Families caring for children in the 21st century

In this chapter, Berman focuses on families with children and discusses the challenges of parenting children over the life course, including older adults parenting young adult children. The assumptions made about parents and the meanings assigned to parenting styles and practices, often gendered, are discussed. Socialization, in particular, is highlighted as the critical means by which parents teach meanings, practices, and processes to children, a process in which children are actively involved. While the act of parenting is observed as an experience that has remained remarkably consistent over space and time, this is offset by a focus on the creativity involved in parenting, for example, in the raising of gender nonconforming children.