Gender-open grandparenting: an exploratory study

Abstract

ABSTRACT More and more aging adults are becoming grandparents in an era of heightened LGBTQ+ awareness, especially of transgender and nonbinary identities. This era is marked by progressive forms of childhood gender socialization as well, including the relatively recent advent of ‘gender-open parenting’: gender-open parents do not assign a gender to their children, and use they/them pronouns for the children until they express their own sense of gender. However, little research addresses these developments in grandparenting and gender diversity. This exploratory study builds on the grandparenting literature and examines the experiences of 11 grandparents from a larger project on gender-open parenting. Grandparents within these families must learn the tenets of this new paradigm to interact with their grandchildren. Using interview data and thematic analysis, several dominant themes from grandparents’ experiences are examined, including: their initial apprehensions, their efforts with gender-neutral language, their mediating roles with others, the new perspectives they develop, and their lingering ambivalence. The discussion employs the conceptual frameworks of family systems, family ecology, and ambivalence to highlight the varying shades of agency and support the grandparents represent. Altogether, the findings raise important implications for research in grandparenting, gender, and LGBTQ+ family relationships.