Family Sociology

For a brief moment on December 27, 2007, life came to a standstill in Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto, the country's former prime minister and the first woman ever to lead a Muslim country, had been assassinated at a political rally just outside Islamabad. Back in Karachi--Bhutto's birthplace and Pakistan's other great metropolis--Rafia Zakaria's family was suffering through a crisis of its own: her uncle Sohail, the man who had brought shame upon the family, was near death.

C. J. Schneider found herself in the middle of a perfect storm after giving birth to her third child and moving to a new neighborhood. Conditions for misery and postpartum depression were ideal: She was isolated, lonely, and exhausted with three young children at home. As she started talking with other mothers, she realized that she was not alone in her experience of feeling alone. In her unique voice, Schneider intelligently and compassionately offers practical advice on how to create the essential community that mothers need.

After World War II ended in 1945, the Soviet Union and the United States began a decades-long confrontation that would become known as the Cold War. American foreign policy focused on "containment" - preventing the communist USSR from gaining more ground - and many people looked at the geographical and political implications of this policy. Others, meanwhile, explored American domestic life in that same period. But historian Elaine Tyler May became the first person to bring these seemingly unrelated areas together.

Julie, 28, Chicago. All Eddie had were her photos - her green eyes and her wayward posture. Who made the first move doesn’t matter...or does it? Off jump, he could tell she was bad news and a great catch. But how to bring it to the real world? That’s what a whirlwind vacation in St. Barth’s is for. Follow along as one man tries to turn his supreme confidence and complete vulnerability into three little words.

Are you ready to have kids? More and more gay men are turning to adoption and surrogacy to start their own families. An estimated two million American LBGTQ people would like to adopt and an estimated 65,000 adopted children are living with a gay parent. Unlike other parenting books that have whole chapters focusing on things specifically related to mothers (such as how to get the perfect latch when breastfeeding), this parenting book replaces those sections with things relevant to gay dads.

A revolution is under way. Within a generation, more households will be supported by women than by men. In The Richer Sex, Liza Mundy shows how this reality will transform the sexual, dating, marriage, and work habits of men and women worldwide. This flip in the economic order is inevitable, and Mundy demonstrates why it will also be a good thing for individuals and families. Both sexes will be free for the first time to make purely romantic choices - ones that have nothing to do with marriage as an economic partnership.

Losing a spouse is like waking up in a nightmare that never ends. Your own grief is hard enough to deal with, but it can feel like a daunting and impossible task when you have children to raise in the midst of the loss. In this inspiring guide to living again after the loss of a spouse, Dr. Roneisa Matero will inspire and empower you through her "Courage Process". She will share the techniques she learned while going through her own journey with grief after losing her husband.

If you’re single, this book will give you clarity and the confidence to choose a better partner. If you’re in a relationship, it will help you to work out if you should stay or go. Either way, this book will empower you to take charge of your relationship destiny.

Dr. Susan Mossman Riva was adopted in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1963. In 1995, she sought the help of the Nebraska Children's Home to find her birthmother, leading to the discover of her birth family in 1996. Miraculously, her search and reunion coincided with her biologicals sister's search. The awe and joy of homecoming brought her to the realization that synchronicity acts as a guidepost, repairing relational brokenness. The divine timing of their reunion happened months before their biological, maternal grandmother died.

Over the last 60 years, women's lives have transformed from generation to generation. Without a template to follow, women make important decisions blindly, groping for a way forward, winging it, and hoping it all works out. Whether you're deciding if you should pass up a promotion in favor of more flex time, planning when to get pregnant, or wondering what the ramifications are of being the only person in your house who ever unloads the dishwasher, The Ambition Decisions is a guide to the changes that may seem arbitrary but are life defining, by women who've been there.

In the past thirty years, polygamy has become a flashpoint of conflict as Western governments attempt to regulate certain cultural and religious practices that challenge seemingly central principles of family and justice. In Forbidden Intimacies, Melanie Heath comparatively investigates the regulation of polygamy in the United States, Canada, France, and Mayotte.

When Kristin Meekhof lost her husband to cancer, she discovered what all widows learn: the moment you lose your partner, you must make crucial decisions that will impact the rest of your life. But where do you begin? This inspiring audiobook shows grieving widows what to expect and how to deal with the challenges of losing a life partner.

The Subjection of Women is an 1869 essay by the English philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill, based on ideas he developed jointly with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill. At the time of its publication, the essay's argument for equality between the sexes was an affront to conventional norms regarding the status of men and women. Mill contended that the emancipation and education of women would have positive benefits for all people; the companionship of equally educated persons would result in the greater intellectual development of all.

In We Live for the We, first-time mother Dani McClain sets out to understand how to raise her daughter in what she, as a black woman, knows to be an unjust—even hostile—society. Black women are more likely to die during pregnancy or birth than any other race; black mothers must stand before television cameras telling the world that their slain children were human beings. What, then, is the best way to keep fear at bay and raise a child so she lives with dignity and joy?

The anti-busing riots of 1974 forever changed Southie, Boston's working-class Irish community, branding it as a violent, racist enclave. Michael Patrick MacDonald grew up in Southie's Old Colony housing project. He describes the way this world within a world felt to the troubled yet keenly gifted observer he was even as a child. But the threats - poverty, drugs, a shadowy gangster world - were real. All Souls is heartbreaking testimony to lives lost too early, and the story of how a place so filled with pain could still be "the best place in the world".

In this profoundly important, inspirational book, Dan Quayle, America's 44th Vice President, introduces us to five American families who speak bluntly - and often poignantly - about the values that give them strength. Liberal and conservative; Christian and non-Christian; Black, White, and mixed race - these families till the rich Virginia soil, walk the streets of East L.A., grapple with single motherhood, confront racial hatred, and learn to live with disabilities. They are us.

The Supreme Court has issued a decision, but that doesn't end the debate. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled, Americans face momentous debates about the nature of marriage and religious liberty. Because the Court has redefined marriage in all 50 states, we have to energetically protect our freedom to live according to conscience and faith as we work to rebuild a strong marriage culture.

According to the 2010 US census, more than 70 percent of Black women in America are unmarried. Black Women, Black Love reveals how four centuries of laws, policies, and customs have created that crisis. Dianne Stewart begins in the colonial era, when slave owners denied Blacks the right to marry, divided families, and, in many cases, raped enslaved women and girls. Later, during Reconstruction and the ensuing decades, violence split couples again as millions embarked on the Great Migration north.

Families today are squeezed on every side - from high childcare costs and harsh employment policies to workplaces without paid family leave or even dependable and regular working hours. Many realize that attaining the standard of living their parents managed has become impossible. Alissa Quart, executive editor of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, examines the lives of many middle-class Americans who can now barely afford to raise children.

Renew your imagination for what family life can be. Many of us feel overwhelmed about the prospect of raising children in our high-performance, rapid-pace culture. Reflecting on difficulties from our own families of origin can increase our doubt and insecurity about being a good parent. Positive examples of family life can seem few and far between. Mark and Lisa Scandrette understand these challenges, and in Belonging and Becoming they cast a compelling vision of what the family can be.