Not-So-Nuclear Families: Class, Gender, and Networks of Care

Karen V. Hansen

Published by Rutgers University Press 2004

Not-So-Nuclear Families

Class, Gender, and Networks of Care

Karen V. Hansen

https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813557793

Overview
Contents

About this book

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.

Author / Editor information

KAREN V. HANSEN is an associate professor of sociology and women's studies at Brandeis University and is the co-editor of Families in the U.S.: Kinship and Domestic Politics.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
List of Tables and Figures Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Preface and Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Chapter 1. Networks of Interdependence in an Age of Independence Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I. Profiles of Four Networks of Interdependence
Chapter 2. The Cranes: An Absorbent Safety Net Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	25
Chapter 3. The Aldriches: A Family Foundation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	47
Chapter 4. The Duvall-Brennans: A Loose Association of Advisors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	72
Chapter 5. The Beckers: A Warm Web of People Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	98
Part II. Constructing and Maintaining Networks
Chapter 6. Staging Networks: Inclusion and Exclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	127
Chapter 7. The Tangle of Reciprocity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	155
Chapter 8. Men, Women, and the Gender of Caregiving Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	182
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209
Appendix Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	219
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	221
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	255
About the Author Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	263