Grandfathering as spatio-temporal practice: conceptualizing performances of ageing masculinities in contemporary familial carescapes

Abstract

This paper examines the spatio-temporalities of the intergenerational caring practices that contemporary grandfathers engage in with their grandchildren, in order to critique old men's constructions and performances of ageing masculinities, and the gendering and ageing of contemporary carescapes. Findings are based on 31 qualitative interviews and two participant observations, conducted in the NorthWest of England with men who are grandfathers. The concept of carescapes (Bowlby, Gregory and McKie 1997) is employed to explain that grandfathering is both spatially and temporally organized. Findings suggest that men construct distinctly masculine spaces of care later in life, contingent on both their resistance to spatially embedded ageism and their comparisons of grandfathering to previous lifecourse subjectivities, such as fathering. Complexity and diversity in how men negotiate these factors is also apparent and is explored. There is evidence for example that some men's performances of ageing masculinities contribute to the maintenance of a gendered division of labour in family care work, while others perform alternative masculinities that offer potential to transform gendered carespaces. This is further mediated by intergenerational interactions with children and grandchildren. Focus on old men who are grandfathers necessarily complicates geographical perspectives on the spatio-temporalities of multiple masculinities, ageing and informal familial care.Key words: Grandfathering; family; carescapes; masculinities; age; identity IntroductionAs a result of existing material, institutional and discursive framings, alongside a privileging of focus on gender over other dimensions of identity, care has come to be understood as Grandfather identities; neglected intersections of masculinities and 'old age'A small yet noteworthy body of sociological work is now attending to the apparent neglect of old men and ageing masculinities and it is this theoretical base that geographers could usefully exploit for developing and re-thinking the geographies of care as gendered, intergenerational and spatio-temporally organized, and masculinities as multiply produced, . These assumptions are problematic however as they are premised on essential understandings of both old age and hegemonic masculinity. Nonetheless this is theoretically interesting because the paradoxical and contradictory nature of these normative values suggests that ageing presents significant challenges to men as they get older and as they face the potential for gendered disempowerment resulting from the material processes of ageing. Geographies of ageing masculinitiesTo some extent the theoretical assumption that old age acts to de-gender old men has been replicated by social geographers, who rarely focus explicitly on old men and ageing masculinities. However limited research does suggest that old men's locations in age and gendered relations are of interest to geographers (Tarrant 2010). At one extreme, old men have been found to avoid public life altogether an...

Masculinities at the Margins of “Middle Adulthood”

“…This is supported to some extent, by the grandfathers who took part in this study (Tarrant 2013). However, difference and diversity in grandfathering points to variability in the practices of care grandfathers are involved in, as well as how they construct these practices in relation to masculinities.…”

“…This is because old age translates automatically to decline, especially as hegemonic masculinity is premised on physicality (of the body), sexual prowess, and authority (Eman 2011). According to Slevin and Linneman (2010), old gay men occupy subordinate positions in Connell's hierarchies of masculinities, which relates to issues such as sexuality and exclusion from public spaces (Tarrant 2013 ignores fluidity within men's gender practices and the diversity of practices and bodies in the 'old age' category. Such a framing also fails to capture, for example, the many anxieties that men negotiate as they get older, which in many ways are rooted in and constitutive of wider socio-cultural contexts and expectations in which aging and the 'greying' of the population is feared.…”

'It's Raining, Grandpa, Let's Go Out! So We Went.' Grandfathering as an Essential Role for Older Men

“…Stále častejšie [v minulosti napr. Cunningham-Burley 1984;Kivett 1985] sa môžeme ale stretnúť so štúdiami, ktoré venujú starootcovstvu separátnu a prinajmenšom rovnocennú pozornosť [Waldrop et al 1999;Mann 2007;Mann, Khan, Leeson 2009;Tarrant 2010Tarrant , 2012Tarrant , 2013 a zohľadňujú vzťahy medzi starorodičovstvom, maskulinitami a vyšším vekom. Z troch vyššie uvedených dôvodov konceptuálny rámec pre našu analýzu tvoril práve model Baltesa a Taylora [2013], ktorý senzitivizoval proces našej analýzy [Strauss, Corbin 1998;Charmaz 2014].…”

“…stále ťažšie splniteľné [Calasanti 2003]. Zapájaním do medzigeneračných praktík s vnúčatami sa tak môžu starší muži mimo iného pokúšať o aktívne a emočné vymedzenie voči zdieľaným predstavám starnutia spájaným s pasivitou a disabilitou, ktoré implicitne odporujú maskulínnym ideálom [Tarrant 2013]. Imperatív produktivity a aktivity vo verejnej sfére, pôvodne asociovaný primárne s prácou, sa tak môže u niektorých mužov transformovať do snahy o užitočné zapojenie do sféry domácej, predovšetkým do trávenia času s vnúčatami, vrátane špecifickej starostlivosti o nich.…”

“…Ako upozorňuje Tarrant [2013], zahŕňanie mužov do neformálnych ekonomík starostlivosti pre nich môže znamenať výzvu aj potenciálny konflikt a kontradikcie v sociálne konštruovanej genderovej identite. Autorka vo svojej transgeneračnej perspektíve ukazuje, že prostredníctvom performatívneho potenciálu staro-rodičovstva dochádza nielen k upevňovaniu hegemónnych mužských rolí a identít [tak ako sú popísané napríklad v starších štúdiách Cunningham-Burleyovej 1984;Neugarten, Wainstein 1964cit.…”