Caring for Teenage Children

Abstract

In this article, the author explores the care involved in parenting teenage children. Parenting at this stage, when teenagers are on the cusp of independence, requires strategies of monitoring and controlling children that are often not thought of as carework. The author focuses her analysis on one particular area of great concern to parents—control over teenagers' freedom of movement. Parents see control over their children's whereabouts as essential for keeping children safe. In presenting her data—interviews with mothers and teenagers—the author highlights the interactive aspect of this work. This kind of carework is above all a series of negotiations between parents and teenage children as teenagers try to gain more independence and parents try to maintain some control over them. Another important part of this analysis is to demonstrate that this type of parenting work is strongly affected by larger social forces of gender, class, and race.

Talking to Teens about Sex: Mothers Negotiate Resistance, Discomfort, and Ambivalence

“…Mothers' Accounts of "The Talk" "They Just Don't Want Me to be Telling Them about This": Teen Resistance to Sex Talks As gender scholars have highlighted, children are agentic "in the creation of their worlds" (Messner 2000, p. 765;Thorne and Luria 1986) and, as family scholars now emphasize, in families, parental power is not absolute; it is negotiated and resisted by children (Best 2006;Corsaro 2004;Kurz 2002). Mother-teen sex talks are no exception.…”

“…As Best (2006, p. 58) observed, "Parental power is always negotiated and routinely resisted by children and adolescents." Following recent lines of inquiry into family life as a collaborative venture (Best 2006;Corsaro 2004;Kurz 2002), I conceive of parental power as considerable but not absolute. Rather than conceptualize power as hierarchical and repressive, I consider it to be relational and productive (Foucault 1977).…”

“…Rather than conceptualize power as hierarchical and repressive, I consider it to be relational and productive (Foucault 1977). Studies with teenagers demonstrate that they negotiate with their parents for more autonomy, for example, and that the strategies they adopt are shaped by gender and class (Best 2006;Kurz 2002). Yet few studies have considered how parents experience their children as collaborative negotiators in family life and how factors, such as gender, may shape these experiences, an issue I examine by focusing on mother-teen sexual communication.…”

Gendered Paths to Teenage Political Participation

“…Race, gender, and class together shape parental worry and strategies of caretaking and control (Kurz 2002) in highly variable ways that inevitably affect young people's mobility and participation in civic life. Lareau (2002), for example, notes that social class in particular creates distinctive parenting styles, as evidenced in her example of middle-class families who practice "concerted cultivation" by restricting their children's activity to participation in highly structured, adult-supervised, age-specific organizations.…”

Freedom, Constraint, and Family Responsibility

“…Keeping kids safe was paramount (Kurz, 2002b). Even kids themselves, although not always agreeing with specific rules, understood these rules as expressions of parental concern.…”