Negotiating Intimacy, Equality and Sexuality in the Transition to Parenthood

by Charlotte Faircloth

University of Roehampton

Sociological Research Online, 20 (4), 3 DOI: 10.5153/sro.3705

Received: 9 Dec 2014 | Accepted: 12 Jun 2015 | Published: 30 Nov 2015

Abstract Whilst both ‘parenting’ and ‘intimacy’ have been explored extensively in recent social scientific research (for example, Lee et al 2014,Gabb and Silva 2011), their intersections in the context of family life remain curiously absent. This paper presents findings from on-going longitudinal research with parents in London, which investigates how the care of children, and particularly the feeding of infants, affects the parental couple’s ‘intimate’ relationship. In particular, as part of this special section, it looks at couples’ accounts of sex as they make the transition to parenthood, as a lens on the themes of gender, intimacy and equality. Far from being an easy relationship between them, as predicted by some scholars, this research shows that they are in fact, ‘uncomfortable bedfellows’.

Keywords: Parenting, Gender, Intimacy, Equality, Sex, Couples

Negotiating intimacy, equality and sexuality in the transition to parenthood Based on longitudinal work with new parents in London, this paper draws on research which investigates how the care of children, and particularly the feeding of infants, affects the parental couple’s intimate relationship. To that end, it brings together two (traditionally distinct) bodies of literature – one calling attention to a shift in British parenting culture towards a more ‘intensive’ and ‘child-centred’ form of care, the other, looking at changes to intimate relationships in an age of ‘reflexive modernisation’ and greater gender equality. Specifically, this paper focuses in on couples’ accounts of sex as they make the transition to parenthood, as a lens on the themes of gender, intimacy and equality.

Whilst intimacy itself can incorporate a range of different practices, as a vehicle for intimacy, sexual intercourse often serves as a barometer for couples in how they assess the quality of their relationship (Weeks 1995). In line with other papers in this special section, then, the research shows that far from being a straightforward correlation between gender equality and greater intimacy, (as predicted by Giddens et al 1992), the two are, in fact, ‘uncomfortable bedfellows’, particularly once couples become parents. The article briefly reviews the two bodies of literature, explains the policy context around parental leave and childcare in the UK, discusses the study methodology, and then presents findings, analysis and discussion by way of conclusion.

Theoretical background: Intimacy and parenting As Gabb and Silva (2011) note, the ‘conceptual challenge to researchers working in the field of family and relationship studies…is how to carry on building concepts and finding new methods to capture the vitality of personal relationships while keeping sight of the social contexts, patterns and practices of contemporary intimate life’ (1.1, 2011). Famously, work by Giddens (1992), Bauman (2005) Beck (1992) Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (1995) and others has explored shifting patterns of intimacy in the contemporary age of ‘individualisation’. Broadly speaking, this body of work argued that, in the age of ‘reflexive modernisation’, there had been a shift away from traditional, patriarchal couple relationships, based on an inherent inequality between men and women, toward a more equitable, mutually fulfilling model, accompanied by the rise of a more ‘plastic’ sexuality in

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particular (Giddens 1992; this special section). Giddens argued that in the late twentieth century, in the place of traditional patterns of marriage, for example, individuals became more aware of the need for a fulfilling relationship, based on ‘confluent love’; one that is active and contingent. The ‘pure relationship’, which is not bound by traditional notions of duty and obligation, has come to depend, instead, on communication and negotiation. The implication of this work is both that greater equality leads to greater intimacy, and that this is a desirable aspiration for contemporary relationships.

Since this work was published, however, scholars working in the field of family and relationship studies have critiqued the model, arguing for a more nuanced perspective, grounded in the realities of everyday experience. Specifically, Gabb and Silva identify three main strands of thinking which have been particularly influential in shaping and reorienting contemporary UK family and relationship studies over the past 15 years, since the publication of Beck and Giddens’ work, including Morgan’s notion of ‘doing family’ as sets of expectations and obligations connected to kin relations (1996); Smart’s conception of ‘personal life’ beyond that of the family (2007); and Jamieson’s notion of intimacy defined as ‘any form of close association in which people acquire familiarity, that is shared detailed knowledge about each other’ (Jamieson 1998: 8).

