This book is altogether unlike any other sociological treatise on the family. There are two generally recognized types of books on marriage and the family. One, theoretical in nature, deals with the family as a social institution. The other deals with the problems of courtship, marriage and parenthood—more or less as a manual for youths in contemporary society. The book at hand does not structure the family as a social institution, but neither is it in any sense a popular, practical manual for the guidance of youth in pursuit of marital bliss!

Family, Socialization and Interaction Process

The Package Deal: Marriage, Work, and Fatherhood in Men's Lives. Nicholas W. Townsend. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 2002. 248 pp. ISBN 1-56639-958-0. $19.95 (paper). ISBN: 1-56639-957-2. $64.50 (cloth). The questions raised for scholars of fatherhood by recent trends in the intersection of work and family are well known: Why aren't fathers taking women's increased workforce participation as an opportunity to reduce their commitment to work and increase their commitment to housework and child care? Why do fathers' connections to their children typically attenuate in the aftermath of divorce and the father's departure from the household? Cultural anthropologist Nicholas W. Townsend argues that the prevailing answers to these questions fall short because they are partial and decontextualized. The premise of The Package Deal: Marriage, Work, and Fatherhood in Men's Lives is that to understand and help shape contemporary fatherhood, we need to know what fatherhood means to men. Central to these meanings, Townsend argues, are dominant cultural values that link hegemonic masculinity with pervasive images of fatherhood, creating ideals that all fathers must attend to, regardless of their ability (or desire) to live up to them. Understanding fatherhood from fathers' perspectives, then, becomes a task of exploring how "dominant cultural values about fatherhood are embodied and negotiated in individual lives" (p. 29). To this end, Townsend focuses on a group of men who graduated from the same Northern California high school in 1972, and he produces an analysis that is part case study, part ethnography, and part narrative analysis. The core data source is in-depth interviews about the meaning and practice of fatherhood with a racially and ethnically representative sample of 39 fathers from the graduating class. The core interviews are supplemented by couple interviews, interviews with others (e.g., female classmates, former teachers), observation, and a detailed portrait of the demographic and socioeconomic trends that have shaped the area over the last 50 years. The interview data are analyzed as narratives, and Townsend examines them with just the right balance of skepticism and sympathy. He appreciates that inconsistencies in accounts often signal "strains and conflicts in [the men's] values and their lives" (p. 28), and this is where context comes in. Combining the interview data rich contextual information, Townsend shows how the challenges and choices these fathers face can be traced to contradictions between dominant cultural values about fatherhood and economic and social realities. The dominant cultural notion of fatherhood for men of this era, he says, is the "package deal"; fatherhood is just one part of "successful" manhood, which also includes marriage, steady work, and home ownership. …

The Package Deal: Marriage, Work, and Fatherhood in Men's Lives

Drawing on the vast literature concerned with the cultural aspects of gender, this article explores the ways in which individuals living in different national contexts value the ideal of a dual earner/dual carer couple at the expense of the male breadwinner model. Via a comparison of fifteen European countries included in the Family and Gender Roles module of the 2002 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), three attitudinal patterns were identified: the unequal sharing that portrays a male breadwinner norm, the familistic unequal that also endorses a gender-segregated arrangement though with a greater wish for men's involvement in housework and childcare, and the dual earner/dual carer model, which, despite covering nearly 40 per cent of respondents, is very unequally distributed across countries. It is proposed that societal gender cultures are of major importance to an understanding of cross-national variations in attitudes and their relationship with the real forms of gender division of labour. The connection between couples' attitudes and practices is thus examined in order to assess the extent to which support for the dual earner/dual carer model encourages couples to engage in more equal sharing of paid and unpaid work. Findings reveal the importance of the normative dimension insofar as the impact of attitudes on practices seems to depend on the historical pathways of gender cultures and the ways in which they underpin welfare policies and female employment.

Gender cultures and the division of labour in contemporary Europe: a cross‐national perspective

/pdf/changing-societies-legacies-and-challenges-vol-1-ambiguous-4or7602p04.pdf

Changing societies: legacies and challenges. Vol. 1. Ambiguous inclusions: inside out, outside in

One of the debates currently unfolding in the field of critical men and masculinities studies concerns whether and how men and masculinities are changing. Engaging in critical discussions with scho...

