So How's the Family?

In this new collection of thirteen essays, Arlie Russell Hochschild--author of the groundbreaking exploration of emotional labor, The Managed Heart and The Outsourced Self--focuses squarely on the impact of social forces on the emotional side of intimate life.
From the "work" it takes to keep personal life personal, put feeling into work, and empathize with others; to the cultural "blur" between market and home; the effect of a social class gap on family wellbeing; and the movement of care workers around the globe, Hochschild raises deep questions about the modern age. In an eponymous essay, she even points towards a possible future in which a person asking "How's the family?" hears the proud answer, "Couldn't be better."

Arlie Hochschild is Professor Emerita of Sociology at UC Berkeley; she is a leading postwar feminist and the author of numerous books, including The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling.

Acknowledgments Introduction THE FEEL OF THINGS 1. Going on Attachment Alert 2. Can Emotional Labor Be Fun? 3. Empathy Maps FAMILIES, CLASS GAPS, AND TIME 4. So How's the Family? 5. Time Strategies 6. The Diplomat's Wife BOUNDARIES AND BLURS, MARKET AND HOME 7. The Personalized Market and the Marketized Self (with Sarah Garrett) 8. At Home in the Office (with Barrie Thorne) 9. Rent-a-Mom WOMEN ON THE GLOBAL BACKSTAGE 10. Two-Way Global Traffic in Care 11. Children Left Behind (with S. Uma Devi and Lise Isaksen) 12. The Surrogate's Womb Notes Bibliography Credits Index