1. Week 7 Beyond the Nuclear Family: Can parenting ‘be’ what parenting ‘is’? Caroline Wright Transformations: Gender, Reproduction, and Contemporary Society

2. What patterns can you identify here?

4. See: http://www.theguardi an.com/lifeandstyle/2 013/sep/14/lesbians- needed-guidebook-on- parenting and: http://www.wearefam ilymagazine.co.uk/

5. Unpacking the Family Not just descriptive, ie. not just describing something that exists but also Prescriptive; it prescribes a particular model of social organisation Produces empirical families Nuclear - the centre, the basis, the smallest part Nuclear Family as an instrument of social regulation: a norm used to identify who conforms, belongs, and who doesn’t an institution that has shaped opportunities (eg. marriage bar for women) Need to recognise how concepts operate socially, as well as how far they reflect empirical reality Concept Reality

6. Linking with work so far Unpacking love and intimacy (involves work crucial to maintenance of economy) Unpacking sense of family as private and individual (shaped by social pressure, state policy issue) Unpacking sense of safety and nurture (can reproduce inequalities, be a site of violence) Unpacking what counts as family, and effects of some people not being represented and recognised Unpacking what it means to parent or be parented in a form decried by some commentators as second rate or damaging? Unpacking personal and political work that’s done by diverse families in struggle for recognition Unpacking resources diverse families offer to all families

7. Can parenting be what parenting is?

8. Lone Motherhood Lone = parenting without resident male partner Stereotypes abound but diversity of forms of lone motherhood Long history of stigmatisation of lone mothers in UK

9. Attitudes Towards Lone Motherhood http://bobnational.net/programme.php?archive=68330&view=flash_player

10. Stigma and Coercion Between 1950s and 1980s unmarried women in UK forced to give up their babies for adoption 2010, a group of these women set up the ‘Movement for an Adoption Apology’ Mission Statement of MAA ‘We seek recognition and acknowledgement of the pain and grief suffered by many birth parents and their children because of the unethical adoption practices of the past. (…) For many years, until at least the 1980s, pregnancy outside marriage was severely frowned upon, and frequently young women who found themselves in this situation were given little choice but to give in to the strong pressures which were exerted on them by the authorities to have their babies adopted. They were not given information about the welfare services, including housing and financial help, which were available at the time. There was no question of these women being found to be unfit mothers; they were simply prevented from becoming mothers at all. This experience so traumatised many of these women that they have suffered years of mental and/or physical ill health ever since, and many were unable to have more children.’

11. Philomena: based on a true story Philomena Lee had a son as an unmarried woman at Roscrea convent, forced to sign away parental rights She cared for him while working as unpaid labour in the convent laundry, until he was adopted aged 3 by couple from US Film is about her search for him, with the help of the journalist Martin Sixsmith See also The Magdalene Sisters (2002)

12. Contemporary Lone Motherhood Routes “Problems” Separation, Divorce, Death Choice Donor Sperm Adoption/fostering Societal: engenders criminality in boys Economic: is a drain to the welfare state Moral Panics Cohen: ‘[a] condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests’ (1972)

13. Responses to Moral Panic ‘Family Values’ LobbyLeft/Feminist Analyses Lone motherhood reproduces underclass Underclass: marxist concept, those at bottom of class hierarchy Now: undesirable, degenerate, undeserving poor Need to reconstitute the nuclear family Need to penalise lone motherhood Paradox: New-right privileges agency but seeks to deny women choice in parenting Bea Campbell: lone mothers are very frugal not feckless (Goliath, 1993) They are highly efficient, stretching meagre resources Reproduce children at cheapest possible cost Need to recognise their achievements and give them more resources

14. New Single Mothers (Bock, 2000) Bock’s research participants: well-educated career women in their 30s and early 40s who decided to have children as single mothers, to guarantee they do not miss out on motherhood Discursive strategies deployed to legitimate their situation, and demonstrate that they are ‘proper’ mothers: Would have preferred a two parent model The experience that comes with age is valuable Responsible job equals responsible mother Emotionally mature Economic means to support a child Don’t join with other lone mothers but distance themselves from them Do boundary work to defend themselves from stigma and seek entry into ‘charmed circle’ of motherhood (from Rubin, 1993 on sexuality)

15. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Parents

16. Routes “Problems” Previous heterosexual parenting Joint adoption (since Nov 2002), 6% of adoptions in England in year ending March 2013 Fostering Time limited cooperation with sperm donor; egg donor and/or surrogate mother Long-term cooperation with gay couple of opposite sex Long-term cooperation with straight man or woman Campion (1995) identifies and ‘debunks’ arguments that LGBT parents are ‘unfit’ on grounds that: Not natural Children at risk of: sexual abuse confusion about their sexuality not developing secure gender identities being corrupted stigma and victimization LGBT Parenting

17. Sexuality and Parenting Tasker, Fiona (2005) ‘Lesbian Mothers, Gay Fathers, and Their Children: A Review’, Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, vol. 26, no. 3, pp. 224-240 ‘Findings from research suggest that children with lesbian or gay parents are comparable with children with heterosexual parents on key psycho- social developmental outcomes. In many ways, children of lesbian or gay parents have similar experiences of family life compared with children in heterosexual families’ (p. 224).

18. Coming out as lesbian to families of origin Coming out as lesbian parents to families of origin, a further layer of ‘outness’ Acceptance and support vs. disapproval, disgust and (initial) cutting off Coming out as grandparents/aunts/uncles to child of lesbian parents Particular challenge for families of origin of non-genetic mothers (who were not pregnant) Practices of display central to claiming/not claiming kin relationships with couple and children Knitting baby clothes Sending cards, presents, visiting new baby Photos (private or public, acknowledging child only or whole family) Concept of display work coined by Finch following Morgan’s concept of ‘doing families’ Displaying Queer Families (Almack)

19. Focus group research with 21 gay fathers, 19 parenting as gay couple, MC, mainly white, 80% had declared religious identity Interesting example of data analysis, quotes to cultural themes to theory Experienced Heterosexist Gender Role Strain: how could they ever be gay and parents?; where was Mum, how could men be primary care-givers?; how could they give up their breadwinner role? Degendering Parenting: created hybrid, degendered parent role with 2 generalists rather than 1 specialist in care (female) & 1 in earning (male) Reworking masculinity to include nurture and emotional expression ‘Parental responsibilities… tended to be determined through democratic, mutual decision-making… rather than through an “anatomocracy” based on predetermined gender roles’ (2005, p. 45). Redefining family as comprising emotional attachments, love and commitment, not genetic links Work to create supportive environments, improve tolerance, as role models, challenge homophobia Degendering Parenthood (Shacher et al)

20. Charlie Condou wrote weekly Guardian column (‘The Three of Us’) To be a role model: positive example of gay family life ‘Fear that I would never be a father gnawed at me for years, making my coming out and path to self-acceptance so much harder than it needed to be’ To answer critics who call queer families ‘unnatural’ and worse ‘the reality of our day-to-day life is actually pretty ordinary… Potty training is the same whether you're gay or straight, heterosexual parents are no better at surviving on two hours' sleep…’ Very ordinariness prompted column end ‘A column about my daughter's move to a big-girl bed, or my son's first rusk just isn't interesting enough. There are only so many ways I can say ‘this is my family, look how normal it is’, and I think I've made that point. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jul/14/charlie-condou-gay-dad-farewell Normalising Gay Parenthood

21. Resources http://www.stonewall.org.uk/at_home/parenting/def ault.asp http://www.prideangel.com/ http://www.dcnetwork.org/ https://www.newfamilysocial.org.uk/ http://www.gingerbread.org.uk/ http://www.alternativeparenting.co.uk/exhibitors- 2014.html

22. Conclusions There are many ‘brave new families’ (Stacey) Family values lobby seeks to define them as lesser or inferior at best, unlawful or damaging to society at worst Support and lobbying groups are fighting back, to ensure that parenting can ‘be’ what parenting ‘is’ Diverse parenting opens up definitions of family and challenges conventional ways of dividing up parenting roles Brave new families still face varying degrees of stigma from families of origin as well as wider society Sociology contributes to helping to transform society towards less stigmatisation of people and greater understanding of their experiences