Nurturing Dads

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

"In this wide-ranging, insightful, and kaleidoscopic journey across the increasingly diverse social landscape of American fatherhood, William Marsiglio and Kevin Roy breathe fresh air into a stale debate. They illumine men's growing aspirations for close involvement in their children's lives, even when they face economic disadvantage and physical separation. Nurturing Dads makes it abundantly clear that it is time to jettison narrow definitions of manhood and develop social policies that reach well beyond the limited model of fathers as only breadwinners."
-Kathleen Gerson, professor of sociology and Collegiate Professor of Arts and Science, New York University

"In their ground-breaking new book, Nurturing Dads, William Marsiglio and Kevin Roy take a close and thoughtful look at the 'new American father,' that oft-discussed but seldom understood man. Marsiglio and Roy vividly and engagingly describe the goals, dilemmas, challenges, and rewards faced by contemporary fathers as they grapple with diverse, often contradictory, expectations in a rapidly changing cultural landscape. In the process, Marsiglio and Roy identify sensible, intriguing, and practical policies that could be embraced with equal fervour by both the progressive and conservative interest groups whose ideological disagreements have tended to thwart American policy for the last two decades. Perhaps this book will provide the long-awaited tipping point, moving the country from rhetoric to action!"
-Michael E. Lamb, professor of social and developmental psychology, University of Cambridge, and editor-elect, Psychology, Public Policy, & Law

"Fatherhood policy tends to be a 'one size fits all' proposition, working off a deficit model, with most efforts designed to increase men's participation in family life. William Marsiglio and Kevin Roy have cast the broadest and most extensive net ever, embracing the widest and most diverse set of fathers. By focusing as much on what fathers actually do, as what they don't do, but should, they reframe the debates about men's family participation, and set the terms for a renewed and revitalized set of policy initiatives."
-Michael Kimmel, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, SUNY Stony Brook

"Nurturing Dads outlines some of the most pressing challenges facing fathers today. Written by two leading fathering scholars, it makes timely and important contributions to our understandings of the relationships between social policies and men's caregiving. This beautifully written book is a must read for academics, policymakers, and community leaders interested in learning how to promote nurturing and engaged fatherhood."
-Andrea Doucet, Canada Research Chair in Gender, Work, and Care and professor of sociology, Brock University

American fathers are a highly diverse group, but the breadwinning, live-in, biological dad prevails as the fatherhood ideal. Consequently, policymakers continue to emphasize marriage and residency over initiatives that might help foster healthy father-child relationships and creative co-parenting regardless of marital or residential status. In Nurturing Dads, William Marsiglio and Kevin Roy explore the ways new initiatives can address the social, cultural, and economic challenges men face in contemporary families and foster more meaningful engagement between many different kinds of fathers and their children.

What makes a good father? The firsthand accounts in Nurturing Dads show that the answer to this question varies widely and in ways that counter the mainstream "provide and reside" model of fatherhood. Marsiglio and Roy document the personal experiences of more than three hundred men from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds and diverse settings, including fathers-to-be, young adult fathers, middle-class dads, stepfathers, men with multiple children in separate families, and fathers in correctional facilities. They find that most dads express the desire to have strong, close relationships with their children and to develop the nurturing skills to maintain these bonds. But they also find that disadvantaged fathers, including young dads and those in constrained financial and personal circumstances, confront myriad structural obstacles, such as poverty, inadequate education, and poor job opportunities.

Nurturing Dads asserts that society should help fathers become more committed and attentive caregivers and that federal and state agencies, work sites, grassroots advocacy groups, and the media all have roles to play. Recent efforts to introduce state-initiated paternity leave should be coupled with social programs that encourage fathers to develop unconditional commitments to children, to co-parent with mothers, to establish partnerships with their children's other caregivers, and to develop parenting skills and resources before becoming fathers via activities like volunteering and mentoring kids. Ultimately, Marsiglio and Roy argue, such combined strategies would not only change the policy landscape to promote engaged fathering but also change the cultural landscape to view nurturance as a fundamental aspect of good fathering.

Care is a human experience—not just a woman's responsibility—and this core idea behind Nurturing Dads holds important implications for how society supports its families and defines manhood. The book promotes the progressive notion that fathers should provide more than financial support and, in the process, bring about a better start in life for their children.

WILLIAM MARSIGLIO is professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology & Law at the University of Florida.

KEVIN ROY is associate professor of family science at the University of Maryland