Description:
Extraordinary changes in patterns of family life--and family law--have dramatically altered the boundaries of parenthood and opened up numerous questions and debates. What is parenthood and why does it matter? How should society define, regulate, and support it? Is parenthood separable from marriage--or couplehood--when society seeks to foster children's well-being? What is the better model of parenthood from the perspective of child outcomes?
Intense disagreements over the definition and future of marriage often rest upon conflicting convictions about parenthood. What Is Parenthood? asks bold and direct questions about parenthood in contemporary society, and it brings together a stellar interdisciplinary group of scholars with widely varying perspectives to investigate them. Editors Linda C. McClain and Daniel Cere facilitate a dynamic conversation between scholars from several disciplines about competing models of parenthood and a sweeping array of topics, including single parenthood, adoption, donor-created families, gay and lesbian parents, transnational parenthood, parent-child attachment, and gender difference and parenthood.Brief description: Linda C. McClain is Professor of Law and Paul M. Siskind Research Scholar at Boston University School of Law. She is the author of The Place of Families: Fostering Capacity, Equality, and Responsibility, co-author of Ordered Liberty: Rights, Responsibilities, and Virtues (with James E. Fleming), and co-editor of Gender Equality: Dimensions of Women's Equal Citizenship (with Joanna L. Grossman).
Review Quotes: "What is Parenthood? is an invaluable resource for anyone who wishes to think critically about modern parenthood and what the government can and should do to improve families. In bringing together eminent figures from different disciplines and from different political or cultural views about the family, it maintains an important dialogue about the best way forward."--Brian Bix, Frederick W. Thomas Professor, University of Minnesota