Preface; 1. Relational landscapes; 2. The study; 3. Describing the relationships; 4. Essential aunting and uncling; 5. Mentoring; 6. Family work; 7. Friendship; 8. The social reproduction of aunts and uncles; 9. Balancing the composition; Appendices.
In this book, Milardo demonstrates how aunts and uncles contribute to the daily lives of parents and their children.
Robert M. Milardo is Professor of Family Relations at the University of Maine. He has published extensively in the field of family studies in leading journals and books and is currently editor of the Journal of Family Theory and Review owned by the National Council on Family Relations, of which he was elected a Fellow in 2005. He is the former associate editor of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships and the former editor of the Journal of Marriage and Family. Professor Milardo is active in the developing science of personal relationships and served as the first president of the International Association for Relationship Research. His interviews and commentaries on family issues have appeared in a wide array of venues, including Psychology Today, the Guardian, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, USA Today, and a variety of local and regional media.
“Robert Milardo has produced an excellent empirically based and
theoretically informed study of the significance of aunts and
uncles in contemporary family networks. He shows how these
relationships, largely ignored in the research literature, can be
highly influential in shaping personal development and family
process. This book makes a very welcome contribution to our
knowledge.”
– Graham Allan, Keele University
“This book is a landmark publication in family studies because its
focus moves beyond the nuclear family unit. I predict that the
concepts of aunting and uncling will gain prominence in the
literature. Milardo has a clear and at times humorous writing
style. I enjoyed reading the book very much. It is a thoughtful and
original exposé of the way in which the family work of aunts and
uncles both supplements and complements parents.”
– Pearl A. Dykstra, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The
Netherlands
“Long overdue, The Forgotten Kin, is a compelling read that draws
attention to the important role that aunts and uncles play in our
everyday lives and, in so doing, demonstrates how these
relationships previously treated as peripheral are truly central.
Beautifully written and eloquently expressed, Robert Milardo parses
themes of support, intergenerational buffering, mentoring,
friendship, and family history-keeping from the rich personal
stories of over one hundred aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews.
Milardo’s thoughtful qualitative analysis provides a first look at
the all too often invisible contributions that aunts and uncles
make to family life. This milestone book will do nothing less than
transform the way we view families and provides a bold new agenda
for family scholars.”
– Heather Helms, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
“This book is a treat. Milardo draws on rich, probing,
multi-faceted interviews to show us yet another way that family
members break out of their nuclear boundaries. Aunts and uncles and
their nieces and nephews move in and out of each others lives in
both mundane and surprising ways, which Milardo documents with
humor, clarity, and thoroughness. In the process, we get a new
appreciation of generativity and a deeper understanding of the
reciprocal benefits that flow out of these relationships.”
– Stephen Marks, The University of Maine
"Draws on interview and other data in a study of the role of aunts
and uncles in family networks..."
--The Chronicle of Higher Education
"....intriguing.... The volume is well written and engaging. It
will remain a key treatise on this topic, long after other scholars
have turned attention to this focus.... Milardo presents an
interesting and impressive examination of the relationships between
aunts and uncles and their nieces and nephews. The book breaks away
from the constrained view of the isolated nuclear family and moves
us toward a more complete understanding of family relationships....
His work draws attention to these previously neglected familial
relationships and paves the way for further consideration of aunts
and uncles in future research."
--Megan Gilligan and Karen L. Fingerman, Purdue University, Journal
of Marriage and Family
"....The Forgotten Kin offers much to social scientists, educators,
social workers, policymakers. With its basis in family histories,
in the interweaving of personal and collective stories of past and
present and hopes for the future, this book also points to a number
of provocative themes and issues for family historians to pursue.
It has certainly inspired this one to pay closer attention to how
kinship operates both within families and outside them, as an
essential part of the daily lives of ordinary people in the
past."
--Cynthia Comacchio, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada, Journal of
Family History
"....Bob Milardo has written what is the most thorough,
comprehensive family studies analysis to date of the relationships
between aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews. He has richly described
ANUN relations and answered key, basic questions about them. He is
a scholar with a deep knowledge of research on the family yet his
text will be enjoyed by a broad audience. He is trailblazer whose
book widens and extends the path into ANUN relations. I recommend
it for its depiction of those relations and for the possibility
that you will be among those who further develop scholarship on
this topic."
--Dan Perlman, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, IARR’s
“Relationship News”
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
