This book would probably not have been considered relevant to practitioners 20 years ago. It would certainly not have been able to draw from the wealth of literature it has drawn on. It emerges from a period of profound change in relationships between men, women and children and attempts by governments to adapt to these changes. Alongside examples of cooperative gendered settlements, achieved against considerable odds, are to be found tendencies among men and women, in a range of differing sectors of society, to invest in children but treat the mothers or fathers of those children with hostility and suspicion. Indeed, a number of times in this book it has been suggested that children have become the site for gendered power battles.

A feature of the current political context, certainly in England, and one actively influenced by fathers’ groups, is an emphasis on encouraging father ‘involvement’ in order to aid good outcomes for children. Birth fathers are prioritised and the wishes of women are not addressed or the benefits are assumed to be clear-cut. Ignoring women negates, not only the important work they do and have done in caring for children, but also the work they put into helping men to father.Gender equality does not appear to be an objective of this particular policy emphasis.

This book had an ambitious remit, as outlined in the first chapter, to:

• • trace the emergence of ways of thinking about fathers in different disciplines;

• • bring together in one book voices from disciplines that do not always speak to one another;

• • identify important policy and practice developments and debates;

• • identify some of the learning that has emerged for the author over the last decade of evaluating service developments;

• • reflect throughout on the insights that feminist and pro-feminist perspectives can bring to understandings and practices.

In relation to the first aim, the author has tried to highlight some of the key themes within the differing disciplines that inform either wider cultural thinking or the professional training of practitioners. Inevitably, this has led to offering overviews rather than engaging in-depth, although every effort has been made to offer comprehensive sources of reading. As someone whose first degree was in sociology and then trained as a social worker, the author has straddled disciplines, although she would never claim not to have disciplinary preferences.