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Being a parent supposes an important number of language interactions with children and other social actors, in order to realize “parental functions”, such as everyday communication with children, transmission of knowledge, expression of emotions, communication with school and others. As for parents with migrant backgrounds, some realize their parenting functions while using only the language of the country of origin, whilst others use only the language of the host country, and some parents use both of these languages. The aim of this paper is to discuss which of these language practices enables parents to more fully realize their parental functions. The paper is based on a thematic analysis of non-directive narrative interviews of parents and children with migrant backgrounds in Strasbourg (France) and Frankfurt-am-Main (Germany). We come to the conclusion that “fuller” or “more partial” realization of parenting functions depends on parents’ subjective perceptions. For instance, in similar language use situations, some parents believed their language practices had allowed them to realize their parenting functions “more fully” while others considered that they had only been able to “partially” do so. This paper opens up a new avenue of reflexion while analysing the concept of “partial parenting” regarding the use of languages by migrant parents. We hope that it will be be of interest to migrant and also non-migrant parents and their children, as well as to researchers and professionals working with immigrant families and that it will contribute to raising awareness about the role of languages in parenting.

By using ethnographic data and family interviews from eight families in Taipei, Taiwan, this paper aims to delineate how multigenerational families implement parents’ child-rearing values, and how these strategies vary by social class. The primary focus is the child’s mother and her relationship with other family members. I ask the following question: How does a mother in a three-generation family implement her ideal parenting values for her child while being encumbered by the constraints of her parents-in-law? Additionally, how does this intergenerational dynamic vary with family socioeconomic status? To conceptualize this process in such a complex context, I argue that we must understand parenting behaviors as acts of “doing family” and “intensive mothering.”

From 2008 to 2009, I conducted a pilot survey in two public elementary schools to recruit the parents of sixth-grade students. All eight cases of multigenerational families in this paper were selected randomly after being clustered by the parent’s highest education level and family income levels. This paper utilized the mothers’ interviews as the major source to analyze, while the interviews of other family members served as supplementary data.

Two cases, Mrs Lee and Mrs Su’s stories, were selected here to illustrate two distinctive approaches toward childrearing in multi-generational families. Results indicate that white-collar mothers in Taiwan hold the value of concerted cultivation and usually picture the concept of intensive mothering as their ideal image of parenthood. Yet, such an ideal and more westernized child-rearing philosophy often leads to tensions at home, particularly between the mother and the mother-in-law. Meanwhile, blue-collar mothers tend to collaborate with grandparents in sharing childcare responsibilities, and oftentimes experience friction over child discipline in terms of doing homework and material consumption.

Via this analysis of three-generation families in Taiwan, we are able to witness the struggle of contemporary motherhood in East Asia. This paper foregrounds the negotiations that these mothers undertake in defining ideal parenting and the ideal family. On the one hand, these mothers must encounter the new parenting culture, given that the cultural ideal of concerted cultivation has become a popular ideology. On the other hand, by playing the role of daughter-in-law, they must negotiate within the conventional, patriarchal family norms.

Purpose – The transition into motherhood is a major life course event for most women, and is one that can be fraught with difficulties due to the uncertainty and instability which accompanies it. Previous research has explored what factors interplay within this transition with identity changes being considered a key attribute. By using assemblage theory, this study aims to undertake an innovative approach to conceptualising identity. Assemblage theory permitted an exploration of how an identity comes to be assembled and embodied through a mother’s relationality with the social world around her as opposed to merely exploring identity as a static entity of a fixed, organic whole as has predominantly been done previously. Assemblage theory is premised upon understanding processes of becoming as opposed to states of being and as such takes a machinic approach to understanding wholes. Rather than being organic totalities, they are conceptualised as being transient and fluid entities comprising an amalgamation of interchangeable components which collectively stabilise to make up the whole. At times of change, an individual’s ties to an identity undergo deterritorialisation, or weaken, as their sense of self and identity readjusts before then experiencing reterritorialisation once they (re)established their ties to a new identity or role. By conceptualising the mothers as assemblages in this manner, it became possible to understand how the women reconstructed their selves and identities through the situated practices and experiences in their everyday lives as they established ties to their new role as a mother.

