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Paths to Parenthood

Emotions on the Journey through Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Early Parenting

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  • © 2018

Overview

Editors:
  1. Renata Kokanović

    1. Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

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  2. Paula A. Michaels

    1. School of Philosophical, Historical, and International Studies, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Clayton, Australia

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  3. Kate Johnston-Ataata

    1. Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

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  • Draws together researchers from sociology, history, psychiatry, cultural studies, and clinical practice, intervening in unique ways in the scholarly conversation on the emotional experience of becoming a parent
  • Offers an uncommonly cohesive look at topics that are rarely explored collectively and from an interdisciplinary perspective
  • Bridges existing scholarship by exploring transition from pregnancy to parenthood as a process
  • Distinctive in that each author draws on a shared set of narrative interviews with a diverse group of new parents

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Table of contents (10 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiii
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  2. The Complex and Contradictory Emotional Paths to Parenthood

    • Paula A. Michaels, Renata Kokanović
    Pages 1-17

  3. Journeys into Pregnancy and Childbirth

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 19-19
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    2. Postnatural Families: Refiguring Intimacy Through Assisted Reproduction

      • Camille Nurka
      Pages 21-43

    3. Embodying Pregnancy and Self-Surveillance

      • Kate Cregan
      Pages 45-67

    4. Pain and Suffering in Labour and Birth

      • Paula A. Michaels
      Pages 69-92

  4. Journeys into Early Parenthood

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 93-93
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    2. Same-Sex Attracted Parents’ Emotional Transitions to Parenthood

      • Ruth McNair, Deborah Dempsey
      Pages 95-118

    3. The Turbulent Emotions of Early Parenthood

      • Leah Williams Veazey
      Pages 119-143

    4. ‘What Have I Done?’: An Exploration of the Ambivalent, Unimaginable Emotions of New Motherhood

      • Kate Huppatz
      Pages 145-164

    5. Narrating and Disrupting Postnatal Depression

      • Meredith Stone, Renata Kokanović
      Pages 165-186

    6. ‘One of the Most Vulnerable Times in Your Life’: Expectations and Emotional Experiences of Support in the Early Postnatal Period

      • Kate Johnston-Ataata, Renata Kokanović, Paula A. Michaels
      Pages 187-214

    7. Labour After Labour: Negotiating Caring for Children and Paid Work

      • Charlotte Greenhalgh
      Pages 215-232

  5. Back Matter

    Pages 233-254
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Keywords

About this book

This interdisciplinary book explores the affective dimensions of becoming a parent, traversing the life-cycle journey of pregnancy, childbirth, and early parenting. Bringing together researchers from sociology, history, feminist studies, cultural studies, general medicine, and psychiatry, Paths to Parenthood analyses rich narratives that represent a diverse cross-section of parents, including migrants, same-sex couples, and single parents.

Reviews

“Becoming a parent changes lives in all sorts of ways and the chapters in this collection sensitively chart experiences of undertaking mothering and fathering in a range of contexts…Across the chapters experiences from wanting a baby, through birth to early parenting and “balancing” caring demands with paid work, are examined. This approach captures and collectively crystalizes the ambivalence, which continues to pattern experiences of parenthood and especially motherhood. Experiences of pain and joy, regrets, guilt and love are narrated: even so, this book is challenging and honest, rather than depressing. Collectively the chapters pose fundamental questions for societies about how parenthood is assumed and configured and how parents are supported. This fascinating book provides a unique contribution to parenthood and feminist scholarship and is a must read for anyone interested in real life experiences of motherhood, fatherhood and the doing of modern family lives.” (Professor Tina Miller, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK)

“This edited collection is important reading. Based on interviews with new parents, the stories it tells belie idealised images of early parenthood. Interviewees report attempts to accommodate a new identity within changing relationships with partners, wider families and friends. Paths to Parenthood makes a significant contribution to contemporary social science and health care.” (Dr. Kerreen Reiger, author of Our Bodies, Our Babies: The Forgotten Women’s Movement)

Editors and Affiliations

  • Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

    Renata Kokanović, Kate Johnston-Ataata

  • School of Philosophical, Historical, and International Studies, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Clayton, Australia

    Paula A. Michaels

About the editors

Renata Kokanović is Professor of Medical Sociology and Vice Chancellor's Senior Research Fellow at RMIT University, Melbourne,Melbourne, and Adjunct Professor, Monash Public Health and Preventative Medicine, Monash University. She works at the intersection of the critical social sciences, humanities, psychiatry, cultural studies, and social theory. Her current research is focused on the phenomenology of psychosis and borderline personality disorder, and on emotional responses to trauma. Professor Kokanović is Director of Healthtalk Australia, a digital repository of narrative accounts of health and illness experiences in Australia, and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Mental Health.


Paula A. Michaels is Associate Professor of History at Monash University. She is the author of two prize-winning books: Lamaze: An International History (2014) and Curative Powers: Medicine and Empire in Stalin’s Central Asia (2003). Focusing on the intersection of medical and political history, her work has been supported by the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia,  the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council for Learned Societies, and the Social Science Research Council.


Kate Johnston-Ataata (Editorial Associate) is a Research Fellow in Sociology at RMIT University, Healthtalk Australia Coordinator, and was lead researcher on the project underpinning this book. Dr Johnston-Ataata’s research interests include the relational context of individual health and illness experiences, women’s health, and the social, cultural and emotional dimensions of life-course transitions in late modernity.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Paths to Parenthood

  • Book Subtitle: Emotions on the Journey through Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Early Parenting

  • Editors: Renata Kokanović, Paula A. Michaels, Kate Johnston-Ataata

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0143-8

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Singapore

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-13-0142-1Published: 14 September 2018

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-981-13-4339-1Published: 29 December 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-981-13-0143-8Published: 21 August 2018

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XIII, 254

  • Topics: Medical Sociology, Gender Studies, Family, Sociology of Family, Youth and Aging, Anthropology

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