Winner of the Leisure Studies Association's Outstanding Book Prize
This book examines the tensions and ambivalences which men encounter as
they negotiate contemporary expectations of fatherhood and fulfill their
own expectations of what it means to be a 'good' father. There is little
doubt that today's fathers are responding to new expectations about
fatherhood and fathering practices. The remote, detached, breadwinning
father of the past, once lauded as a masculine ideal, has faded, and men
are now expected to be 'involved', 'intimate', 'caring' and
'domesticated' fathers. Using a family practices lens and a case study
of sport, Fletcher elucidates the changes and continuities in family and
fathering practices in different historical periods and contexts.
Negotiating Fatherhood will be of interest to students and scholars
with an interest in family and fathering practices, sport, leisure, and
gender.