First-Time Parenting Journeys: Expectations and Realities

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Damien W. Riggs (Flinders University of South Australia) Clare Bartholomaeus (Flinders University of South Australia)

First-Time Parenting Journeys

Expectations and Realities

Damien W. Riggs (Flinders University of South Australia), Clare Bartholomaeus (Flinders University of South Australia)

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English

Cambridge University Press
09 March 2023

Sociology & anthropology; Sociology: birth; Psychology; Child & developmental psychology; Psychology of gender

All too often heterosexual first-time parents are treated as the unmarked norm within research on reproduction. First-Time Parenting Journeys maps out what it means to be situated within the norm, while providing a critical account of how social norms about parenthood shape, regulate, and potentially delimit experiences of new parenthood for heterosexual couples. Based on qualitative longitudinal research, this book tells the story of journeys to parenthood, highlighting the impact of gender norms, moral claims, emotion work, and generativity. While drawing on Australian data, the critical conceptual framework has broader applicability across Western contexts in terms of understanding normative family structures and parenting practices. By focusing on expectations about, and the reality of, new parenthood, it explicates the ways in which institutionalised norms about parenthood are internalised and explores what this can tell us about the broader contours of parenthood discourses.

By: Damien W. Riggs (Flinders University of South Australia), Clare Bartholomaeus (Flinders University of South Australia)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 155mm, Spine: 16mm
Weight: 490g
ISBN: 9781316513989
ISBN 10: 131651398X
Pages: 172
Publication Date: 09 March 2023
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

1. Introduction; 2. Undertaking a Qualitative Longitudinal research study with intending parents; 3. Motherhood moralities; 4. Birthing experiences; 5. Emotion work in the transition to motherhood; 6. Development of a parental identity; 7. Views about having more children; 8. Changes in the couple relationship over time; 9. Grandparents navigating shifts in relationships and identity; 10. Reflecting on the study findings and experience.

Damien W. Riggs is a Professor of Psychology at Flinders University, Australia. He is also a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society and a psychotherapist who specialises in work with trans children. He has authored more than twenty books, including Diverse Pathways to Parenthood: From Narratives to Practice (2020). Clare Bartholomaeus is an Adjunct Research Fellow at Flinders University, Australia. Her previous books include Home and Away: Mothers and Babies in Institutional Spaces (with Kathleen Connellan, Clemence Due, and Damien Riggs, 2021) and Transgender People and Education (with Damien Riggs, 2017).

Reviews for First-Time Parenting Journeys: Expectations and Realities

'Ever considered the gap between expectations of parenthood and the reality? This book offers insights for readers contemplating parenthood, while giving social scientists and their students glimpses into how feelings absorb social norms into personal family values. Moving, readable, and methodologically rigorous, this book is a rare gem!' Fiona Tasker, Birkbeck University of London, UK 'Riggs and Bartholomeus turn the spotlight on the taken-for-granteds of heterosexual parenthood, which goes beyond the usual 'transition to parenthood' scholarship. They use innovative theory to investigate the affective dimension of first-time parenthood; and, along with an intergenerational perspective, the book makes a highly novel and thought-provoking contribution to scholarship on kinship and belonging, parenthood and reproductive decision-making.' Tracy Morison, author of Queer Kinship and Men's Pathways to Parenthood