'Parenting Voices': Solo Parent Identity and Co-Parent Identities in Married Parents' Narratives of Meaningful Parenting Experiences

Abstract

A new qualitative method for investigating parental identity, the Parenting Narrative Interview (PNI), is introduced. Participants included 28 married couples (N = 56 individuals) with preschool children. Narratives of five meaningful temporally bounded parenting experiences (Marker Experiences) and meaningful experiences in five parenting domains (Domain Experiences) were coded for `parenting voice': I Only, I Context, We Complementary, We Compare, and We Joint. Across all narratives, We Joint and I Only voices were most frequently used. In Marker Experiences, no sex differences in voice usage were evident, but parents predominantly used We Joint voice in describing how they became parents, shifting to I Context and I Only for early experiences, and then to I Only for recent experiences as well as for anticipated future experiences. In Domain Experiences, fathers less often than mothers used I Voice in caregiving, promoting development, and arranging and planning narratives, and more often used We Joint in stories about their relationship with the child. With parenting voice interpreted as reflecting the balance within parental identity among self-as-solo-parent and varying kinds of co-parental selves, parental identity becomes progressively less co-parental and more solo-parental across narrative time. Compared to mothers, fathers construct their parental identity related to caregiving, promoting development, arranging and planning, and their relationship with the child as relatively more co-parental (i.e., more situated in the context of the relationship with the partner).