{"product_id":"the-daddy-shift-isbn-9780807021217","title":"The Daddy Shift","description":"\u003cb\u003eA revealing look at stay-at-home fatherhood-for men, their families, and for American society\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's a growing phenomenon among American families: fathers who cut back on paid work to focus on raising children. But what happens when dads stay home? What do stay-at-home fathers struggle with-and what do they rejoice in? How does taking up the mother's traditional role affect a father's relationship with his partner, children, and extended family? And what does stay-at-home fatherhood mean for the larger society?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn chapters that alternate between large-scale analysis and intimate portraits of men and their families, journalist Jeremy Adam Smith traces the complications, myths, psychology, sociology, and history of a new set of social relationships with far-reaching implications. As the American economy faces its greatest crisis since the Great Depression, Smith reveals that many mothers today have the ability to support families and fathers are no longer narrowly defined by their ability to make money-they have the capacity to be caregivers as well. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe result, Smith argues, is a startling evolutionary advance in the American family, one that will help families better survive the twenty-first century. As Smith explains, stay-at-home dads represent a logical culmination of fifty years of family change, from a time when the idea of men caring for children was literally inconceivable, to a new era when at-home dads are a small but growing part of the landscape. Their numbers and cultural importance will continue to rise-and Smith argues that they must rise, as the unstable, global, creative, technological economy makes flexible gender roles both more possible and more desirable.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut the stories of real people form the heart of this book: couples from every part of the country and every walk of life. They range from working class to affluent, and they are black, white, Asian, and Latino. We meet Chien, who came to Kansas City as a refugee from the Vietnam War and today takes care of a growing family; Kent, a midwestern dad who nursed his son through life-threatening disabilities (and Kent's wife, Misun, who has never doubted for a moment that breadwinning is the best thing she can do for her family); Ta-Nehisi, a writer in Harlem who sees involved fatherhood as \"the ultimate service to black people\"; Michael, a gay stay-at-home dad in Oakland who enjoys a profoundly loving and egalitarian partnership with his husband; and many others. Through their stories, we discover that as America has evolved and diversified, so has fatherhood.\u003cb\u003eIntroduction \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Twenty-first-century Dad \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003ePart I\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Fathers of Yesterday and Today\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e A Stay-at-home Dad’s History\u003cbr\u003e of North America\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Searching for Role Models:\u003cbr\u003e Ed and Rachelle’s Story \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Stay-at-home Economics, or\u003cbr\u003e Five Myths of Caregiving Fatherhood \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Searching for Community: Chien’s Story \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Interlude: Now You See It,\u003cbr\u003e Now You Don’t \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003ePart II\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Dads of Tomorrow\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Returning to Glory: Ta-Nehisi’s Story\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The Astonishing Science of Fatherhood, or\u003cbr\u003e Three More Myths about Male Caregiving \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Searching for Heroism:\u003cbr\u003e Kent and Misun’s Story \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eConclusion\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eRemember the Future \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eEpilogue\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003ci\u003eAnother Fatherhood Is Possible\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Notes \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e IndexJeremy Adam Smith is a most purposeful father, a periodic Stay-at-Home Dad who sees his role as not just a choice that's best for his family but as a sign of a rapidly changing societal landscape. . . . His new book, \u003ci\u003eThe Daddy Shift\u003c\/i\u003e, is a chronicle of a time that he predicts we will look back upon as the start of permanent change.—Lisa Belkin, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A combination of scholarly research (citing economic and historical trends, sociological and psychological studies, and labor statistics), revealing profiles of stay-at-home dads and their families, and poignant anecdotes from Smith's own life. The personal passages are the book's most affecting ones, as Smith reveals himself not as some know-it-all superdad but as a learn-as-you-go parent who had to sort out his own complex feelings.