Semantic Provisioning of Children’s Food

Abstract

Drawing upon in-depth interviews with mothers in the US about feeding their young children, this article examines how consumer culture — broadly construed — constitutes part of the indispensable context of mothering practices. The argument put forward is that mothers not only provide food and sustenance for their children, but necessarily encounter, engage with and make use of commercial meanings of foodstuffs as part and parcel of the caring work they accomplish while providing food and meals. The concept of ‘semantic provisioning’ is meant to capture the meaning-making labor of mothers as it arises in sometimes contentious negotiations with children over ‘proper’ and ‘appropriate’ foodstuffs and meals. The approach offered seeks to demonstrate how commerce, sentiment, caring and children’s subjectivities interweave at the level of practice.

Meet the good child. ‘Childing’ practices in family food co‐shopping

“…This article builds onto and contributes to the studies on family and consumption emphasizing the importance of emotional relations and consensus (Commuri and Gentry, ; Cook, ; Lawlor and Prothero, ; Kerrane et al ., ; Gram, ) by showing that children are entangled in social norms and seek dialogue rather than conflict. The present study contributes to existing studies by including the voices of very young children and shows that violating social norms is immensely unpleasant and causes embarrassment even for this group of young consumers.…”

“…Empirical studies on family co‐shopping and children's roles in family food purchasing have paid much attention to individual (selfish) behavior in children as customers, buyers, consumers (McNeal, ), using strategies and tactics (Palan and Wilkes, ); with great preoccupation with the notion of ‘pester power.’ ‘Pester power’ is used to characterize the parent/child relationship in relation to consumption as strained (MacDermott et al ., ; Hunter‐Jones, ; Zhang, ), when children nag their parents to obtain goods, and indirectly characterizing them as ‘bad’ children. Much less attention has been paid to collective behavior; children as part of a team (Cook, ), or network (Kerrane et al ., ), or to the (co)creation of and respect for social norms with a view of children as also citizens and loyal family members. As Cook writes (), and summed up by Jayne and Valentine (, p. 2) everyday lives of children and adults have to be understood through ‘relationships, obligations and reciprocity.’…”

“…'Pester power' is used to characterize the parent/child relationship in relation to consumption as strained (MacDermott et al, 2006;Hunter-Jones, 2014;Zhang, 2014), when children nag their parents to obtain goods, and indirectly characterizing them as 'bad' children. Much less attention has been paid to collective behavior; children as part of a team (Cook, 2009), or network (Kerrane et al, 2012), or to the (co)creation of and respect for social norms with a view of children as also citizens and loyal family members. As Cook writes (2003), and summed up by Jayne and Valentine (2015, p. 2) everyday lives of children and adults have to be understood through 'relationships, obligations and reciprocity.…”

Beyond an Assumed Mother–Child Symbiosis in Nutritional Guidelines: The Everyday Reasoning Behind Complementary Feeding Decisions

“…Further, studies point to the influence on food choice of the various other positions and roles that women fulfil besides motherhood: the role of consumer (Cook, 2009), wife and employee (Devine, Connors, Bisgoni, & Sobal, 1998). However, none of these studies investigates parental concerns about complementary feeding in everyday life.…”

A Taste of Inequality: Food's Symbolic Value across the Socioeconomic Spectrum

“…Scholarship examining the origins of these disparities highlights important structural determinants of diet, including differential access to healthy that mothers should spend extensive time and energy cultivating children and tending to their needs (Hayes 1998). As the stakes around feeding have been raised, mothers have come to be largely viewed as personally responsible for feeding their children "healthy" food and protecting them against "unhealthy" influences (Cook 2009;Zivkovic et al 2010;Cairns et al 2013). Research shows that many mothers feel that they fall short of such ideals, with some even seeing the flaws inherent in these discourses.…”