Paul Hodkinson - New Fathers, Mental Health and Digital Communication

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Most of all, we would like to profoundly thank the fathers who gave up their time to speak to us with such openness about such profoundly difficult sets of experiences and emotions. We would like to dedicate the book to these fathers and their families, and all fathers who have suffered from perinatal mental illness. We are indebted to the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Surrey for its funding of the research and our colleagues in the Department of Sociology for their support and feedback at various points. We would also like to thank the School of Health Sciences at the University of Surrey for their interest in our work and the opportunity to present findings to both academics and health visitors. Were strongly encouraged by the interest in our work shown by campaigners and third sector organisations and in particular would like to thank Andy Mayers and Mark Williams for their support and interest, as well as the UKs Institute for Health Visiting and National Childbirth Trust (NCT), with whom we are collaborating on work to channel our research into enhancements to the support available for struggling mothers and fathers.

Paul would like to thank his partner, Holly, for her ongoing love and support. Much of Pauls work on the book coincided with COVID lockdown, and he would particularly like to thank Holly for enabling him to have writing time each morning during this challenging period by taking on a few hours of our home-schooling regime, in spite of the most intimidating work schedules. He would also like to thank his children, Laurie and Asher, for providing such relief, joy and company during the many lockdown afternoons spent together.

For Ranjana, the writing of this book coincided with her own perinatal journey, with the birth of her daughter, Raaya, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in late-January 2020. Through a locked-down post-natal period that was intensely challenging at times, she was able to carve out occasional work time thanks to co-operation from her son Arjo, who embraced lockdown life with smiles, and thanks to baby Raaya, who supplied laptop-friendly cuddles at a time when social-distancing had created a new world. Ranjana would also like to note the typical calmness and humour with which Adam embraced the task of becoming a new father amidst a pandemic. She thanks Adam for practical support with the household, and particularly for his friendship.

Finally, we would like to thank the journals New Media and Society and Social Media and Society for their kind permission to reproduce previously published material as part of Chaps. of this book. This book has also benefitted from various opportunities to blog about it, and, for this, we thank Surrey Sociology, the NCT and Discover Society.