Boomers are heading into (very) old age following a pandemic, a time of overt ageism and deficient eldercare. The front wave, now entering their seventies, are on the brink of life changes that will challenge everyone - family, friends, and the health care system too. Recognizing the dire need to meet these challenges, Gillian Ranson investigates what they are doing to prepare for old age. Regardless of their situation - well off or struggling, partnered or on their own - front-wave boomers share one thing: the need for intimate, caring social ties. Many of them are making these connections with creativity and resilience. Their stories hold lessons for us all.

Front-Wave Boomers: Growing (Very) Old, Staying Connected, and Reimagining Aging

Politics & Social Sciences

Ranson, Gillian

Social Sciences

On Point Press

Many fathers are now providing hands-on, engaged care to babies and young children. This book draws on observations of, and interviews with, caregiving fathers, as well as analyses of fathers' memoirs and online blogs, to examine fathers' caregiving work as embodied practice and as lived experience.

Fathering, Masculinity and the Embodiment of Care (Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life)

Teen & Young Adult

PALGRAVE~MACMILLAN

Based on interviews conducted with thirty-two families living in cities across Canada, Against the Grain challenges dominant understandings of parenting by looking closely at the way couples who have opted for less traditional divisions of labour negotiate their parental and household responsibilities. Included are interviews with breadwinner mothers and caregiver fathers and with dual-earner couples, both heterosexual and same-sex, who struggle to share equally in the nurture and support of their families. Concise and highly accessible, it offers a richly detailed sociological analysis of gender relations in families undergoing change.A central claim of the book is that, when both parents are equally involved in hands-on caregiving, they tend to become, over time, functionally interchangeable, leading away from conventional "mothering" and "fathering" and towards parenting. In exploring this dynamic, Against the Grain offers an excellent opportunity to examine how social change happens at home.

Against the Grain: Couples, Gender, and the Reframing of Parenting

Sociology

University of Toronto Press, Higher Education Division

Drawing on findings from interviews done with 32 families living in cities across Canada, Ranson challenges dominant understandings of mothering and fathering by looking closely at how couples who have opted for less traditional divisions of labour negotiate their parental and household responsibilities. Included are interviews with breadwinner mothers and caregiver fathers, and with dual-earner couples, both heterosexual and same-sex, who struggle to share equally in the nurture and support of their families. A central claim of the book is that, to the extent that both parents are equally involved in hands-on caregiving, they tend to become, over time, functionally interchangeable and move away from "mothering" and "fathering," and toward parenting. Against the Grain offers us an excellent opportunity to examine how social change happens at the forefront of family life.

University of Toronto Press

Parents in Canada today get information and advice from all sides on how they should be raising their kids. Figuring out what's best is a challenge, especially when ideas about what's best are in conflict. Parents know too that others will judge them on their choices, and on their practices. The work is hard, and often, they're managing without much social support.That is the world that sociologist and writer Gillian Ranson explores in this book. Drawing on interviews with 84 parents across Canada, she describes life on the ground with children ranging from infants to high-schoolers. She sets parents' experiences in the context of recent research that examines changes in ideas about child development, shifting perceptions of risk, the effects of social media, and the anxiety about "parenting"--as a job, not a relationship--that seems to trouble many parents.But Ranson also finds parents who value their children's uniqueness, and want to do what works for them, parents who recognize that children are often more resilient, and more capable, than we give them credit for. The real story, and the focus of the book, is the balance between what's expected of parents and children (and by whom) and what actually happens in the homes and backyards and neighbourhoods of families across the country.

The Parents and Children Project: Raising Kids in Canada Today

Rock's Mills Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ranson, Gillian. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Ranson, Gillian

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ranson, Gillian. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Front-Wave Boomers: Growing (Very) Old, Staying Connected, and Reimagining Aging

Fathering, Masculinity and the Embodiment of Care (Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life)

Against the Grain: Couples, Gender, and the Reframing of Parenting

Against the Grain: Couples, Gender, and the Reframing of Parenting

The Parents and Children Project: Raising Kids in Canada Today