COMPOSITE REPORT ON CATEGORY III:

LONE PARENTS AS PROTAGONISTS OF FAMILY AND

SOCIAL CHANGE.

Elisabet Tejero and Laura Torrabadella.

November 1997.

Index:

Introduction

1. Defining the social field of lone parents: family and gender relationships.

2. Introducing lone parents from a biographical perspective.

2.1.Background elements or the meaning and risk in the family of origin.

2.2.Meaning and risk of engaging to partner/marital relationships.

2.3.Experience of rupture as an experience of separation from partner/marital relationships: lone parenthood as a response.

2.4.Experience of (lone) parenting.

3. Typologising in the field of family and gender power structures.

3.1. Type trapped in stigmatising patriarchal structures and relationships.

3.2. Type constituted by the adoption of lone motherhood as a liberating biographical response to abusive family and gender relationships.

4.Conclusions: lone parents as agents of social change

Bibliography

Introduction.

This is the third composite report derived from the SOSTRIS (Social Strategies in Risk Societies) project, included in the IV TSER Programme of the European Union on social exclusion and integration processes. More specifically the aim of the SOSTRIS project is to explore the processes of social transformation through biographical strategies within the framework of seven European countries (Great Britain, Germany, France, Greece, Sweden, Italy and Spain). Whereas unemployed graduates and early retired have been the previous categories analysed, this document focuses on the category of lone parents.

The title of this report, ‘Lone parents as protagonists of family and social change’, is a product of the reflection on how biographical processes can illuminate hypotheses about social change in our risk societies. More specifically, the report attempts to offer a composite view of the most relevant aspects and findings contained in the different national reports on lone parents. Our intention has been to produce a case-centred report, which means, following the logic of the biographical method. We have tried not to lose the empirical ground (the cases) in order to develop the work of comparison, which is based on obtaining a general overview of the most relevant commonalties and differences among the cases. The interplay between the lived life and the told life of the interviewees has been our criterion to carrying out this comparison exercise.

This report is divided into the four following sections: firstly, a section contextualising lone parenthood in the social field of family and gender relationships; next, a journey through those biographical-stages which we consider most decisive for comparing the biographical trajectories of our interviewees, namely the background elements of the family of origin, the moment of engaging in partner/marital relationships, the experience of rupture and finally the experience of lone parenting. This procedure has enabled us to build a typology of lone parents’ strategies in the field of family and gender power relationships. The last section contains some reflections on the social impact of lone parenthood in the family and social structure from a perspective of risk in changing social contexts.

1. Defining the social field of lone parents: family and gender relationships.

This category places us again in the context of de-institutionalisation or de-standardisation of life courses where individuals are expected or pushed to re-orient and re-invent their lives in order to cope with the challenges of social structures in transformation. But in contrast to the previous categories in which the labour market is in the foreground in the interplay between exclusion and integration processes, in this category family and gender structures - including partnership/marital, parental and kin relationships - are the ones in transformation. Thus, by considering family and gender relations as the social field when analysing lone parents' trajectories and strategies, we are also reflecting the perception of most of our interviewees, who place their own lone parenthood within this particular field. A specific ethnic context, migration background, neighbourhood and community norms or working-class origins are co-constituting background elements of the social field of our cases. Nevertheless, by pointing out that becoming a lone parent takes place in the field of family and gender relations we are stressing the most outstanding social space in which to locate our biographical cases. A first finding can be derived from this, since it opposes and increases the complexity of the public and political discourse that places lone parents in the field of risk and exclusion[1].

Thus, some reports show from the analysis of the interviews how social policies, political and legal re-arrangements - through welfare policies, divorce legislation, facilitating or denying the possibility of abortion and use of contraceptive methods, offering or preventing infrastructures for lone parents - but also market policies - encouraging or impeding access of lone mothers to the labour market and therefore fostering lesser or greater dependence on private and/or public patriarchy (Walby, 1990) - co-structure the transformation of the family and the gender order, and thereby bear great responsibility in the definition and common understanding of the category of lone parents as a social group. Thestrategy of the welfare state in co-structuring and co-defining the "risk" associated with our category of lone parents, and the subsequent stigmatisation that, mainly, with which lone mothers have to "pay" for their emancipation from the traditional family pattern, is clearly described in the French report. In this sense, fear of the traditional family breakdown or a family dystrophy may explain the recent political and social interest in lone parenthood.

It is not the aim of this report, (nor it is of the SOSTRIS project), to analyse lone parenthood in order to verify or place our findings within the pre-existing theories of sociology of the family, but to be able to develop interesting hypotheses deriving from our work with the interviews. However, we think it is essential to provide a theoretical framework in order to briefly clarify what ourunderstanding about family and gender relations is, when we refer to them throughout this report.