Methodology/Approach – Results are presented from biographical narrative interviews with 10 mothers each at different stages in motherhood. The interviews focussed on inducing uninterrupted narratives detailing the lived experiences of these women as they transitioned into and across motherhood. These interviews highlighted key stages in the transition into motherhood where a woman’s identity and sense of self would become destabilised and reformulated as a result of changes in her everyday lived experiences and routines.

Findings – Transitioning into motherhood proved to be a multifaceted process that comprises numerous stages where the new mothers identities would become unstable and deterritorialise as they faced new routines in their everyday life as they became a mother and settled into the role. Four dominant themes emerged during data analysis; emotional turmoil, the reconstruction of relationships, getting comfortable with their baby as well as rediscovering the self. The women largely experienced emotional turmoil as their identities became deterritorialised and reported that the relationships they held with others around them often changed or broke down entirely. It was not until they became comfortable with their baby and their role as a mother that they were able to rediscover their ‘self’ beyond simply being a mother. Once they reached this stage in the transition their identity was able to reterritorialise, becoming more stable as a result.

Originality/Value – This study not only presents an innovative method for conceptualising identity but also demonstrates the value of assemblage theory for conceptualising identity formulation and capturing the fluid and emergent nature of such processes. It demonstrates how assemblage theory can be utilised to further understandings of the multifaceted and ongoing nature of life course transitions. This study sheds light on the potential for assemblage theory to be utilised across a range of sociological topics relating to identity formulation, with such studies having the potential to really broaden the scope of sociological understandings of identity formation and life course transitions.

Although birth-preparation classes are the most important institution for parents-to-be, they have largely been disregarded in sociological research. This empirical study aims to examine the role birth-preparation classes in Germany play in the extensive gendering during the transition to parenthood. We combine ethnography of birth-preparation classes with a content analysis of text material offered by professional associations of midwives. This empirical investigation aims to show that today’s birth-preparation classes highlight differences between men and women as well as between women without children and mothers, interconnect them with gendered attributions of child care and labor and legitimize these differences through naturalization. Thus, birth-preparation classes introduce a gendered distribution of labor as early as the antenatal phase and thereby function as institutions promoting a process of regendering and retraditionalization.

Turkish mothers’ interactions with medical authorities during pregnancy and childbirth have developed in a context of risk discourses produced by biomedical experts with surveillance justified by these discourses. Giving meaning to pregnancy and childbirth through the search for the reduction of risks is a reflexive part of Turkish mothers’ everyday life.

This research paper aims to discuss a study examining how pregnancy and childbirth are socially constructed, how increased medicalization is experienced by Turkish mothers, and how they assign meaning to pregnancy and childbirth. A phenomenological research was designed using depth interviews with 10 Turkish mothers with children aged 0–6 years, living in Istanbul who had high education and welfare levels.

The findings shed light on Turkish mothers’ subjective experiences and how medicine as a profession shapes these experiences. With the medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth, how the trust toward the experts, the knowledge of preparation for maternity in an appropriate and responsible manner have become functional for Turkish mothers to create a sense of ontological security are examined.

The transition to motherhood has been studied extensively, but primarily among participants in homogenous race/ethnicity relationships. The aim of the current study was to explore the lived experiences of a diverse group of women in biracial and monoracial relationships experiencing the transition to motherhood (e.g., biracial or monoracial motherhood). Informed by the symbolic interaction framework, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted to investigate the expectations and experiences of first-time motherhood on a sample of 12 U.S. women. Their diverse stories contained multiple themes including an overarching theme of racial/ethnic differences in appropriate infant care, which surfaces during engagement in family and social support interactions. This analysis emphasizes the need for more diverse portrayals of motherhood. We discuss our findings in light of the literature and implications for future research and practice.

