'Parenting Voices': Solo Parent Identity and Co-Parent Identities in Married Parents' Narratives of Meaningful Parenting Experiences

Abstract

A new qualitative method for investigating parental identity, the Parenting Narrative Interview (PNI), is introduced. Participants included 28 married couples (N = 56 individuals) with preschool children. Narratives of five meaningful temporally bounded parenting experiences (Marker Experiences) and meaningful experiences in five parenting domains (Domain Experiences) were coded for `parenting voice': I Only, I Context, We Complementary, We Compare, and We Joint. Across all narratives, We Joint and I Only voices were most frequently used. In Marker Experiences, no sex differences in voice usage were evident, but parents predominantly used We Joint voice in describing how they became parents, shifting to I Context and I Only for early experiences, and then to I Only for recent experiences as well as for anticipated future experiences. In Domain Experiences, fathers less often than mothers used I Voice in caregiving, promoting development, and arranging and planning narratives, and more often used We Joint in stories about their relationship with the child. With parenting voice interpreted as reflecting the balance within parental identity among self-as-solo-parent and varying kinds of co-parental selves, parental identity becomes progressively less co-parental and more solo-parental across narrative time. Compared to mothers, fathers construct their parental identity related to caregiving, promoting development, arranging and planning, and their relationship with the child as relatively more co-parental (i.e., more situated in the context of the relationship with the partner).

Preparation for parenthood: a concept analysis

“…Simon (1992) argues that parenthood is more salient for women's self-conceptions than for men's, with men generally perceiving fathering as something they 'do' rather than something they 'are' as in the case of women (Ehrensaft, 1987). This is consistent with other research in which fathers were seen as helping rather than sharing parental responsibilities (Borg Xuereb, 2008;Cowan & Cowan, 2000;LaRossa & LaRossa, 1981;Stueve & Pleck, 2001).…”

Fathers' Frames for Childrearing: Evidence Toward a “Masculine Concept of Caregiving”

“…Although the grounded theory method is intended to be primarily inductive, and Strauss and Corbin (1990) exhort researchers to attempt to bracket existing notions about a phenomenon, they also encourage the use of previous theoretical and empirical research to heighten what they refer to as the "theoretical sensitivity" of the researcher. Therefore, coding began with categories suggested by Stueve and Pleck's (2001) parenting domains: caregiving, promoting development, breadwinning, arranging and planning, and the parent's relationship with the child (a fifth parenting domain of theirs, "breadwinning," was not included, because the activity does not involve direct interaction with the child, which was the primary focus here).…”

How men became the local agents of change towards gender equality

“…It is noteworthy that the men mostly talked of childcare as a joint family responsibility and did not refer to an exclusive father/child bond; they seemed to view themselves as parents rather than as fathers in particular. The work-sharing men's common parental perspective is supported by other studies of fathers' parental identities, which find that fathers largely construct their parental identity as relatively more co-parental than mothers, and more often use the parental 'we' rather than a solo parental voice (Stueve and Pleck 2001). Lareau (2002) discussed fathers' use of a common parental subject as a methodological problem, blurring the fact that mothers did most of the parenting and making fathers appear more involved than they actually were.…”