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Dad and Baby in the First Year: Gendered Responsibilities and Embodiment

Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada

This article addresses the question of why there are persistent gender differences in the responsibility for children. It argues that understanding continuing gender divisions of domestic responsibility, particularly in the first year of parenting, requires attending to issues of identity; commitment; embodiment; deeply rooted socialization or habitus; and normative community assumptions around gender, breadwinning, and caring. Rooted in three qualitative research studies conducted over the past eight years with more than two hundred Canadian fathers and forty mothers, the author argues for renewed thinking around issues of gender equality and gender differences and how these play out in domestic and community spaces in that first year of parenting. Bridging together time, space, and embodiment, the author also maintains that short-term potential differences in domestic responsibilities in parenting should not necessarily lead to long-term chronic inequities between women and men.

Key Words: embodiment • child care • parenting • fatherhood • parental leave • habitus

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 624, No. 1, 78-98 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0002716209334069


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