Abstract
This chapter explores narratives of sharing parental responsibility in everyday life among parents who do not live together. It is a social-psychological analysis of qualitative interview data focusing on family relations and social networks in everyday life in Denmark. The interview data stem from a large research project on the consequences of individualisation for social networks and family life. One of the dilemmas of post-divorce parenting comprises sharing parental responsibility while simultaneously separating from the other parent. Applying a case-based analysis, two interpretative frameworks of good parenthood is identified: devotion and symmetry. Moreover, it is discussed how these frameworks intersect with the conflict narrative of divorce. To further explore the meaning of good post-divorce parenting, a concept of we-ness is introduced in the context of divorce. The chapter concludes by arguing that post-divorce parenthood can be understood as reinventing the family (Beck-Gernsheim 2002) and re-constituting we-ness in novel ways.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Asplund, J. 1983. Tid, rum, individ och kollektiv [Time, space, indvidual and community]. Stockholm: Liber Förlag.
Beck-Gernsheim, E. 2002. Reinventing the family: In search of new lifestyles. Cambridge and Oxford: Polity Press and Blackwell Publishers.
Davies, B., and R. Harré. 1990. “Positioning: The discursive production of selves.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 20(1): 43–63.
Dencik, L. 2005. Mennesket i postmoderniseringen – om barndom, familie og identiteter i opbrud [The human being during postmodernisation – on childhood, family and rupturing identities]. Værløse: Billesø & Baltzer.
Dencik, L., A Westerling, A. Stanek, and K. Marosi. 2003. IFUSOFF–et instrument for undersøgelse af socialt fællesskab og familieliv [SONEFAL – an instrument for the study of comunality and family life]. Roskilde: Center for Barndoms-& Familieforskning, Roskilde Universitetscenter.
Dencik, L., P.S. Jørgensen, and D. Sommer. 2008. Familie og børn i en opbrudstid. Copenhagen: Hans Reitzels Forlag.
Gubrium, J.F., and J.A. Holstein. 2012. “Narrative practice and the transformation of interview subjectivity.” In The SAGE handbook of interview research: The complexity of the craft, edited by J.F. Gubrium, J.A. Holstein, A.B. Marvasti, and K.D. McKinney, 27–44. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Harré, R., and F.M. Moghaddam. 2003. The self and others: Positioning individuals and groups in personal, political, and cultural contexts. Westport: Praager Publishers.
Honneth, A. 1996. The struggle for recognition: The moral grammar of social conflicts. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Johansson, T., and M. Bäck-Wiklund, eds. 2003. Nätverksfamiljen [The network family]. Stockholm: Natur och kultur.
Kvale, S., and S. Brinkmann. 2009. Interviews: Learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Mills, C.W. 1959. The social imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ottosen, M.H. 1997. Børn i sammenbragte familier: Et studie af forældreskab som social konstruktion [Children in reconstituted families. A study of parenthood as a social constrcution]. Copenhagen: Danish National Centre for Social Research.
Roseneil, S., and S. Budgeon. 2004. “Cultures of intimacy and care beyond ‘the family’: Personal life and social change in the early 21st century.” Current Sociology 52(2): 135–159.
Simmel, G. 1908. Soziologie: Untersuchungen über die formen der vergesellschaftung [Sociology. investigatng the modes of societilization]. Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot.
Søndergaard, D.M. 2000. “Destabiliserende diskursanalyse” [Destablising discourse analysis]. In Kjønn og fortolkende metode [Gender and interpretive method], edited by Hanne Haavind, 60–104. Oslo: Gyldendal Akademisk.
Spradley, J.P. 1979. The ethnographic interview. Belmont: Wadsworth Group – Thomson Learning.
van den Berg, H., M. Wetherell, and H. Houtkoop-Steenstra. 2003. Analyzing race talk: Multidisciplinary perspectives on the research interview. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Westerling, A. 2008. Individualisering, familie og fællesskab: En socialpsykologisk analyse af hverdagslivets sociale netværk i en refleksiv modernitet [Individualisation, family and communality. A social psychological analysis of the social networks of everyday life in a reflexive modernity]. PhD thesis, Department of Psychology and Educational Studies. Roskilde: Roskilde University.
Westerling, A. 2010. “Everyday family life: Investigating the individual/social in a radicalized modernity.” In Sustaining everyday life conference, edited by K. Karlsson and K. Ellergård, 137–150. Linköping: Linköping University Electronic Press.
Westerling, A. 2015. “Reflexive fatherhood in everyday life: The case of Denmark.” Families, Relationships and Societies 4(2): 209–223.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Westerling, A. (2016). Parenthood and We-ness in Everyday Life: Parenting Together Apart. In: Sparrman, A., Westerling, A., Lind, J., Dannesboe, K. (eds) Doing Good Parenthood. Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46774-0_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46774-0_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-46773-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-46774-0
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)