\"—Regan McMahon, \u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"His investigations are very well researched, and he's pursued them with a rigorous intellectual integrity that makes his arguments engagingly persuasive. The result is an impressive book that even the childless should read, for at essence, \u003ci\u003eThe Daddy Shift\u003c\/i\u003e is not just about stay-at-home dads, but about the changing roles of men and women in society.\"—\u003ci\u003eMothering\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A gentle but persistent appeal to get beyond all those preconceived notions and make the choices that work best for ourselves and our families.\"—\u003ci\u003eBody + Soul\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Forty years ago, a man who wanted to share child care equally with his wife would have been called 'deviant,' and a wife who wanted him to would have been condemned as an 'unnatural' mother. \u003ci\u003eThe Daddy Shift\u003c\/i\u003e shows how far we have come and how much we have to gain by completing this revolution in marriage and parenthood.\"—Stephanie Coontz, author of \u003ci\u003eMarriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eJeremy Adam Smith\u003c\/b\u003e’s writing has appeared in \u003ci\u003eMoth­ering, \u003c\/i\u003ethe \u003ci\u003eNation, San Francisco Chronicle, Utne Reader, Wired, \u003c\/i\u003eand elsewhere. A magazine editor, blogger, and former stay-at-home dad, Smith lives in San Francisco with his wife and son.\u003cb\u003eTwenty-First Century Dad\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 2004 my son Liko was born. Everything—the tree outside the\u003cbr\u003e window, the dreams I had at night—changed.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e For the first year of his life, my wife Olli stayed home with\u003cbr\u003e Liko. Then she went back to work and I quit my job, joining the\u003cbr\u003e ranks of caregiving dads.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Now it was just the two of us boys, and it was scary. Liko, a\u003cbr\u003e confirmed breast addict, could not nap without his mother. When\u003cbr\u003e I would lay him down, he’d wail inconsolably, relentlessly, reaching\u003cbr\u003e out to me. But when I picked him up, he’d kick and arch his\u003cbr\u003e back, his little hands pushing against my chest. This would go on\u003cbr\u003e for hours.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I’d put him in the stroller and walk. He’d cry and fall asleep,\u003cbr\u003e but if I stopped—in a bookstore, a coffee shop—he’d wake and cry\u003cbr\u003e again, so I soon learned to keep moving through our San Francisco\u003cbr\u003e neighborhood, sticking to the side streets, going up the hills\u003cbr\u003e and down, up and down.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Time slowed, and with every minute I’d feel more and more\u003cbr\u003e isolated, more and more anxious. I wondered: “Is my life now no\u003cbr\u003e more than this?” I’d see people laughing in a picture window and\u003cbr\u003e want to be one of them.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e In time, I learned to let that go, let myself get lost. On foggy\u003cbr\u003e days the hills of the city floated around us like deserted islands, the\u003cbr\u003e stroller a lonely raft. I’d study the cornices and gables on the Victorian\u003cbr\u003e facades, watch the tsunami of fog spill over Twin Peaks.\u003cbr\u003e Later, Liko learned to fall asleep in my arms. I’d carry him\u003cbr\u003e through all the rooms in our apartment, stepping carefully around\u003cbr\u003e the bouncy seat, the swing, the baby gym, the high chair, the toy\u003cbr\u003e basket. I’d do this for hours.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Then one momentous day, I sat down in a rocking chair and he\u003cbr\u003e stayed asleep. I took a book down from the bookshelf. It was the\u003cbr\u003e best book I’d ever read; I don’t remember its name. One afternoon\u003cbr\u003e as the room darkened, his eyes snapped open and they met mine.\u003cbr\u003e He smiled and said, “Dada,” and his small fingers curled around\u003cbr\u003e my forefinger.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e He was glad to see me there with him. And I was glad to be\u003cbr\u003e there.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eNew Model Family\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It is strange to think that such an intensely private moment might\u003cbr\u003e be the product of a tectonic shift in society and the economy.\u003cbr\u003e Although I felt acutely isolated when I was learning to take care\u003cbr\u003e of my son, in fact I was not alone. Since 1965 the number of hours\u003cbr\u003e that men spend on child care has tripled. Since 1995 it has nearly\u003cbr\u003e doubled.1\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e In 2007 the Census Bureau counted 159,000 stay-at-home dads\u003cbr\u003e in the United States, up from 64,000 in 1995.2 But these numbers\u003cbr\u003e tell only part of the story of male caregiving, because they exclude\u003cbr\u003e stay-at-home fathers who also do paying work. When we add fathers\u003cbr\u003e who work part-time or from home, and who are primarily\u003cbr\u003e or equally responsible for taking care of kids, the number of male\u003cbr\u003e caregivers increases. According to a 2008 census report, for example,\u003cbr\u003e one in four preschool children spend more time in Dad’s care\u003cbr\u003e than any other arrangement while the mother is working,3 though\u003cbr\u003e most of the fathers work at least part-time and probably do not call\u003cbr\u003e themselves “stay-at-home dads.”