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Cargando... The Daddy Shift: How Stay-at-Home Dads, Breadwinning Moms, and Shared ParentingAreTransforming the American Familypor Jeremy Adam Smith
   Ninguno Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro.  roniweb | May 30, 2019 |    ) kristenn | Jan 10, 2010 | sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
Family & Relationships.
Sociology.
Nonfiction.
HTML:A revealing look at stay-at-home fatherhood-for men, their families, and for American society It's a growing phenomenon among American families: fathers who cut back on paid work to focus on raising children. But what happens when dads stay home? What do stay-at-home fathers struggle with-and what do they rejoice in? How does taking up the mother's traditional role affect a father's relationship with his partner, children, and extended family? And what does stay-at-home fatherhood mean for the larger society? In chapters that alternate between large-scale analysis and intimate portraits of men and their families, journalist Jeremy Adam Smith traces the complications, myths, psychology, sociology, and history of a new set of social relationships with far-reaching implications. As the American economy faces its greatest crisis since the Great Depression, Smith reveals that many mothers today have the ability to support families and fathers are no longer narrowly defined by their ability to make money-they have the capacity to be caregivers as well. The result, Smith argues, is a startling evolutionary advance in the American family, one that will help families better survive the twenty-first century. As Smith explains, stay-at-home dads represent a logical culmination of fifty years of family change, from a time when the idea of men caring for children was literally inconceivable, to a new era when at-home dads are a small but growing part of the landscape. Their numbers and cultural importance will continue to rise-and Smith argues that they must rise, as the unstable, global, creative, technological economy makes flexible gender roles both more possible and more desirable. But the stories of real people form the heart of this book: couples from every part of the country and every walk of life. They range from working class to affluent, and they are black, white, Asian, and Latino. We meet Chien, who came to Kansas City as a refugee from the Vietnam War and today takes care of a growing family; Kent, a midwestern dad who nursed his son through life-threatening disabilities (and Kent's wife, Misun, who has never doubted for a moment that breadwinning is the best thing she can do for her family); Ta-Nehisi, a writer in Harlem who sees involved fatherhood as "the ultimate service to black people"; Michael, a gay stay-at-home dad in Oakland who enjoys a profoundly loving and egalitarian partnership with his husband; and many others. Through their stories, we discover that as America has evolved and diversified, so has fatherhood. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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1
A collision of feminist wins (job discrimination protections, Title IX) and a change in economics (male-dominated jobs outsourced overseas) has lead to a moment where it appears that working women are on the uptick and working men on a downward slide. This has lead to the rise of bread-winning women and this had given men the economic ability to choose work or caregiving full-time.
The families Smith profiles are diverse by age, race/ethnicity, politics and class. They answer the question of why with simplicity. Why would a man give up his work to stay at home? Why would a woman choose work over her child(ren)? Oddly Smith somehow fails to profile a two-dad family until the conclusion and it comes off as an after thought. Gay male households often have a higher family income and thus may be more prone to having a stay at home dad.
Two main ideas stuck out that may provide key to this revolution (I disagree with Smith who thinks of the Daddy Shift as an evolution): 1) Redefining fatherhood as providing for children's emotional well-being and/or breaking any aspect of financial support off of the definition (A paid job does not define fatherhood - How you father does) and 2) Redefining the providing aspect of motherhood to include paid work. The diversity in class stories provide evidence that working moms are not working for the modern equivalent of pin money - tennis lessons or a bigger house. Rather she loves her work, is often being paid more and bringing home better benefits for the family's survival. Makes you wonder what the family would look like if we had universal healthcare that wasn't tied to employment.
Back to that revolution: Ironically Smith says that parenting isn't the same as activism. I know a long list of moms who would say otherwise. I believe that is because many women do stop and consider the things that come with motherhood that Smith admits he didn't - the cost of living, cost of child care, impact on our careers, etc.
I was put off by the gender stereotypes presented especially the mom is more cautious and the dad lets kids explore tenor. Not just because they are stereotypes, but because it's the exact opposite in my family. I also got the sense that Smith presented stay-at-home-dads as having made an economic sacrifice (as it is) and contrasted it with stay-at-home-moms view that a certain level of luxury is expected:
"My wife doesn't want to work, but she wants a nanny two days a week and she wants to be able to buy clothes. She's depending on me to be the provider, and so are the kids." - A chemical engineer dad who spends two hours a day with his children.
There was a clear distinction of how different classes viewed child care. It's hard for me to wrap my head around it as we had a great experience with child care for our daughter. She started at 4 months in full day child care and only two times ever cried as I left her. But as Smith points out, those of us who can afford to pay for top of the line care get great care. Lower class parents get to choose from lower-level care or staying at home. So yes, it does make more sense that there are more stay-at-home parents who start out as working class/low-income.
As I did put my daughter in child care it was also hard to hear story after story of parents who say, "I couldn't see myself letting someone else raise my child," or "After all we went through with adoption, why would I hand her over to someone else?" I understand logically, but it's still hard.
"The Daddy Shift" is a wonderful peek into an emerging new world of fatherhood where men of all sorts of backgrounds decide that they will be the one to stay home and raise the kids. And as the subtitle says, it is also a peek into shared parenting.