Men and masculinities: a continuing debate on change

The main aim of this article is to understand how men living in couples with young children construct their roles and identities as fathers in the context of different types of family functioning. To explore this issue, our analytical framework examines the dynamics of fathering and of family functioning, thereby focusing on the interrelationships between men as fathers, partners and breadwinners. Drawing on data from a qualitative study carried out in 2005-2006 in Portugal, the article shows a diversity of fatherhood patterns. Joint and supportive fatherhood emerge within the framework of fusional dynamics, while disengaged fatherhood is connected to gender-differentiated autonomy. Four other patterns were found to be linked to the various forms of the modern “associative” family identified in this study. Equal fatherhood emerges in couples whose practices closely match the ideals of gender equality and individual autonomy, whereas appropriative, time-condensed and stay-at-home patterns of fatherhood are connected to different forms of “gender unequal” associative couples.

Fatherhood, Family and Work in Men’s Lives : Negotiating New and Old Masculinities

This article explores the components and the plurality of everyday parenting among separated mothers and fathers. Drawing on an online survey of 114 mothers and fathers, it presents a topological analysis of mothers’ and fathers’ childrearing activities and decision making; unilateral, parallel, and negotiated relationships; residence and contact; and legal orders. The findings revealed 5 mothering and fathering patterns: unilateral, traditional residential, and interchangeable mothering, and involved nonresidential and interchangeable fathering. They disclose the relational and gendered structures of motherhood and fatherhood practice and social representation that are shaping postseparation parenting within the legal framework of shared parenting.

Separate Mothering and Fathering: The Plurality of Parenting Within the Framework of Postdivorce Shared Parenting Norms

Work-life balance of couples with young children is a recurrent topic in Portuguese policy since the 1974 Revolution, which led to a growing promotion of the dual-earner/dual-carer model within an inclusive gender equality agenda. Drawing on the analysis of Portuguese family policies evolution, quantitative data (official statistics and ISSP 2012) and on the narratives of two dual-earner/ dual carer couples, we depict the exogenous and endogenous forces that are driving a less uneven work-life balance, but also gender ambivalences that are slowing down the pace towards equal sharing of home production and parenting for men and women. Results show that public and private spheres are becoming less gendered, owing to the strong commitment of women with full-time paid-work and to the increasing involvement of men in early childcare, and this comes along with a new sense of entitlement, for men and women, to negotiate gender roles in family life. On the other hand, they show that even if gender equality as a societal desideratum is a pervasive norm for young generations, and even if it´s evident the developing shift towards more equal sharing patterns among young dual-earner/ dual-carer couples, ambivalences regarding gender roles in mothering and fathering (and inherent gender privileges) are operating as a reflex of an incomplete revolution in Portuguese society.

/pdf/negotiating-work-life-balance-gender-equality-and-parenting-5zd6zy2nby.pdf

Negotiating Work-life Balance, Gender Equality and Parenting: Drivers and Ambivalences in Dual-earner/Dual-carer Couples

https://repositorio.ul.pt/bitstream/10451/4940/1/ulsd061760_td_Sofia_Marinho.pdf

Paternidades de hoje : significados, práticas e negociações da parentalidade na conjugalidade e na residência alternada

The article explores the practices and subjective meanings that allocate parenting time and its influence in shaping parental roles, identity and the relationship with the child both among separated mothers and fathers, and in divorce law. Drawing on an online survey, results reveal that the law preserves the use of gender to allocate parental time in the regime of residence and contact. In this regime, resident mothers experience the interplay between affective and identity gratification, and parental overload. Instead, nonresident fathers cope with parental deprivation and submission to traditional fathering. In the regime of shared residence, parents are engaged both in equal parenting and in the challenges of adjusting different parenting styles, which are not always accepted by the law.

/pdf/o-tempo-de-residencia-e-de-contacto-com-a-crianca-apos-2aybg5u8cx.pdf

O tempo de residência e de contacto com a criança após divórcio ou separação: experiências de mães e de pais

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