Abstract
AbstractResearch on post-divorce families has neglected the expressive or emotional aspects that are key elements of post-divorce everyday family practices. This chapter examines how the emotional experience of divorce is shaped by the social, economic, cultural, and legal context in which it occurs. Drawing on qualitative longitudinal data from separated and divorced parents in Ireland, the chapter focuses on the emotion of fear and the way in which fear is constructed through the legal system. The chapter reveals how feelings of fear are shaped by the legal and policy context of a “pro-contact culture”, shared parenting, private regulation, and the welfare principle. The object of fear includes the reduction or loss of fathering or a mother’s loss of power over parenting. The cause of fear lies in the structural inequalities of power that point to the fearing subject’s vulnerability. Parents manage their fear by developing new ways of parenting. I argue that fear motivates actions and “shared parenting”.
Highlights
Much of the research on divorce and personal relationships has overlooked the role of emotions
Due to the highly selective social class and ethnic composition of the sample, I was unable to explore the relationship between social class, ethnicity, shared parenting, and emotional experience
The parents whose experiences were described in this chapter were deeply fearful of losing their role in the family, and they were deeply insecure about the future of their personal relationships and financial well-being
Summary
Much of the research on divorce and personal relationships has overlooked the role of emotions. This chapter investigates the lived experience and social relational dimension of fear, as experienced by a sample of separated and divorced parents. What does it take to succeed at shared parenting, and how should each parent involved in such an arrangement behave? How do parents manage the transition to post- divorce family life when the legal certainties of rights and responsibilities do not address the uncertainties surrounding their emotional lives? This chapter unpacks how a sample of divorced mothers and fathers who engage in a joint parenting arrangement, but who have little communication with the other parent, experience and manage their feelings of fear. A special focus of this analysis is on the legal framework, and how it shapes shared parenting as well as the experience of fear.
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