Doing the Best I Can: Fatherhood in the Inner City / Edition 1

by Kathryn Edin, Timothy J. Nelson

Overview

Across the political spectrum, unwed fatherhood is denounced as one of the leading social problems of today. Doing the Best I Can is a strikingly rich, paradigm-shifting look at fatherhood among inner-city men often dismissed as “deadbeat dads.” Kathryn Edin and Timothy J. Nelson examine how couples in challenging straits come together and get pregnant so quickly—without planning. The authors chronicle the high hopes for forging lasting family bonds that pregnancy inspires, and pinpoint the fatal flaws that often lead to the relationship’s demise. They offer keen insight into a radical redefinition of family life where the father-child bond is central and parental ties are peripheral.

Drawing on years of fieldwork, Doing the Best I Can shows how mammoth economic and cultural changes have transformed the meaning of fatherhood among the urban poor. Intimate interviews with more than 100 fathers make real the significant obstacles faced by low-income men at every step in the familial process: from the difficulties of romantic relationships, to decision-making dilemmas at conception, to the often celebratory moment of birth, and finally to the hardships that accompany the early years of the child's life, and beyond.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520283923
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	08/15/2014
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Kathryn Edin is Distinguished Bloomberg Professor in the Department of Sociology and also teaches in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. She is the coauthor of Doing the Best I Can: Fatherhood in the Inner City, Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood before Marriage, and Making Ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Work.

Timothy Nelson is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Every Time I Feel the Spirit: Religious Experience and Ritual in an African American Church.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction
1. One Thing Leads to Another
2. Thank You, Jesus
3. The Stupid Shit
4. Ward Cleaver
5. Sesame Street Mornings
6. Fight or Flight
7. Try, Try Again
8. The New Package Deal

Appendix
Notes
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

"An essential book."

The Washington Post/WonkBlog - Harold Pollack

Social commentators as diverse as Bill Cosby, Louis Farrakhan, and Gloria Steinem have lamented the absence of fathers in the lives of inner-city children. In contrast, Edin (public policy & management; Promises I Can Keep) and Nelson (social policy; Every Time I Feel the Spirit), both at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, present a study of unwed urban fathers, without nostalgia, judgment, or irony. Based on 110 interviews conducted in Camden, NJ, and Philadelphia, the book offers an unflinching examination of how these men view children, families, romantic relationships, and the world around them. While the authors highlight patterns, set the interviews against trends, and contrast their subjects with two-dimensional portraits in the media, there is limited explanation or theorizing. Foremost, this is a chronicle of perspectives from "disadvantaged fathers living in a struggling rustbelt metropolis at the turn of the twenty-first century." VERDICT This thoroughly researched and well-crafted study analyzes how these men view their lives, actions, and family bonds. Similar to William Julius Wilson's When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor, now over ten years old, it will appeal to readers interested in focused surveys of urban life. Those who prefer an approach that's long on theory or policy solutions may be disappointed.—Ahmer Qadeer, Brooklyn

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