Not-So-Nuclear Families: Class, Gender, and Networks of Care

Abstract

Not-So-Nuclear Families: Class, Gender, and Networks of Care. Karen V. Hansen. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. 2005. 261 pp. ISBN 0-8135-3501-8. $62.00 (cloth); $22.95 (paper). In Not-So-Nuclear Families, Karen Hansen challenges the idea that Americans are individualistic, relying only upon themselves and their nuclear families. She beautifully illustrates the webs of interdependence that bind us together, analyzing the networks working parents develop to help in caring for their school-age children. The book makes a masterful contribution to the literature-her qualitative and indepth portraits should have a deep resonance for everyone studying and/or engaged in caring for others. Hansen begins the book with a puzzle: If more women are employed, if both men and women are working longer hours, and if there are no new structural supports in the shape of workplace or state policies to support working families-who is caring for school-age children, given the disparity between school and work hours? Hansen answers this question through a convincing in-depth analysis of how families at four different class levels address the care gap, drawing attention to the important role that kin and friends play in providing "networks of care." Hansen's research design is meant to untangle the relationship class plays in shaping networks providing care. She starts with four network "anchors" (or parents of school-age children) at four different class levels-working class, middle class, professional middle class, and upper class-focusing on White families to avoid making comparisons across both race and class. She interviews a list of people that the anchor identifies as helping rear her or their children, including grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, friends, babysitters, and nannies. This approach allows for multiple contacts with the network over time, while also triangulating the data because each member provides a different perspective on the same network. In the first major section of the book, four chapters profile each network and provide the details about how each anchor draws upon the help of networks. In the second section, Hansen analyzes particular issues in more depth. She explores the way anchors screen and recruit people into their networks, considers the reciprocity in their relationships that is necessary for these networks to exist, and analyzes the way men participate in these networks and the gendered implications of this care. Overall, the book makes a powerful statement about interdependence and the impact of both structure and agency in constructing networks of care. In three cases, the networks appear fairly vital; in the fourth, the network is unable to effectively handle the demands for care. …