The family remains the most contested institution in American society. How Families Matter: Simply Complicated Intersections of Race, Gender, and Work explores the ways adults make sense of their family lives in the midst of the complicated debates generated by politicians and social scientists. Given the rhetoric about the family, this book is a well overdue account of family life from the perspective of families themselves. The purpose of this book is to provide the reader with a whole view of different types of families. The chapters focus on contemporary issues such as who do we consider to be a part of our family, can anyone achieve family-life balance, and how do families celebrate when they get together? Relying on stories shared by a racially/ethnically diverse group of forty-six families, this book finds that parents and siblings cultivate a family identity that both defines who they are and influences who they become. It is a welcomed installment to conversations about the family, as families are finally viewed within a single study from a multicultural lens.

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

Helicopter parents—the kind that continue to hover even in college—are one of the most ridiculed figures of twenty-first-century parenting, criticized for creating entitled young adults who boomerang back home. But do involved parents really damage their children and burden universities? In this book, sociologist Laura T. Hamilton illuminates the lives of young women and their families to ask just what role parents play during the crucial college years. Hamilton vividly captures the parenting approaches of mothers and fathers from all walks of life—from a CFO for a Fortune 500 company to a waitress at a roadside diner. As she shows, parents are guided by different visions of the ideal college experience, built around classed notions of women’s work/family plans and the ideal age to “grow up.” Some are intensively involved and hold adulthood at bay to cultivate specific traits: professional helicopters, for instance, help develop the skills and credentials that will advance their daughters’ careers, while pink helicopters emphasize appearance, charm, and social ties in the hopes that women will secure a wealthy mate. In sharp contrast, bystander parents—whose influence is often limited by economic concerns—are relegated to the sidelines of their daughter’s lives. Finally, paramedic parents—who can come from a wide range of class backgrounds—sit in the middle, intervening in emergencies but otherwise valuing self-sufficiency above all. Analyzing the effects of each of these approaches with clarity and depth, Hamilton ultimately argues that successfully navigating many colleges and universities without involved parents is nearly impossible, and that schools themselves are increasingly dependent on active parents for a wide array of tasks, with intended and unintended consequences. Altogether, Parenting to a Degree offers an incisive look into the new—and sometimes problematic—relationship between students, parents, and universities.

"This is a story about how I was saved by love at a time when most people considered me beyond rescue," begins Victor Rivas Rivers in this powerful chronicle of how he escaped the war zone of domestic violence -- too often regarded as a "private family matter" -- and went on to become a good man, a film star, and a prominent activist. The Cuban-born author begins by recalling when he was kidnapped, along with three of his siblings, by his own father, who abandoned Victor's pregnant mother and took the children on a cross-country hell-ride that nearly ended in a fatal collision. This journey of survival portrays with riveting detail how, instead of becoming a madman like his father, Victor was saved by a band of mortal angels. Miraculously, seven families stepped forward, along with teachers and coaches, to empower him on his road from gang member to class president, through harrowing and hilarious football adventures at Florida State and with the Miami Dolphins, to overcoming the Hollywood odds and becoming a champion for all those impacted by domestic violence. Though at times Victor's odyssey is heartbreaking and disturbing, A Private Family Matter is ultimately a triumphant testament to humanity, courage, and love. Profound and poignant, it is a compelling memoir with a cause. Victor Rivers's way of thanking all the angels and advocates who made a difference in his life is by trying to make a difference in all of ours.

Table of contents

Combining empirical evidence with indices to measure mattering, Family Matters: The Importance of Mattering to Family in Adolescence explores the inverse relationship between mattering and dysfunctional behavior in adolescence. Defines mattering and distinguishes among the three ways that people can matter to others: awareness, importance, and reliance Utilizes empirical evidence from a quantitative analyses of data from a nationwide survey 2,004 adolescents to support author’s assertions Explores the impact of structural and demographic factors such as family structure in developing of a sense of mattering in adolescents. Includes helpful indices, including his Mattering Index and Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Index Suggests how parents, teachers, and other significant people in the lives of adolescents can work to instill a sense of mattering in those under their care

This book is concerned with the question of how families matter in young people's development - a question of obvious interest and importance to a wide range of readers, which has serious policy implication. A series of key current topics concerning families are examined by the top international scholars in the field, including the key risks affecting children, individual differences in their resilience, links between families and peers, the connections between parental work and children's family lives, the impact of childcare, divorce, and parental separation, grandparents, and new family forms such as lesbian and surrogate mother families. The latest research findings are brought together with discussion of policy issues raised.