Do Men Mother?: Fathering, Care and Domestic Responsibility by Andrea Doucet

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Traditionally, mothers have been assigned to stay in the house to take care of children and perform daily household activities. However in recent years, men are becoming more involved in the house. Men are sharing more of the same responsibilities with women in terms of housekeeping and childrearing. Several fathers are choosing to stay in the house to take care of their children rather than working outside; either because of employment interruption or their wives are earning a higher salary than them. In a modern study, an increased number of working mothers as well as an increase in stay- at- home fathers were observed in Canada (Sutherland 2008). This is where the need to analyze if fathers are competent of rendering nurture and care as well as mothers arises. In her book entitled Do Men Mother?: Fathering, Care, and Domestic Responsibility, Doucet seeks the life of fathering by means of illustrating if fathers are essentially performing a mother’s role or mothering when caring for their children (Doucet 2006).

Andrea Doucet, currently on sabbatical, is a Professor of Sociology at Carleton University located in Ottawa, Canada. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from York University and completed her Masters in International Development at Carleton University. Doucet furthered her studies at Cambridge University where she attained her PhD (Carleton University 2011). Besides book chapters, most of her works for the past sixteen years have been scholarly articles which made sense of and clarified, theoretical and experiential understanding of subjects related with care and work, gender issues and lives within the society. A significant number of her works discuss several issues such as responsibility, auto...

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...selves as fathers (Doucet 2006: 217). By the use of several theoretical perceptions, the book provides a breakdown on the division of household responsibilities and manliness (Doucet 2006). Furthermore, it also renders literature on parenting as a result of analyzing the role of the fathers by the maternal points of view. Do Men Mother?: Fathering, Care and Domestic Responsibility explores the concerns of men who choose to stay as full time fathers in order to meet the needs of their children rather than to work outside their home (Doucet 2006). The book is tremendously impactful in terms of being able to make readers realize the difference between the roles of the mother, as well as the responsibilities of the fathers while the common objective of providing adequate care and love for their children is shared between both sexes.

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