Single Mother by Choice

Linda L. Layne is the author of Home and Homeland: The Dialogics of Tribal and National Identities in Jordan (1994, Princeton University Press) and Motherhood Lost: A Feminist Account of Pregnancy Loss in America (2003, Routledge) and co-producer of a television series on pregnancy loss. She has edited or co-edited numerous volumes on motherhood, parenting and consumer culture. She now studies heterosexual single mothers by choice, lesbian moms and gay dads.

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Studying My Friend—A Single Mother by ChoiceChapter 1. A Generative Milieu for New FamiliesChapter 2. Intensive Parenting AloneChapter 3. “I Have a Fear of Really Screwing It Up”: Intensive Mothering in an Age of AnxietyChapter 4. Sketching a Changing Landscape of Intimacy: Gender Equality and ParenthoodChapter 5. Free from the Bonds of Heteronormativity: Creative Exuberance and Spatial Dynamism in Family Home-makingChapter 6. “What Kind of a Family Do We Want to Be?”: Trickle-Down Neoliberal ValuesChapter 7. The Legacy of a Hybrid Habitus: Navigating the Pleasures and Pitfalls of Consumer CultureConclusion: Anthropology of the Contemporary: The Complex, Often Paradoxical, Influence of NeoliberalismAfterword: Anthropology of the Near Future: The Complex, Often Paradoxical, Influence of Trump 2.0’s PatrimonialismReferencesIndex

“This is an excellent book; it is a sophisticated and timely ethnography of a new form of 21st century household.” • Mark P. Whitaker, University of Kentucky“This book has a very creative approach to understanding new alternatives to family formation, especially in the face of the right-wing backlash against women’s push to achieve gender equality in family and intimate life.” • Cynthia Daniels, Rutgers University