaviors in toddlers.•Greater prenatal alexithymia predicts prosocial behavior through co-parenting.•Testosterone increase moderates the indirect effect of alexithymia on prosociality.•Parental bio-psycho-social processes forecast the toddler's prosocial behaviors.
PDF
