This book had its genesis in a conversation between the editors, Linda Mc- Clain and Daniel Cere, about why and how we differed in our understandings of and convictions about family and marriage and how these differences seemed to turn on contrasting underlying models of parenthood. As we examined these issues further, and decided to pursue them in the present volume, we learned much from valuable conversations with our contributors, whose different disciplinary perspectives helped to shape the volume. We thank them for their dedication to this project. Reading and editing their chapters has deepened our own understandings of the many facets of parenthood. We thank Deborah Gershenowitz, senior editor at NYU Press, and Nancy Dowd, editor of the Families, Law, and Society series, for giving this book such a wonderful home. We have appreciated Nancy’s sustained enthusiasm as well as her constructive comments on all the chapters. We thank Deborah for her editorial comments. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for their instructive comments on the manuscript. Finally, we thank Alexia Traganas at NYU Press, for her careful work on the production of this book.