All Our Families New Policies for a New Century

by Mason, Mary Ann; Skolnick, Arlene; Sugarman, Stephen D.

• ISBN13: 9780195148817
• ISBN10: 0195148819
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-11-07
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

All Our Families, a project of the Berkeley Forum on the Family, takes a hard look at contemporary families. Thoroughly revised and updated, this second edition includes chapters on divorcing families, single-parent families, step-families, dual-income families, adolescent-parent families, immigrant families, and gay and lesbian families. Distinguished by their exceptional reputations as family scholars, the Forum's interdisciplinary team of authors examines the challenges to existing public policies that are brought on by problems such as custody disputes, family poverty, parental kidnapping, fathers who aren't really fathers, abuse and neglect, and the special psychological conditions faced by today's couples with newborns. The contending claims of biological and psychological parents are also exposed and confronted. Essential for courses in sociology, psychology, social work, public policy, and law, All Our Families, 2/e proposes new policies for strengthening the families of America as we move into the twenty-first century.

Table of Contents

Preface

Authors

Introduction

Single-Parent Families

Families Started by Teenagers

Children of Divorce: A Society in Search of Policy

The Modern American Stepfamily: Problems and Possibilities

Ambiguous-Father Families

Gay and Lesbian Families: Queer Like Us

A Sign of Family Disorder? Changing Representations of Parental Kidnapping

New Families: Modern Couples as New Pioneers

Working Families: Hearth to Market

Immigrant Families

Abusive and Neglecting Parents and the Care of Their Children

Solomon's Children: The New Biologism, Psychological Parenthood, Attachment Theory, and the Best Interests Standard

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