The objective of this study was to determine whether an association between coparenting trajectories and parental commitment exists five years after the birth of focal children. Situated in commitment theory, the study used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to estimate latent growth curve models to test the relationship between coparenting trajectories and commitment theory. Results show that the coparenting trajectory decreased over the four-year period, but reports remained high. Mothers who report high levels of coparenting also report being committed to the biological father, albeit commitment is low. This finding shows that parents may be dedicated to their children and constrained by the parental dyad. These findings support the hypothesis that children are constraining the parental dyad. Further, coparenting among unmarried, cohabiting parents influence parental relationships over time–substantiating the argument that a “new package deal” exists.

Social implications – If parents feel constrained to each other due to shared children, policies directed at coparenting, rather than marriage incentives and promotion, could help parents learn to negotiate their parental duties with each other to ensure that both parents are vested in their children’s lives.

At the nexus of mindfulness and parenting lies the fusion of two influential yet contradictory epistemologies, the Eastern contemplative practices with the Western parenting research. Mindful parenting is a parenting style, which has grown in popularity in recent times to support parents during pregnancy, birth and beyond. The current study is the third stage of a mixed methods study on mindful parenting. The first stage of the study design conducted a systematic review of mindful parenting. The second stage summarized the change processes identified in the systematic review. The aim of this pilot study is to clarify four clinicians’ perceptions of cognitive change processes associated with mindful parenting, particularly how theory is translated to practice. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to analyze semi-structured interviews. The six higher-order change processes were conceptualized as an anchor. Cognitive processes included intention, attention, attitude, and reflective functioning. Given its methodological limitations, the next future work needs is to survey a large sample of both clinicians and parents to verify the model. This paper makes an important contribution to the development of a more comprehensive theoretical model of mindful parenting.

Depressive symptoms are higher among racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. Many studies have evidenced associations between school disconnectedness and depressive symptoms by race and ethnicity in adolescence (Joyce & Early, 2014; Walsemann, Bell, & Maitra, 2011). Given that adolescents spend most of their time at home when they are not at school (Larson & Richards, 2001), it is important to understand how mother-child relationships may moderate school disconnectedness, and how mother–child relationships may serve as a protective buffer for depressive symptoms in the transition to adulthood. I use data from Waves II and III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) from 1995 to 2002 (n = 9,766) and OLS regression analysis to examine how school disconnectedness in adolescence is associated with depressive symptoms in the transition to adulthood, and how mother–child relationships in adolescence moderate these associations in the United States. I examine differences in these relationships across racial and ethnic groups. I find that school disconnectedness in adolescence is associated with increased depressive symptoms in the transition to adulthood, and that maternal warmth and communication moderates the association between school disconnectedness and depressive symptoms. Maternal relationship quality in adolescence serves as an important protective factor for mental health in the transition to adulthood.

Throughout human history and around the world, co-sleeping was the context for human evolutionary development. Currently, most of the world’s peoples continue to practice co-sleeping with infants, but there is increasing pressure on families in the West not to co-sleep. Research from anthropology, family studies, medicine, pediatrics, psychology, and public health is reviewed through the lens of a developmental theory to place co-sleeping within a developmental, theoretical context for understanding it. Viewing co-sleeping as a family choice and a normative, human developmental context changes how experts may provide advice and support to families choosing co-sleeping, especially in families making the transition to parenthood. During this transition, many decisions are made by parents “intuitively” (Ball, Hooker, & Kelly, 1999), making understanding the developmental consequences of some of those choices even more important. In Western culture, families are making “intuitive” decisions that research has shown to be beneficial, but families are not receiving complete messages about benefits and risks of co-sleeping. Co-sleeping can be an important choice for families as they make the life-changing transition to parenthood, if individualized messages about safe infant sleep practices (directed toward their individual family circumstances) are shared with them.