ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 examines parenting books written for men who provide primary care to their children. Parenting texts, in the context of this book, are understood as books that are published and marketed as manuals, instruction guides, or even simply as sources of knowledge for parent readers. In recent years, the shift towards an increased focus on fathers has resulted in a large volume of books written for men in order to assist them around raising children. Often, these books are written with the aim of instructing fathers how to “be” a father in contemporary society. Through this, these books present themselves as a crucial source of information on fatherhood, and therefore potentially exert influence on understandings on fathering. This chapter will critically examine such books, focusing on what messages the books present. Our analysis suggests that these books do, indeed, have a lot to say about why fathers choose to provide primary care for children, as well as advocating for fathers in general. However, they also continue to perpetuate the position that fathers (and men in general) are primary financial providers in contemporary families. As such, our analysis suggests that these books make available only specific intelligible identities to men who provide primary care to their children.
