Extended Fatherly Involvement: Development and Understandings

This chapter provides a critical examination of the extant literature on fathers’ involvement in the care of their children. The first part focuses on the now quite extensive body of work on fatherly involvement in general, exploring the extent to which approaches and understandings have changed over recent years. The second part shifts the focus to the minority of fathers whose practices go beyond what might be expected of a secondary caregiver or supporter, considering the growing literature on stay-at-home dads, fathers who take extended periods of parental leave (some of it caring alone), and those who share care more-or-less equally with their partners.