Parents at war: A positioning analysis of how parents negotiate their loss after experiencing child removal by the state

Marte Tonning Otterlei,Eivind Engebretsen

doi:10.1177/14733250211048546

Marte Tonning Otterlei, Eivind Engebretsen

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/14733250211048546

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Abstract

This study explores how parents involved in care order processes in Norway perceive being positioned by Child Welfare Services (CWS) in this process, how they negotiate these positions and whether their loss is perceived as legitimate or illegitimate in the face of societal expectations of parenthood. The data consist of qualitative interviews with 13 parents who have experienced child removals initiated by CWS. Drawing on positioning theory, the article provides an analysis of parental experiences of being positioned by CWS and investigates how cultural notions may affect their perceptions. The analysis showed that parents experienced being at war against a highly powerful CWS, which they felt dehumanised them and positioned them as failing. Moreover, parents challenged such positions by introducing alternative explanations that presented themselves as victims. However, the analysis also showed that parents would adopt positions of becoming their own judge and internalising the stigma. Parents experienced disenfranchisement of their grief due to the perception of their loss as illegitimate. Nonetheless, several parents launched a position of becoming a renewed parental figure by turning their prior parental failure into a storyline of growth and prosperity. The article concludes that parents, through language, challenge stigmatising positions to negotiate parental failure, which could be interpreted as valuation work of their identities and parenthood.

Highlights

This article investigates how parents who have experienced a child removal by the state perceive being positioned by Norwegian Child Welfare Services (CWS) in this process and how they engage with and negotiate these positions
The analysis showed that participants perceived CWS as a highly powerful and persistent system
Parents described the care order process through warlike metaphors, which showed a perception of being positioned in a ‘battle’

Summary

Introduction

This article investigates how parents who have experienced a child removal by the state perceive being positioned by Norwegian Child Welfare Services (CWS) in this process and how they engage with and negotiate these positions. By doing so, it explores whether parents perceive the loss of the everyday care of their child as legitimate or illegitimate in the context of parental failure and societal expectations of parenthood. When children are at risk of or subject to abuse or neglect, or when the child’s security, health or development are threatened, CWS can initiate a care order process (Child Welfare Act (CWA), 1992: 4–12, a–d). Norwegian authorities have been internationally criticised for intrusiveness regarding care orders, and numerous cases have been assessed by the European Court of Human Rights (Falch-Eriksen and Skivenes, 2019)

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