Otherland: accounts of ordinary childless/freeness on Mumsnet

IF 1.1 3区社会学 Q3 FAMILY STUDIES

Families Relationships and Societies Pub Date : 2023-02-24 DOI:10.1332/204674321x16738753257034

M. Hall, Jenny van Hooff

引用次数: 0

Abstract

There has been an increase in the number of individuals who do not have children for various reasons, whether health, choice or circumstance, as well as those who have children later in the lifecourse. Concurrently, there is a moral panic surrounding the decreasing birth rate. A thematic analysis of posts on the parenting forum Mumsnet explores the significance of childless/freeness, in the context of wider relationships. We find that established categories of ‘mother’ and ‘childless/free’ are reductive, and are more porous than usually framed. We consider the impact of such categories on women’s friendships, finding that they undermine potential solidarities. Drawing on Scott (2019), we conceptualise the absence of children as significant, but not necessarily a deficit, highlighting the potential to understand childless/freeness in the everyday.

查看原文本刊更多论文

其他地方:Mumsnet上关于普通无子女/自由的描述

由于健康、选择或环境等各种原因而没有子女的人数有所增加，以及在生命过程中较晚生育子女的人数也有所增加。与此同时，出生率下降引发了道德恐慌。对育儿论坛Mumsnet上的帖子进行了主题分析，探讨了在更广泛的关系背景下，无子女/自由的重要性。我们发现“母亲”和“无子女/自由”的既定类别是简化的，并且比通常的框架更多孔。我们考虑了这些分类对女性友谊的影响，发现它们破坏了潜在的团结。根据斯科特(2019)的观点，我们将没有孩子的概念定义为重要的，但不一定是一种缺陷，强调了在日常生活中理解无子女/自由的潜力。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Families Relationships and Societies FAMILY STUDIES-

CiteScore

2.10

自引率

14.30%

发文量

期刊介绍： Families, Relationships and Societies (FRS) is a vibrant social science journal advancing scholarship and debates in the field of families and relationships. It explores family life, relationships and generational issues across the life course. Bringing together a range of social science perspectives, with a strong policy and practice focus, it is also strongly informed by sociological theory and the latest methodological approaches. The title ''Families, Relationships and Societies'' encompasses the fluidity, complexity and diversity of contemporary social and personal relationships and their need to be understood in the context of different societies and cultures. International and comprehensive in scope, FRS covers a range of theoretical, methodological and substantive issues, from large scale trends, processes of social change and social inequality to the intricacies of family practices. It welcomes scholarship based on theoretical, qualitative or quantitative analysis. High quality research and scholarship is accepted across a wide range of issues. Examples include family policy, changing relationships between personal life, work and employment, shifting meanings of parenting, issues of care and intimacy, the emergence of digital friendship, shifts in transnational sexual relationships, effects of globalising and individualising forces and the expansion of alternative ways of doing family. Encouraging methodological innovation, and seeking to present work on all stages of the life course, the journal welcomes explorations of relationships and families in all their different guises and across different societies.