\u003cbr\u003e Many studies find that twenty-first-century couples divide paid\u003cbr\u003e work, household labor, and child care far more equitably than couples\u003cbr\u003e in the past.4 Some professional dual-income couples have even\u003cbr\u003e achieved rough equality in their domestic divisions of labor,5 and\u003cbr\u003e one-third of working-class couples work different, complementary\u003cbr\u003e shifts and share care of young children.6 A great deal of evidence\u003cbr\u003e also indicates that more fathers would adopt caregiving roles\u003cbr\u003e if they felt it was financially feasible to do so: For example, a 2007\u003cbr\u003e survey by Monster.com found that 68 percent of American men\u003cbr\u003e would consider staying home full-time with their kids.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The bottom line is clear: during the past decade, the number\u003cbr\u003e of caregiving fathers has risen dramatically. Dads now spend more\u003cbr\u003e time with their children than at any time since researchers started\u003cbr\u003e collecting longitudinally comparable data.7 This does not mean\u003cbr\u003e that Americans have achieved an egalitarian utopia. The census\u003cbr\u003e counts 5.6 million stay-at-home moms, compared to 159,000\u003cbr\u003e dads.8 The University of Wisconsin’s National Survey of Families\u003cbr\u003e and Households says that the average mother is doing \u003ci\u003efive times \u003c\/i\u003eas\u003cbr\u003e much child care as the average father. When both parents work for\u003cbr\u003e pay, Mom still beats Dad by a four to one ratio.9 If men as a group\u003cbr\u003e have indeed increased their contributions at home—and they have\u003cbr\u003e —they still don’t come close to matching what mothers do.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e However, averages can be deceptive. They reveal the big picture\u003cbr\u003e but, by doing so, obscure the many smaller pieces and countertrends\u003cbr\u003e that give it shape. In truth, we are in a period of transition\u003cbr\u003e when inequality coexists with progress. Some groups of men have\u003cbr\u003e adopted flexible gender roles and embraced cooking, cleaning, and\u003cbr\u003e taking care of kids, while other groups have not. The negative\u003cbr\u003e examples, often glorified, are everywhere, while the positive ones\u003cbr\u003e are often hidden and hard to find, especially for boys and young\u003cbr\u003e men.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e It is time for twenty-first-century dads to go on the offensive.\u003cbr\u003e In this book I tell the stories of fathers who have embraced caregiving\u003cbr\u003e and egalitarian marriages, explore the hopes and ideals that\u003cbr\u003e inform their choices, and analyze economic and social developments\u003cbr\u003e that have made their choices possible.\u003cbr\u003e As we will discover, stay-at-home dads represent a logical next\u003cbr\u003e step of fifty years of family change, from a time when the idea of\u003cbr\u003e men caring for children was inconceivable, to a new era when atxii\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e home dads are a small but growing part of the landscape. This is\u003cbr\u003e the “daddy shift” of the title: the gradual movement away from a\u003cbr\u003e definition of fatherhood as pure breadwinning to one that encompasses\u003cbr\u003e capacities for both breadwinning and caregiving.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Stay-at-home dads are the leading edge of the daddy shift, pioneers\u003cbr\u003e who are quietly mapping new territory for all fathers. I focus\u003cbr\u003e on stay-at-home dads for the same reason anthropologists study\u003cbr\u003e lost tribes and obscure subcultures: to reveal the variety and potential\u003cbr\u003e of human experience—and thus to suggest new possibilities\u003cbr\u003e for organizing our lives.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e But in many ways, this book is really about male caregiving\u003cbr\u003e writ large. Stay-at-home dads represent one extreme of a continuum\u003cbr\u003e that includes the growing number of dads who split work and\u003cbr\u003e child care equally with their spouses, widowed or divorced custodial\u003cbr\u003e dads (a group that has quadrupled in size since 1970), two-dad\u003cbr\u003e families, and working fathers who have restructured their jobs in\u003cbr\u003e order to make more time for their children. Many of the facts,\u003cbr\u003e ideas, and trends I describe apply to all dads who have chosen to\u003cbr\u003e prioritize, for one reason or another, care over paid work.\u003cbr\u003e This is also a book about female breadwinning, which is, of\u003cbr\u003e course, the main economic factor that makes stay-at-home fatherhood\u003cbr\u003e possible. Prior to the 1960s, as we will discuss in chapter 1,\u003cbr\u003e it was uncommon for mothers to work and nearly unheard of for\u003cbr\u003e them to make more money than their husbands. Today, 80 percent\u003cbr\u003e of mothers have jobs and one-third of wives make more money\u003cbr\u003e than their husbands10—and we have every reason to believe that\u003cbr\u003e these trends will intensify: today in America, for example, young\u003cbr\u003e women outnumber men on college campuses, and they outearn\u003cbr\u003e young men in many American cities.