This book had its genesis in a conversation between the editors, Linda Mc-
Clain and Daniel Cere, about why and how we differed in our understandings
of and convictions about family and marriage and how these differences
seemed to turn on contrasting underlying models of parenthood.
As we examined these issues further, and decided to pursue them in the
present volume, we learned much from valuable conversations with our
contributors, whose different disciplinary perspectives helped to shape
the volume. We thank them for their dedication to this project. Reading
and editing their chapters has deepened our own understandings of the
many facets of parenthood.
We thank Deborah Gershenowitz, senior editor at NYU Press, and Nancy
Dowd, editor of the Families, Law, and Society series, for giving this book
such a wonderful home. We have appreciated Nancy’s sustained enthusiasm
as well as her constructive comments on all the chapters. We thank
Deborah for her editorial comments. We also thank the anonymous reviewers
for their instructive comments on the manuscript. Finally, we thank
Alexia Traganas at NYU Press, for her careful work on the production of this
book.