Currently, lone mothers and their children make up almost twenty percent of families with dependent children in the UK, a threefold increase since 1970. Yet, while they are often cited by politicians as both a symptom and cause of social breakdown, relatively little is known of the causes, consequences and conditions of lone motherhood in Britain and throughout Europe.

Good Enough Mothering? provides accounts of historical patterns of mothering and ideologies of the family with cross-national comparisons of policies and experience of lone motherhood in developed and developing countries. Areas studied include: Britain, the US, Norway, South Africa, Kenya, Thailand, India, Brazil and the Caribean. This engaging edited collection will appeal to students of social policy, women's studies and social work.