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e As women’s incomes continue to rise—and they will—men\u003cbr\u003e will be called upon to do even more housework and child care.\u003cbr\u003e According to a growing number of studies, there is a direct relationship\u003cbr\u003e between the amount of money women earn and the\u003cbr\u003e amount of housework and child care men do. In 2006, for example,\u003cbr\u003e Pennsylvania State University sociologist Jennifer L. Hook analyzed\u003cbr\u003e forty-four time-use studies from twenty countries, and she\u003cbr\u003e discovered that men’s housework and child care increases with national\u003cbr\u003e levels of women’s employment, as well as the availability of\u003cbr\u003e paternity leave.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Hook also found that widely available day care and preschool\u003cbr\u003e correlates with higher levels of father involvement.13 At first glance\u003cbr\u003e there might seem to be a conflict here: Wouldn’t more easily\u003cbr\u003e available child care \u003ci\u003elimit \u003c\/i\u003emen’s participation in raising their kids?\u003cbr\u003e Wouldn’t one trend counteract the other?\u003cbr\u003e In point of fact, day care and father care are not antagonistic\u003cbr\u003e categories. Though the pie representing total time with children\u003cbr\u003e might shrink for dual-income couples using paid child care, moms\u003cbr\u003e and dads must still find a way to slice up the hours and responsibilities\u003cbr\u003e that remain. And, as we will explore in chapter 3, in relatively\u003cbr\u003e egalitarian countries with subsidized, widespread day care\u003cbr\u003e and early childhood education, the pressure is strong for fathers\u003cbr\u003e to match mothers’ involvement. Most of the stay-at-home fathers\u003cbr\u003e I interviewed for this book—like many stay-at-home moms—pay\u003cbr\u003e for some amount of child care in order to do housework, work\u003cbr\u003e part-time for pay, search for jobs, take classes, or carve out time for\u003cbr\u003e themselves. Pitting paid care against stay-at-home parenthood sets\u003cbr\u003e up a false dichotomy. Child care isn’t just for working mothers; it’s\u003cbr\u003e for all parents.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e In this regard American parents are disadvantaged when compared\u003cbr\u003e to their counterparts in Canada and Europe, as today’s economic\u003cbr\u003e and social changes crash into the structures that govern\u003cbr\u003e parenting in America. For example, paternity leave remains a rare\u003cbr\u003e benefit, especially for working-class men, whose wages are stagnating.\u003cbr\u003e High-quality child care is expensive and sometimes hard to\u003cbr\u003e obtain. These are only two of the factors fueling a conflict between\u003cbr\u003e what women need and what men feel capable of delivering. Indeed,\u003cbr\u003e many forces in our society and economy limit male caregiving,\u003cbr\u003e as we will see in the pages to follow. Countering those forces\u003cbr\u003e will open new horizons for men, but it will also allow women\u003cbr\u003e to have more choices and more options—and, sometimes, more\u003cbr\u003e doubt and confusion.\u003cbr\u003e For many people, male and female, the question of whether\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e men can effectively take care of children and homes remains open.\u003cbr\u003e But, after thirty years of research and growing male participation\u003cbr\u003e at home, we are now beginning to understand that the answer\u003cbr\u003e is yes, they can. The stay-at-home dad is important because he\u003cbr\u003e sweeps aside myths and stereotypes about what men can and can’t\u003cbr\u003e do for their families, tears down the walls that divide men from\u003cbr\u003e their children, and fulfills the promise of feminism, which has always\u003cbr\u003e been as much about transforming gender roles as fighting\u003cbr\u003e inequity.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Will women ever achieve real equality with men?” writes\u003cbr\u003e Rhona Mahony in her 1995 classic \u003ci\u003eKidding Ourselves: Breadwinning,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eBabies, and Bargaining Power. \u003c\/i\u003e“I propose that the answer to\u003cbr\u003e that question is another question: Can a father raise babies and can\u003cbr\u003e a woman let him do it? That is the key question, because in order\u003cbr\u003e for women to achieve economic equality with men, \u003ci\u003emen will have\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eto do half the work of raising children.\u003c\/i\u003e”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Can we get to half ? Mahony thought it was possible for men\u003cbr\u003e to do half the work—day care and preschool don’t preclude the\u003cbr\u003e need for full participation—and I think it is too. Certainly men,\u003cbr\u003e women, and our entire society have a stake in the future of male\u003cbr\u003e caregiving.","brand":"Beacon Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302601314533,"sku":"NP9780807021217","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780807021217.jpg?v=1767738905","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-daddy-shift-isbn-9780807021217","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}