A01=Kathryn Edin
A01=Timothy J. Nelson
anthropology
Author_Kathryn Edin
Author_Timothy J. Nelson
blended families
career
Category=JBSD
Category=JBSF2
Category=JHBK
character
children
class
cultural changes
deadbeat dads
engaging
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
familial process
family
fatherhood
gender and sex
gender studies
human rights
incarceration
inner city men
morals
poverty
prison
race
race and culture
relationships
romantic relationships
social issues
social problems
social science
social work
socioeconomic studies
sociology
sociology of urban areas
understanding men and boys
unmarried fathers
unwed fatherhood
urban issues
urban poor
virtue
Product details
- ISBN 9780520274068
- Weight: 590g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 01 Jun 2013
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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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.
Kathryn Edin is Distinguished Bloomberg Professor in the Department of Sociology and also teaches in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. She is the coauthor of Doing the Best I Can: Fatherhood in the Inner City, Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood before Marriage, and Making Ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Work. Timothy Nelson is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Every Time I Feel the Spirit: Religious Experience and Ritual in an African American Church.
