Medicine and Health Commons^™

Families In Focus: New Perspectives On Mothers, Fathers, And Children, Judith Bruce, Cynthia B. Lloyd, Ann Leonard, Patrice L. Engle, Niev Duffy

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Despite the rhetoric of recent years lamenting the loss of the "traditional family," families have never fit nicely into any single model. "Family" may refer to people linked by marriage or kinship or to people claiming descent from common ancestors. People may form and extend families by adopting or fostering children, defining nonrelatives as family, or establishing consensual partnerships. Families are as adaptable as they are diverse, reconfiguring themselves over their life cycles and evolving to accommodate the myriad pressures of the external world. This book focuses on families with dependent children specifically—on the roles of mothers, fathers, and children, …