sg110454 dr jacqui gabb, the open university [email protected] professor brid featherstone, the...
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SG110454
Dr Jacqui Gabb, The Open University [email protected]
Professor Brid Featherstone, The Open University [email protected]
Dr Esther Dermott, University of Bristol [email protected]
Sandy Ruxton
Embodied absence
Using daily diaries in research on post-separation fathering
Post-separation fathering, in context
Headline stats…
• 130,000 +/- couples divorce every year (ONS 2011)
• Most couples who divorce have either one or two children (ONS 2012)
• Increasing number of policy initiatives and green papers on how to tackle the ‘problem’
• Temporariness of relationship commitments and ‘family breakdown’ have been linked to increased ‘fatherlessness’
• However… post-separation, many men are sustaining parent-child relationships and doing ‘intimate fatherhood’ in a variety of ways
Fragile Fathering: negotiating intimacy and risk in parenting practice
British Academy funded pilot project (SG110454), 2011-2013
The project is exploring:
•how non-resident fathers maintain physical and emotional contact with children
•paternal anxieties around the potentially significant factors of residence, legal status and contact
•the ways that paternal experience is shaped by ideas of risk in the context of social policies, legislation and regulation, and popular media debates
Research methods
• Methodological creativity has proven to be particularly useful in analysing family lives and everyday practices of intimacy (Gabb 2008)
• Methods deployed allow us to interrogate everyday sequences of fathering activities and what men ‘count’ as parenting
• Diaries (completed over one week) designed to shed light on the shape and routines of parent-child interactions
• Semi-structured interviews allowed for the opportunity to critically engage with ideas of good fathering including tensions and constraints in achieving their ideal
• Analysis will involve exploring the connections between emotions, experience and perception
Diaries: distinctive kinds of data
• Located accounts – completed in situ
• Everyday routines – dailyness
• Practices – lived experience
• Reflexivity – feelings and reflections
• Affective currency – private vocabularies
Sample
• Purposive sample - 11 participants
• Current contact arrangements: 4 50/50; 4 regular contact; 3 irregular/ very limited contact
• Length of separation, range 1-15 years: 3 1-2yrs; 2 3-5yrs; 3 6-10yrs; 3 11-15yrs
• No of children: 5 one child; 3 two children; 3 three children
• Children aged 3-16
• Fathers aged 32 – 64
• 3 currently unemployed – long-term and short-term
• Recruited through contact with a children’s centres, playgroups primary school and snowballing techniques
• All reside in the Oxford area
Sample info Name Age Situation Time separated Employment
statusNumber of children
NEIL 60s Co-parent, 50:50. Lives close. Divorced. Not re-partnered.
5 years
Professional Daughter (13)
IAN 40s Works largely overseas.When here, children stay 2/3 weekends consecutively. On-going court case over residency issues.
4 years Professional Daughter (9)Daughter (7)
DAVE 40s Separated twice, 1 child with each former partner. Now with 3rd partner. Regular contact with younger child.No contact with older child.
15 years (partner 1), 5 years (partner 2)
Skilled trade Son (14)Son (11)
JEFF 40s Regularly sees children. Children do not currently stay overnight with him. New partner.
1 year Professional Daughter (17)Son (14)Daughter (12)
CHRIS 60s 50:50 contact. Mother has had another child. Lives close by.
15 years Professional Daughter (16)
MARK 50s Seen child once in last year. Some phone/txt contact.Ex-partner and child live at distance. She has re-partnered.
9 years Unemployed Daughter (15)
CHARLIE 30s Supervised contact.Patchy contact. Children live 1hr away, by bus.
2 years Unemployed (DLA)
Son (9)Son (5)Daughter (4)
DAN 30s Regular contact.Phones daily. New partner.
1 year Professional Daughter (3)
Diaries: moments that count
Ian: The sun comes out and we all potter in the garden. I cut back the ash tree and the kids help pick up the leaves. I relish the time we have together pottering about like this.
Charlie: [Daughter’s] face lights up when she sees that I am there although she often says – in a happily satisfied way – that I’m ‘embarrassing’…
Dan: [Daughter] woke in the night as upset about not being with Mummy – ending up sleeping in my bed. Had ordered a pint of milk to come with the milkman which seems to have been the most exciting thing ever and was worth £1.20.
Diaries: rituals, routines, stability
Jeff: Friday is my evening to see the children…. After our usual meal of pizza & beans [daughter 1 ] got one of my guitars out & the Beatles song book & started playing some songs. I got my other guitar and joined in & the whole thing became a sing-along that lasted for quite a while. [Daughter 2] joined in, looking up the words on her phone…
Neil: Did food shopping during the day – we have a fairly repetitious menu of things that I know [daughter] likes… When we are together, we always eat the same food together at the same time, always have done – even when we have my friends of hers round.
Diaries: growing up and change
Neil: Made the early tea to wake [daughter] up. I still miss her the morning ritual of taking my tea along too and sitting on her bed reading to her as she woke up – a ritual from which I was banned about 9 months ago, very suddenly – gently but firmly. All part of her putting distance between us or rather her asserting her capability and independence…
[While she’s staying with friend] I know she won’t call or text unless she needs something – and I shouldn’t call her unless I need to. But I do think of her often/occasionally during the day, even though I know that on the whole I really don’t exist for her when she’s not with me.In the evening I begin slowly/gradually to focus on planning what I need to do for tomorrow when she will come home again.
Challenges and changes
Challenges and changes encountered:
•Children growing up – infancy, teenagers, young adults
•Housing – moving house, temporary housing, homelessness
•Employment – work-life balance
•Health – sickness, mental health, addiction
•Relationships – re-partnering, step-parenting
Diaries: loss and emptiness
Dave: I can’t help feeling pain for him. I love him so much it hurts. I do miss him. I see him every day. It’s still hard.
Chris: Now I’m back at home, to an empty house without [daughter]… that was always the worst thing, coming back to the house after having [daughter] with me for a weekend…
My evening was spent cleaning the house (well, parts of it), washing up the watching football on TV. I go into [daughter’s] bedroom, have a look round and miss her terribly.
Diaries: longing and sadness
Charlie: When I woke up I started thinking about no sound because my kids are not with me and I didn’t get out of bed for an hour. Later that day I went round to my sisters and my niece asked me about my little girl and all I wanted to do was cry then before I go to bed I always rub my tattoo with the kids names and say goodnight.
Mark: I have seen my daughter once in the last 10 months. Possibly strange and yes I do miss the contact but I don’t miss the sitting in McDonalds or false days – times – must do – etc. Believe this is detrimental…
I must think of my daughter at last 30 times a day.
SG110454
Dr Jacqui Gabb, The Open University [email protected]
Professor Brid Featherstone, The Open University [email protected]
Dr Esther Dermott, University of Bristol [email protected]
Sandy Ruxton
Embodied absence
Using daily diaries in research on post-separation fathering