Amidst a context in which the burden of early-years care continues to fall heavily on women, Sharing Care examines the experiences of the minority of fathers who take on an equal or greater share of caregiving for babies and young children. Drawing on detailed qualitative research in the UK, the book outlines the nature of equal and primary carer fathers’ experiences, paying particular attention to what prompted them to take on their unusual roles, how they and their families adjusted over time and the nature of the challenges they encountered. The authors argue that, for many such fathers, ta ... More

Amidst a context in which the burden of early-years care continues to fall heavily on women, Sharing Care examines the experiences of the minority of fathers who take on an equal or greater share of caregiving for babies and young children. Drawing on detailed qualitative research in the UK, the book outlines the nature of equal and primary carer fathers’ experiences, paying particular attention to what prompted them to take on their unusual roles, how they and their families adjusted over time and the nature of the challenges they encountered. The authors argue that, for many such fathers, taking on an equal or primary care role represented a significant and unexpected shift in their horizons and the beginning of a journey towards experiencing themselves as largely interchangeable with their partners in their role as parents. Yet the book also explores how cultural and practical context around them generated challenges to the development of fathers’ caregiving, leaving certain responsibilities still centred on mothers. The book’s conclusions highlight the potential for fatherhoods and masculinities to be transformed by the experience of taking on of everyday care responsibilities, but also how such journeys can be constrained by enduring assumptions of default maternal responsibility that remain embedded in understandings, interactions and policy.