We conceptualise the "family" from a dynamic and strategic perspective, in the sense that family is notonly to be understood as an institution, (which would correspond to a more functionalist and interactionist view[2]), but also a mechanism through which the State operates, (a more Foucaultian view[3]), and a social space of conflict rather than an homogeneous entity lacking different interests at its core. Consequently, we take into account the mechanisms of patriarchal and "adultocratic" relationships within the family sphere as constituting elements of family relationships. Furthermore, these family relationships do not refer strictly to nuclear family schemes, but incorporate other kin relationships. By integrating the power relations and gender socialisation strategies in our analysis, and by broadening the analytical scope of kin, we shall be able to better understand the biographical responses presented in this report, and through them the transformation of family structures and de-standardisation processes in contemporary societies.

As derived from the evidence through the analysis of our interviews it is necessary to question the family as the "obligatory" locus of authenticity, affection and love...Certainly, there is something distinctive about family and kin relationships which makes them different from all other relationships, and this distinctive aspect includes, among other elements, a strong emotional bonding or ties of love and affection. However, violence, rational and strategic thinking emerge as constituting aspects of family life as well. We do not pretend either to present the existence of both of these elements as a contradiction, or to participate in the debate on the distinctive nature of family and kin relationships. However, it could be useful to draw attention to some fundamental aspects which specifically belong to family dynamics and may help us to understand the life trajectories of our lone parents from a biographical perspective[4].

Firstly, we stress theimportance of emotional ties within the history of relationships in which they are embedded. By this we recognise the importance of childhood experiences, but argue at the same time that relationships are not fixed in childhood, never to be altered, but do have an on-going history in which the past is modified, even if it can never be fully abandoned. Secondly, a distinctive morality marks the boundaries between family/kin and other social relationships, but here again it is a morality which is not a fixed set of rules, but it is socially constructed and therefore something the power of which is reduced when it stops giving meaning and shape to the social world of individuals. Finally, this leads us to introduce the third element which help us to understand the field in which we are located, and this is the importance of negotiation in family/kin relationships for continually recreating and sustaining a sense of social identity. More specifically we draw attention to the gender negotiation which takes place in the family domain, since it constitutes the most sensitive point of our present category. As pointed out in the Swedish report "this category touches the private sphere at its most tender spot". Nevertheless, this does not prevent us from finding out patterns of regularities, (of abuse, a heritage over more than one generation, for instance), which are structuring individuals' lives and have not only to do with individual qualities, but with much broader structures in different social and cultural contexts. In this sense privacy seems not to be a moral gain per se. Law, public policies, demographic and economic structures create the conditions under which lone parents make their own lives, but the shape which lone parents' life trajectories take is a product of their own actions, especially the way in which they have developed relationships over time.

2. Introducing lone parents from a biographical perspective.

One outstanding feature with regards to “lone parents” is its completely heterogeneous nature. The wide-embracing term of “lone parents” includes widows, divorced and separated single mothers, depending on the route that has lead to the present “status” of lone parent. Nevertheless, a regular pattern among our lone parents can be found in the fact that they face four specific biographical stages, which other individuals do not share.

Lone parenthood is the outcome of a biographical process which begins with one family status and ends up with a different one - the process of rupture has taken place. The fact that lone parenthood for the majority of people is not planned, but an unexpected event in their lives, is a specificity of this category. This last aspect leads us to make the hypothesis of a major re-orientation both in the life trajectory of lone parents as individuals and within the family organisation.

Another constituting element of the category is parenthood itself. We want to explore whether and to what extent parenthood changes after the rupture has taken place. These changes are related to new forms of conceiving the material, symbolic and emotional aspects of the everyday life of lone parents, among which the relationship with their children constitutes a key aspect. In the case of lone mothers, which is the vast majority of lone parents in all countries, the re-orientation of their life trajectory implies a re-definition of themselves as providers and wage earners rather than as dependants of male breadwinners. This redefinition implies an – involuntary - plurality of roles, of having to combine family and domestic work, employment in the labour market, of bearing the responsibility of single motherhood without the support of the male partner.

However, in order to grasp the dynamics and processes of the interviewees’ life trajectories as a whole, we must incorporate the subjects’ previous life-stages before the rupture of the family. We should turn first to the family of origin of our subjects because, through its socialisation process, it provides resources and patterns which, as we will see, are essential - in one direction or the other - for understanding lone parents' strategies.

Finally we should turn to the biographical moment of engaging in partner relationships, since the way in which the initial contract with the partner has been made will play an important part in lone parents' strategies.

