Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of figures and tables
- List of abbreviations
- About the author
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction: Fathering, poverty, families and policy
- 2 Low-income fatherhoods in historical and political context
- 3 Theorising men’s participation in low-income families
- 4 Supporting men in low-income contexts: practitioner observations
- 5 Men’s caring arrangements and family trajectories
- 6 Familial economic circumstances and provisioning practices
- 7 Men’s family participation in low-income urban neighbourhoods
- 8 Conclusion: Men’s family participation in low-income contexts
- Appendix A Participant information
- Appendix B ‘Existing evidence’ document shared at the knowledgeexchange workshop
- Notes
- References
- Index
1 - Introduction: Fathering, poverty, families and policy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 April 2022
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of figures and tables
- List of abbreviations
- About the author
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction: Fathering, poverty, families and policy
- 2 Low-income fatherhoods in historical and political context
- 3 Theorising men’s participation in low-income families
- 4 Supporting men in low-income contexts: practitioner observations
- 5 Men’s caring arrangements and family trajectories
- 6 Familial economic circumstances and provisioning practices
- 7 Men’s family participation in low-income urban neighbourhoods
- 8 Conclusion: Men’s family participation in low-income contexts
- Appendix A Participant information
- Appendix B ‘Existing evidence’ document shared at the knowledgeexchange workshop
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
For children growing up in some of the poorest parts of the country, men are rarely encountered in the home or in the classroom. This is an ignored form of deprivation that can have profoundly damaging consequences on social and mental development. There are ‘men deserts’ in many parts of our towns and cities and we urgently need to wake up to what is going wrong. (Fractured Families Report press release, Centre for Social Justice, 2013)
‘From when I left my ex, I was paying [ex-partner] maintenance, but she was refusing to let me see [son from previous relationship] … my ex-partner, she's never worked and she's always sat on benefits, which then affected what happened to me, with the Child Support Agency … What she did was, she took two part time jobs … they weren’t legal jobs. The emphasis was then on me to grass her up for working on the side whilst at the same time being pursued for maintenance by the Child Support Agency. I couldn't convince them, because they saw me just as an absent father who was disgruntled and would say anything. Although I had four step-children, they dismissed [names of step-children with current partner Carolyn] and said that they, and they actually wrote to us … they said, “they do not count, you are an absent parent”. It meant Carolyn was worse off and her children were worse off than before I moved in and I thought that was intolerable.’ (Victor, aged 44, re-partnered, low-income father, interviewed for the Timescapes Intergenerational Exchange study in 2008, Hughes and Emmel, 2011)
‘Because you’re young parents, you don't tend to get the respect. I mean, I remember a nurse coming in and saying to us, “oh, have you got a social worker coming in or something?” I turned round [and] just said, “I don't know why they’d be coming to see me! I didn't want to sort of be prejudiced against people but I think in the heat of the moment it just came out … I’m not some scumbag that’s just having kids willy-nilly, here there and everywhere.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Fathering and PovertyUncovering Men's Participation in Low-Income Family Life, pp. 1 - 30Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2021