Jane C. Hood

Men, work, and family

PART ONE: FATHERING AND PROVIDING What Do Fathers Provide? Economic and Nurturant Dimensions of Men as Parents - Theodore F Cohen Are Men Marginal to the Family? Insights from Chicagos Inner City - Haya Stier and Marta Tienda Japanese Fathers - Masako Ishii-Kuntz Work Demands and Family Roles Elderly Mexican-American Men - Norma Williams Work and Family Patterns PART TWO: ROLE ALLOCATION AND ROLE CHANGE Work and Family Orientations of Contemporary Adolescent Boys and Girls - Katherine Dennehy and Jeylan Mortimer Resistance and Change - Beth Willinger College Mens Attitudes Toward Family and Work in the 1990s Ethnicity and Difference - Beth Anne Shelton and Daphne John White, Black and Hispanic Mens Household Labor Time Reluctant Compliance - Scott Coltrane and Elsa Valdez Work/Family Role Allocation in Dual-Earner Chicano Families Balancing Work and Single Fatherhood - Geoffrey L Greif, Alfred DeMaris and Jane C Hood Meanings of Housework for Single Fathers and Mothers - Polly Fassinger Insights into Gender Inequality PART THREE: WORKPLACE ORGANIZATION AND POLICY Are Family-Supportive Employer Policies Relevant to Men? - Joseph H Pleck Nurturing Fathers and Working Mothers - Linda Haas Changing Gender Roles in Sweden Segmentation and Synergy - Amy Andrews and Lotte Bailyn Two Models of Linking Work and Family

Beating Time/Making Time: The Impact of Work Scheduling on Men's Family Roles.

The impact of work scheduling on mens family lives is often difficult to predict. Written from the dual perspectives of clinical psychology and sociology, this paper uses two case studies to trace the consequences of work scheduling through two mens family situations. In the first case, attempts to beat time by working from noon to midnight result in unintended negative consequences for the family. In the second case, the creation of a split-shift family when a wife returns to work has the equally unintended positive effect of bringing a father closer to his children which in turn results in his efforts to make time to be with both his children and his wife. Mens work schedules are the revolving doors through which men leave and enter family relationships. Which and how many hours a man works help to determine not only the length and frequency of family interactions, but also their quality. This paper closely examines the impact of two mens work schedules on their family lives. The men were the same age, worked similar hours, and each had young children and earned similar incomes when interviewed. However, one had a working wife and the other did not. Further, their occupations, social class, and orientations to work and family differ. As we trace the effect of each mans work hours through the complex maze of his family situation, we find that for one, working an afternoon shift has unanticipated negative effects on his family relationships, while, for the other, the same shift has an equally unintended positive effect. However, in the latter case, as the man becomes more involved in his family, work scheduling again becomes an issue.

Parenting a Youthful Offender

This personal narrative describes the results of a tragic gun accident involving my young son and his close friend. In this autobiographical narrative, I trace the effects of youthful offender laws on my family and explain how our states juvenile justice system transformed our familys lives for over three years. In addition, as both a participant and a sociologist observer, I show how race and class have conditioned the accidents outcome. As Griffith and Smiths (2005) work on mothering for schooling illustrates, social class greatly affects the relationship between school and family. In our case, largely because of my training as a researcher and my husbands background in education and psychology, we were able to make the juvenile justice system work as positively as possible for our son. And, because of my privileged position as an academic, I am now able to make visible the effects of youthful offender laws on one youthful offender and his parents.