Handbook of Parenting: Children and parenting

Book excerpt: Despite the fact that most people become parents and everyone who has ever lived has had parents, parenting remains a mystifying subject about which almost everyone has opinions, but about which few people agree. Striking permutations on the theme of parenting are emerging--single parenthood, blended families, lesbian and gay parents, and teen versus fifties first-time moms and dads. Divided into four volumes, the Handbook of Parenting is concerned with different types of parents, basic characteristics of parenting, forces that shape parenting, problems faced by parents, and the practical sides of parenting. Contributors have worked in different ways toward understanding all of these diverse aspects of parenting and look to the most recent research and thinking in the field to shed light on many topics every parent has wondered about. Because development is too subtle, dynamic, and intricate to admit that parental caregiving alone determines the course and outcome of ontogeny.