Being a Step-parent before Becoming a Parent: a Case of “Trial” Parenting?
Vincent, Justine
Being a Step-parent before Becoming a Parent: a Case of “Trial” Parenting? - 2020.
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This article analyses, on the basis of biographical interviews with couples in blended families having had a child together, the impact of the experience of stepparenting for nulliparous individuals as they begin to found the new family and their projections concerning their future lives as parents. While the presence of the children of their partner leads them to take on parenting tasks, investment in the latter differs according to the situation and continues to be mediated by parents for whom step-parenting is an incomplete practical experience. It nevertheless stands as an opportunity for the couple to rationalise and explain their expectations as to the common child to come, the process sometimes involving a readjustment of the parenthood of the other. Step-parents, and step-mothers in particular, express a certain degree of ambivalence as to the former parental experience of their partner, which their own new role as a parent may reinforce. The uncertainty and fragmented nature of step-parenting roles are confronted by the biographical turning point constituted by the shift to the status of first-time parent, especially for women.
Being a Step-parent before Becoming a Parent: a Case of “Trial” Parenting? - 2020.
34
This article analyses, on the basis of biographical interviews with couples in blended families having had a child together, the impact of the experience of stepparenting for nulliparous individuals as they begin to found the new family and their projections concerning their future lives as parents. While the presence of the children of their partner leads them to take on parenting tasks, investment in the latter differs according to the situation and continues to be mediated by parents for whom step-parenting is an incomplete practical experience. It nevertheless stands as an opportunity for the couple to rationalise and explain their expectations as to the common child to come, the process sometimes involving a readjustment of the parenthood of the other. Step-parents, and step-mothers in particular, express a certain degree of ambivalence as to the former parental experience of their partner, which their own new role as a parent may reinforce. The uncertainty and fragmented nature of step-parenting roles are confronted by the biographical turning point constituted by the shift to the status of first-time parent, especially for women.
Réseaux sociaux