ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a 'snapshot' of how, in the period of New Labour government from 1997-2010, social and legal policies sought to challenge 'the assumption that families are synonymous with mothers' and refocus social policy on supporting and encouraging father involvement. Concerns about fatherhood encompass a wide range of ethical, social, psychological and medical issues. Marriage remains central to the determination of a father's legal status, playing a pivotal and well-documented role in how law has sought to attach men to their children. The activities of fathers' rights groups in the United Kingdom (UN) gave their grievances a particularly high profile in the years between 2002 and 2008. Outside the home, however, debates around fathers and responsibility have been informed by rather different ideas about men and masculinity. In one context, where a gender-neutral model of parenting has tended to dominate understandings of child welfare, fathers appear broadly interchangeable with mothers.