The last of these is particularly relevant here, specifically as it relates to changes in the division of labour between couples once children arrive. For Jamieson, ‘[t]he majority of people in Euro-North American societies have lives which are sufficiently privileged to seek ‘good relationships’ which are not dominated by necessity. However [even then] most personal relationships include a mix of love, care, sharing, understanding and knowing, which involve a degree of relying on, needing or depending on the other, if not desperate necessity’ (1998: 174).

The intention here is to bring this perspective on intimacy to bear on the subject of parenting, my own area of research to date (Faircloth 2013). The underlying argument of that work was that there has been a significant shift in ‘parenting culture’ in the UK over the last twenty years. The word ‘parent’, for example, has shifted from a noun denoting a relationship with a child (something you are), to a verb (something you do). Parenting is now an occupation in which adults (particularly mothers) are expected to be emotionally absorbed and become personally fulfilled; it is also a growing site of interest to policy makers, thought to be both the cause of, and solution to, a whole host of social problems (Lee et al 2014). ‘Ideal’ parenting is financially, physically and emotionally intensive, and parents are encouraged to spend a large amount of time, energy and money in raising their children, often with the aid of ‘experts’ (Hays 1996). Whilst this ideology of parenting is not carried out by all parents, or affects all parents in the same way, it nevertheless serves as an ideal standard to which all become accountable (Arendell 2000). This ‘intensive parenting’ climate, as several scholars have now argued, has changed how parents experience their social role, to the point that one’s style of parenting has become more and more central to adult ‘identity-work’ (for example, whether one is a ‘Tiger Mother’, an ‘Attachment Parent’ or a ‘Gina Fordist ‘). Drawing on Goffman (1959) this term is used in place of a more static ‘identity’ to highlight the active processes by which identity is constructed, and the inherently social nature of this enterprise, as opposed to being simply a means of self-expression (Faircloth 2013).

Accounts of the development of this ‘intensive parenting’ culture, including my own, have emphasized how it influences mothers in particular, noting how the demands placed on women in their role as mothers have intensified as women have continued to enter the labour market (rather than decrease, as one might expect). Partly as a means to counter this imbalance, which sees women working the ‘double shift’ Hochschild (2003), British society has witnessed the construction of the ‘involved father’ – mirroring, to some extent the more familiar ‘intensification’ of motherhood (Dermott 2008, Miller 2011). Men are increasingly encouraged to be ‘engaged’ in childcare, with a particular emphasis on the importance of creating a close emotional connection with children, in place of the more traditional model of the patriarchal breadwinner (Dermott 2008, Lee et. al 2014). Involved fatherhood is also promoted as a means of building stronger communities, with a particular concern about rates of single motherhood in poorer communities (BBC 2007). Not surprisingly, then, accounts from sociologists reveal that fatherhood is becoming more and more central to men’s ‘identity work’ in their accounts of personal life.

Yet whilst discursively fathers may be encouraged to be ‘involved’ in parenting and take more of an equal load of childcare, in reality, it is women who continue to shoulder most of the responsibility for this (Dermott 2008, Lee et. al 2014). It is women who typically take extended periods of time away from paid work, and move to part-time hours when they do return to the work place, if they return at all. What is more, despite this emphasis on the importance of splitting responsibilities, optimal infant care as promoted by the state is an inherently gendered, embodied one: women are strongly encouraged to breastfeed their babies by health professionals and

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policy makers, particularly in the early months, a practice which has a cascading impact on many other aspects of infant care (such as soothing and sleeping).

To heed Jamieson’s caution again, then, we need to consider how relationships alter when children arrive, and the increased ‘necessity’ and ‘dependence’ they create between partners. How, for example, does ‘plastic sexuality’ work in the context of…