Parenting Together: Men and Women Sharing the Care of Their Children

Ehrensaftwife and mother, practicing psychologist and professor of psychology at UC Berkeleyreports on her own and her patients' experiences sharing childcare equally between husband and wife. The study emphasizes the differences between what parents anticipate and the complex realities of family life. One mother admits jealousy because her spouse favors the children over her; some husbands feel their wives neglect them by over-mothering their offspring. A particularly interesting chapter details effects of modern child-rearing, relating several instances where little children unselfconsciously adopt behavior once taboo for their genderboys cuddling dolls, for example. Readers come to admire these families who struggle against cultural influences in the hope that their ""sons and daughters . . . will achieve a better balance of being than their parents.'' (July)