Who cares for whom? Revisiting the concept of care in the everyday life of post-divorce families

Abstract

The traditional notions of care appear to be connected to parents as caregivers and children as care-recipients. This article explores care in the context of post-divorce families to underline the need for re-evaluating the causal understanding of this concept. The data are drawn from a qualitative study investigating how Danish children aged 8–12 (and their parents) conduct their everyday lives with time-sharing arrangements as a result of parental divorce. Through empirical examples, different kinds of caring practices are highlighted to assert that care is a situated and reciprocal process between parents and children – a process of mutual caregiving and caretaking.