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SUMMARY:Gender and Parenting Culture: Intensive Fatherhood? - Speaker to b
 e confirmed
DTSTART:20090403T083000Z
DTEND:20090403T163000Z
UID:TALK17757@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:13645
DESCRIPTION:A key idea informing our discussions is that we live in a time
  when child-rearing has become ‘intensive’. Unprecedented demands are 
 made on parents’ time\, energy and emotions under the auspices of raisin
 g happy\, healthy children. Key accounts of the development of this sort o
 f parenting culture have emphasised how it influences mothers in particula
 r – the ‘Mommy Myth’ is how Douglas and Michaels describe the prevai
 ling ideology informing childrearing\, whilst Hays titles her book The Cul
 tural Contradictions of Motherhood.\n\nYet British culture and has manifes
 tly witnessed a turn toward a new construction of the ‘good father’. N
 ew fathers are routinely encouraged\, for example\, to improve ‘bonding
 ’ with their children by attending classes that show them how to play wi
 th their children or how to read to them. Recently fatherhood has become p
 oliticised as some claim better ‘work-life balance’ policies are neede
 d to make sure father can be more involved with parenting. Dads should spe
 nd more time at home with their children and less at work\, it is claimed\
 , as a means to mend what has been called ‘the broken society’.\n\nIn 
 this light\, this seminar asks: How far have constructions of the good fat
 her shifted in\, for example\, law and policy? How do fathers feature in p
 olicy in ways different to mothers\, and how does that shape their experie
 nce of parenting? Have we seen the emergence of intensive parenthood – a
 nd\, how intensive can fathering really become\, given the embodied care i
 nfants are said to require in this framework? What does research about the
  lived experience of fathers tell us? How have men experienced the transfo
 rmation of 'fathering' from a label denoting their relationship to their c
 hild to one denoting their identity? Are some fathers more influenced by c
 ontemporary parenting culture than others? What do recent developments sug
 gest about the continuing valance of the idea of intensive motherhood?\n\n
 Further\, we will ask what assessment should be offered of contemporary id
 eas and policies about fatherhood. Hays argued that the emergence of the i
 ntensive father would offer no solution to the cultural contradictions of 
 motherhood. She suggested\, through reference to Arlie Hochschild’s work
  The Second Shift\, that moving the focus from intensive mothering to inte
 nsive parenting is only a partial solution to the contradiction between th
 e demands of home and work\, and one that does not begin to address larger
  cultural contradictions. If men and women shared the burden of the contra
 diction\, the larger social paradox would continue to haunt both of them a
 nd would grow even stronger for men.\n\nHays asked\, ‘Why don't we convi
 nce ourselves that children need neither a quantity of time nor "quality t
 ime" with their mothers or their fathers?’ Does this polemical point of 
 view have merit? Should we welcome or critique the rise of the ‘intensiv
 e father’?
LOCATION:Department of Social Anthropology\, Seminar Room
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