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by: Karen V. Hansen  Amazon.com's Price: $23.95 Prices subject to change.Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 306.850973 EAN: 9780813535012 ISBN: 0813535018 Label: Rutgers University Press Manufacturer: Rutgers University Press Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 261 Publication Date: January 25, 2005 Publisher: Rutgers University Press Studio: Rutgers University Press Accessories:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Book Description: "In vivid portraits drawn from the top and bottom of the social-class ladder, Hansen shows the profound effect social class has on care. Well observed, beautifully written, this book is a must read."—Arlie Hochschild, author of The Commercialization of Intimate Life: Notes from Home and Work "Not-So-Nuclear Families explains the often painful choices that parents have to make for their children's—and their own—well-being."—Barbara Schneider, professor of sociology and human development, director of the Data Research and Development Center, and codirector the Alfred P. Sloan Center on Parents, Children, and Work at the University of Chicago 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. Average Rating:
 Rating: - Hansen Reveals New Dimensions of American Family LifeIn Not-so-nuclear Families Karen Hansen reveals the truth behind many of our country's self-proclaimed "self-sufficient" families. Hansen's research focuses on several families and how they care for their children, and make family life work. The end result is a book that demonstrates that American families rely on networks of care to perform the basic daily functions of family life. This is important for anyone examining society and the structures and institutions that exist within it. Read More 
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