It is the principal job of a sociologist to understand and explain social phenomena. This requires setting the object of study in context. The story I will tell in these pages is not intended to be a tale of individual endeavour but an examination of the times, concerns and conditions in which the work of one sociologist develops and how a career reliant on research that is externally funded is forged. The focus on my research career, almost all of which has been spent in a university, is intended as a vehicle for understanding the conditions under which, over more than 40 years, I came to study particular topics; how these topics arrived on research agendas; and how the research was crafted and knowledge was built. The research I will discuss concerns the family and working lives of mothers and fathers, and also the lives of children, both across the life course and over historical time.

When I accepted my publisher's suggestion that I write this book, my aim was to give some sense of what it is to be a contract or funded researcher and to do this by revisiting and reviewing research projects with which I have been involved. This has been logistically difficult within one volume because of the number of projects and the length of time covered and so I have been selective. I soon discovered that my interest lay less in going over old ground and more in material from recent research. On the one hand, a present-time orientation is intrinsic to the job of a funded researcher who is required to meet deadlines and to come up with new ideas for future projects and seek new funding. On the other hand, empirical research is about ‘doing’ – the continuous practice of the craft of research. A dusty pile of research reports and publications and a lengthening CV are only part of the research enterprise.