The mother of all worries: Formulations of parents' gender in their talk about the transition to the empty nest phase

Abstract

The study explores how parents of adult children demonstrate the differentiations of their gender against the background of the shared identity of parents. We approach this problem by analyzing joint in-depth interviews with parents who have just experienced their children moving out. For detailed analysis, we selected sequences of interaction in which interviewees presented some differences or disagreements in talk about the family transformation. We found that when one parent demonstrated the perspective as different from the other parent, gender references became prominent as a resource to achieve particular interactional and relational goals. We observed gender asymmetry in this process, as both parents tended to focus more on the mother's side. Parents regularly discussed the mothers' preserved or exaggerated care and worry for the children even after they became adults. This contributed to stabilizing gender-related and unequal roles of the parents that served the new family arrangement in the context of transition.