The objective of this proceeding is to explore the meaning of each of these life-stages for individuals, what are the values of family and partnership relations in the construction of their identities, how deeply the traditional nuclear pattern is rooted in their minds and actions, and to what extent they question this pattern through different strategies at different biographical moments. A substantial aspect of this way of proceeding is the importance given to the temporal perspective or the focus on the interplay between the past, the present and the future dimension in the life-trajectories of our interviewees.

2.1. Background elements or the meaning and risk of the family of origin.

We shall underline here the most outstanding elements related to the family background of our interviewees crucial[5] for understanding both the establishment and rupture of partner relationships and their experience of (lone) parenthood.

The existence of unstable, (from difficult to traumatic), family backgrounds seems to be a recurring pattern in the interviewees' lives[6]. As most of the projects show, this includes experiences of mainly father's, (but also mother's), absence or loss through death or abandonment, (Bellmer-Voss, Janette, Carolina, Irene, Titina), previous ruptures or separations between parents and grandparents, (Bellmer-Voss, Janette, Karin, Siv, Urban), witnessing or suffering violence, (Janette, Carolina, Irene, Titina, Karin), and deprivation, (Irene, Carolina, Teresa, Núria) which are accompanied by, or leading to, an atmosphere of secrecy, illegitimacy and taboo, (Bellmer-Voss), of unclarified relations with the father, (Janette, Gabriela), experiences of stigma and bad reputation, (Teresa, Titina, Irene), and/or stifling and authoritarian family relationships, (Gabriela, Patricia, Sara). Underlying these experiences we find, as stated in the Greek report, a fundamental lack of communication between our interviewees and their parents, and - regardless of the father's absence or presence in the family background - a patriarchal form of family organisation.

The absence of a caring and loving parent - generally fathers - is in most cases substituted by other family members - generally grandmothers or sisters, (Bellmer-Voss, Gabriela, Karin, Irene, Teresa, Siv, Eleni) with whom our interviewees can identify and develop positive emotional links and, if necessary, develop parental roles towards siblings, (Gabriela), and even substituting the mother's role, (Titina). The existence of a strong shelter, constituted by the extended family or kin, is an important resource which helps to compensate for the lack of stability in the nuclear family, (Karin). In other cases, (Carolina, Núria), there is a radical lack of a compensating emotional reference. In these cases we find a presentation of the interviewees' early years as having an "overburdened" or "non- childhood", suffering poverty at school and during childhood, (Carolina, Teresa, Titina, Irene).

Against this conflictive background the generalised attitude regarding the evaluation of their childhood experiences consists of not blaming, but justifying their parents role in the misfortunes suffered. On the contrary, an idealisation of the absent parent – father or the grandparents - is often to be found in the argumentation of the interviewees, (shown clearly in Teresa's and Irene's cases). Nevertheless, this fact does not prevent some of them from representing lone parenthood as deriving from a failure of the relationships between the parents, (as shown in Janette’s case), or blaming the mother's desertion for her own children's desertion, (Irene).

We shall now explore how our interviewees perceive the influence of their family background in their own life-trajectories.

2.2. Meaning and risk of engaging in partner/marital relationships.

First it is important to explore under which conditions and assumptions our interviewees have engaged in partner relationships. Regarding the background elements from – mainly - the life history of the interviewees which have been presented in the former section, we could hypothesise that establishing partnership or marital relations for our interviewees could be the "story of failure in the making". That is, conflictive relationships seem to be inscribed when marrying. However, as we will see, family background elements do play a very complex role in the trajectories of our lone parents. In this section we will pay more attention to the elements of the life story seen through the self-presentation of our interviewees, in order to evaluate the weight of former biographical experiences in their pattern of orientation and action.

When exploring the meaning of the “own-partnership” project among our interviewees all the projects refer to what we believe it is a significant finding for this category, namely the persisting centrality of nuclear family imagery or standard family patterns of orientation among our interviewees when engaging in partnership and marital relationships. They search for conformity and stability as a way of distancing themselves from the experience of instability and inequality experienced by their parents. In other words, a general longing for stability or some emotional ground for living may result from the non-stable context lived through themselves as children of lone parents. "Strong normative aspirations", (see Janette's case by seeking a traditional nuclear family model), a "search for normality", (Bellmer-Voss), "a down-to-earth life", (Siv), a search for a "good nuclear family", which means following the mother's model but doing it better, (Karin), "a familist pattern of orientation", (Carolina), "searching for a decent husband and a normal family", (Irene), are some of the expressions used by our interviewees or researchers when analysing this specific life-stage of the interviewees’ lives. Such normative aspirations may include following the moral norms of sexual purity and community rules, (as described in the Greek and French reports), thus showing their longing for approval and integration in the family and in the community, or responding to those cultural expectations.