Sharing Care: An Introduction

Abstract

This introductory chapter sets out the context for the book’s focus on equal and primary carer fathers, establishing the value of greater fatherly involvement in early years care for broader gender equality, and identifying the notion of equal care sharing between fathers and mothers as an understudied area. The authors go on to outline the nature of the research on which the book based and to introduce the book’s focus on journeys in caregiving fathers’ practices and identities over time, particularly in relation to the existing notion of undoing gender and the authors new concept of fatherly care horizons.