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      BERKELEYLOS ANGELESLONDON

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      University of California Press

      Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

      University of California Press, Ltd.

      London, England

      © 2013 by Kathryn Edin and Timothy J. Nelson

      Portions of chapter 3 were first published in Kathryn Edin, Timothy Nelson, and Joanna Miranda Reed, “Daddy, Baby; Momma Maybe: Low-Income Urban Fathers and the ‘Package Deal’ of Family Life,” in Social Class and Changing Families in an Unequal America, edited by Paula England and Marcia Carlson (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2011), 85–107.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Edin, Kathryn, 1962–

      Doing the best I can : fatherhood in the inner city / Kathryn Edin and Timothy J. Nelson.

      p. cm.

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 978-0-520-27406-8 (cloth : alk. paper)

      eISBN 978-0-520-95513-4

      1. Unmarried fathers—United States. 2. Single fathers—United States. 3. Fatherhood—United States. 4. Poor children—United States. I. Nelson, Timothy Jon. II. Title.

      HV700.7.E35 2013

      362.82’940973—dc232012030147

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (R 2002) (Permanence of Paper).

      TO LAURA LEIN AND LINDA MELLGREN,

      WHO INSPIRED THIS WORK, AND TO THE

      110 MEN WHO SHARED THEIR STORIES

      CONTENTS

      Photographs

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction

      1. One Thing Leads to Another

      2. Thank You, Jesus

      3. The Stupid Shit

      4. Ward Cleaver

      5. Sesame Street Mornings

      6. Fight or Flight

      7. Try, Try Again

      8. The New Package Deal

      Appendix

      Notes

      References

      Index

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      Doing the Best I Can is a deeply collaborative work; though the authors’ names appear in alphabetical order, Edin and Nelson contributed equally to the project. After the years of data collection in Camden and Philadelphia, we spent hundreds of hours discussing the research and our findings, trading chapters and paragraphs so frequently that it is now impossible to determine who wrote what sentence of the book. Favorite writing venues included Peet’s Coffee in Evanston, Infusion in Philadelphia, Lord Tyler’s House and the Fells Grind in Baltimore, and especially the coffee shops along Second Minjiang Road, Qingdao, China.

      This research was funded by the William T. Grant Foundation, which not only covered the research costs but also paid the rent on a small apartment in the Rosedale section of Camden, NJ, so we could live there part-time. Additional funding came from the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University.

      Andrew Cherlin, Stefanie DeLuca, and Paula England read multiple drafts of this manuscript and offered many valuable suggestions and insights. Monica Bell, Matthew Desmond, Jamie Fader, Sarah Halpern-Meekin, Barbara Kiviat, James Quane, Laura Tach, Kristin Turney, Julie Wilson, Holly Wood, and an anonymous reviewer also offered comments, pointed out errors, and sharpened our thinking. Early versions of this work benefited from the feedback from members of the MacArthur Network on the Family and the Economy: Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, Cecilia Contrad, Paula England, Nancy Folbre, Irwin Garfinkel, Sara McLanahan, Ronald Mincy, Robert Pollak, Timothy Smeeding, and Robert Willis. Lisa Adams, our agent, and Naomi Schneider, our editor, offered vital assistance and a wealth of practical advice. Responsibility for errors and oversights, however, is our own.

      Amy Abraham, Antwi Akom, Susan Clampet-Lundquist, Rebecca Kissane, David Mitchell, Jennifer Morgan, Shelley Shannon, Eric Shaw, and Kimberly Torres assisted in data collection. Jennifer Augustine, Steve Augustine, Susan Clampet-Lundquist, Heidi Hiemstra, Kathryn Linnenberg, Rechelle Paranel, and Verity Sandell coded the data.

      In Camden Sam Apple, Jodina Hicks, Bruce Main, Mary Ann Merion, Jay Rosen, and Shelley Shannon helped us to learn about the city and its history. Shelley and Jay were also our landlords, providing the small apartment on the first floor of their Camden home.

      Drew and Leah Hood spent several weeks photographing the fathers and children who appear on the cover and insert photos. Due to confidentiality concerns, those portrayed in the photographs are not in the study, though all live in neighborhoods where we conducted our fieldwork.

      Photos were taken in the Camden and Philadelphia neighborhoods we studied. Due to confidentiality concerns, however, none of the fathers or children pictured are in the study.

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