Reshaping Fatherhood

The Social Construction of Shared Parenting

`The book is based on audio-taped conversations with 18 couples, using well-recognized qualitative methodology. There is much to praise in the rigour with which this process was undertaken and the transparency with which it is reported. It points to a diversity of shared parenting styles, but also tyo a similarity between parents committed to sharing responsibility, in that they construct meaning as well as making practical arrangements collaboratively yet flexibly' - Family Practice

This qualitative study of 18 shared parenting couples explores men's and women's resourcefulness as they create together alternatives to traditional parenting patterns. Narrative accounts show a diversity of possible ways to organize family-life so both mothers and fathers can be active in parenting. The many strategies followed by these couples - including tag-team parenting, interchangeability of roles, and division of labour - share a flexibility which challenges the many researchers who are fixated on static models of gendered family life.