Not-so-nuclear families : class, gender, and networks of care / Karen V. Hansen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hansen, Karen V., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Families--United States.

Families.

Social networks--United States.

Social networks.

Social classes--United States.

Social classes.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xviii, 261 p. :) ill. ;

Place of Publication:

Piscataway, New Jersey : Rutgers University Press, [2005]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In recent years U.S. public policy has focused on strengthening the nuclear family as a primary strategy for improving the lives of America's youth. It is often assumed that this normative type of family is an independent, self-sufficient unit adequate for raising children. But half of all households in the United States with young children have two employed parents. How do working parents provide care and mobilize the help that they need? In Not-So-Nuclear Families: Class, Gender, and Networks of Care, Karen V. Hansen investigates the lives of working parents and the informal networks they construct to help care for their children. She chronicles the conflicts, hardships, and triumphs of four families of various social classes. Each must navigate the ideology that mandates that parents, mothers in particular, rear their own children, in the face of an economic reality that requires that parents rely on the help of others. In vivid family stories, parents detail how they and their networks of friends, paid caregivers, and extended kin collectively close the "care gap" for their school-aged children. Hansen not only debunks the myth that families in the United States are independent, isolated, and self-reliant units, she breaks new theoretical ground by asserting that informal networks of care can potentially provide unique and valuable bonds that nuclear families cannot.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Tables and Figures

Preface and Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Networks of Interdependence in an Age of Independence

Part I. Profiles of Four Networks of Interdependence

Chapter 2. The Cranes: An Absorbent Safety Net

Chapter 3. The Aldriches: A Family Foundation

Chapter 4. The Duvall-Brennans: A Loose Association of Advisors

Chapter 5. The Beckers: A Warm Web of People

Part II. Constructing and Maintaining Networks

Chapter 6. Staging Networks: Inclusion and Exclusion

Chapter 7. The Tangle of Reciprocity

Chapter 8. Men, Women, and the Gender of Caregiving

Conclusion

Appendix

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-8135-3741-X

1-283-52668-9

9786613839138

0-8135-5779-8

OCLC:

59717443