#GentleParenting: Critiquing the "fifth shift" of intensive mothering in the "pandemic afterlives".

Abstract

#GentleParenting presents a novel trend in networked parenting communities. Its rise correlates with the COVID-19 pandemic, during which parents' access to medical professionals decreased significantly. In this vacuum, a group of lay parenting experts arose and continues to gain influence. Through a mixed-method study that combines critical discourse analysis and contextual visual discourse analysis, this article analyzes a dataset and sample of posts compiled from TikTok and Instagram. My findings suggest that an epochal shift in parenting culture is taking place, involving a break with some of the fundamental tenets of the previously dominant parenting trend of intensive mothering. Informed by feminist critiques, my analysis of #GentleParenting explicates a concept I call the "fifth shift" to describe the additional burdens involved in online parenting. While #GentleParenting can be understood as positive in its efforts to allow parents to regain control over childrearing, it also poses some challenges, including its propagation of wealthy, White feminist presentations in digital networks, as well as its insistence on adding additional parenting labor. While empathy is resonant in #GentleParenting via satire, questions remain regarding the political effects of this community.