Constructing the Transition to Parenthood

Abstract

How is the transition to parenthood constructed in a context in which fatherhood and motherhood are therapeutically defined? Relying on ethnographic observations of 66 expectant and new parent couples assigned to 13 different parent educator-led groups, we show how, with the arrival of a baby, a sense of transition is crafted and often amplified. Our analysis suggests that just as the overall life course is constructed through language and meaningful gesture, so also the transition to parenthood is constructed through verbal and nonverbal signification. Using a vocabulary of contrast and change, parent educators and expectant and new parents create a collective feeling that they are witnessing a transformation of major proportions. By emphasizing the idea that things are no longer the same, parent educators also establish themselves as authorities whose job it is to steer fathers and mothers through unfamiliar terrain. For their part, expectant and new parents not only listen to but often also replicate the parent educators' vocabularies and, in so doing, further magnify distinctions between before parenthood and after, and between one stage of parenthood and another.Childbirth stands uncomfortably at the junction of the two worlds of nature and culture. Like death and disease it is a biological event, but the defining feature of biological events in human life is their social character. Ann Oakley (1980:7) Students of the life course increasingly see the value of employing a theoretical approach that does not presume "the objective existence of age-related [or stage-related] experiential trajectories," but rather is "more concerned with how individuals actively assign meanings and significance to experience over time, within the context of group life and social interaction" (Holstein and Gubrium 2003:835; see also Gubrium and Buckholdt 1977;Holstein and Gubrium 2000). From this perspective, it is less important to ask how people age, and about what happens to them as they move from one phase of life to the next, than it is to interrogate the very notion of age and to research how biographies are culturally crafted. The biological facts of aging and life course are not negated; they just are not believed to be sufficient to explain people's temporal experience.Drawing from a blend of Chicago School-oriented symbolic interactionism and phenomenologically inspired cognitive sociology (e.g., Berger and Luckmann 1966;Blumer 1969), this alternative approach rests on four central assumptions (drawing from Gubrium and Buckholdt 1977:54-5). The first is that "there is no such thing as life change separate from the public sense of it presented and negotiated by members of occasions when life course change is being considered." In concrete terms, life course transitions in particular, and social cognitions in general, are tied to the thought communities that serve as points of reference

The transition to parenthood and development of parents' personality and emotional competencies

“…Second, according to the sociological point of view, the notion of life transition is constructed by society to create a sense of transition. However, no differences would appear between before and after birth (LaRossa and Sinha 2006). Consequently, the transition to parenthood would be experienced as a transformative event, but there would not be any radical change of personality and/ or emotional competencies.…”

“…Galdiolo and I. Roskam theory (Hogan and Roberts 2004, Caspi et al 2005). If stability is observed, the notion of the transition to parenthood should be considered as constructed by society to have an age-graded reference system (LaRossa and Sinha 2006). Consequently, the transition to parenthood should be experienced as a transformative life event without changing personality mean-level, which supports personality immutability theory (McCrae andCosta 1999, 2006).…”

“…Consequently, it is not surprising that these results are similar to those for personality. In addition, the explanation of a social construction of the transition to parenthood (LaRossa and Sinha 2006) is also available for emotional competencies.…”

Turning Points in Parent-Grandparent Relationships During the Start of a New Generation

“…Whereas marital researchers have studied parents' tendency to become more traditional (e.g., LaRossa & Sinha, 2006), conflict (e.g., Cowan, Cowan, Heming, et al, 1985), and marital satisfaction (e.g., Lawrence, Cobb, Rothman, Rothman, & Bradbury, 2008), the intergenerational literature has largely overlooked this key period in the family life cycle. Scholarly interest in the parent-child bond is at a peak during infancy and childhood.…”

High-Risk Subsequent Births among Co-Residential Couples: The Role of Fathers, Mothers, and Couples

“…While first births represent an important life transition (LaRossa & Sinha, 2006), subsequent births also represent an important component of family building. This study investigates father, mother, and couple-level predictors of the cumulative risk status of subsequent births.…”