Introducing the Capacity to Care

What is the capacity to care and why does it matter? How is it acquired? What are its origins in the early development of self and morality? Are women better at caring than men and, if so, is this likely to change with contemporary changes in parenting and gender relations? What would constitute a good enough family, as opposed to good enough mothering? How does the capacity to care inform the ethics of care debate about relationality and autonomy and their gender? How do people care across distance and difference? These are the questions that are addressed in this book. Through them I attempt to provide the current social discourses with an adequate psychology as a resource for understanding care, in the domains of theory, policy and practice.