About one-third of American kids are growing up in homes without fathers. That number is even higher for kids in poor families. Two scholars at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have spent years looking behind the numbers, talking to the people who live them. Kathryn Edin is a noted poverty researcher and professor, and Timothy Nelson, is a research associate. They’re also married, and moved with their children to Camden, N.J. to observe how its inner-city families function.
The result is the book they wrote together: “Doing the Best I Can: Fatherhood in the Inner City”. When they came to our studios in April, I began by asking Kathryn Edin what ideas about urban fatherhood that she was trying to understand that she didn’t think had been accurately captured.
An Die Musik is holding a Father's Day Baltimore Father & Son Celebration on Sunday at 8 p.m. More information here.