Äitinä ja isänä eron jälkeen : yhteishuoltajavanhemmuus arjen kokemuksena

Abstract

Tiina Hokkanen tutki eronneiden vanhempien arkea tilanteessa, jossa yhteishuoltajavanhempien lapsi viettää eripituisia aikoja molempien vanhempien luona tapaamissopimusten perusteella. Vanhemmat perustelivat yhteishuoltajuuden valintaa usein tunteenomaisesti korostaen sitä, että näin lapsella olisi edelleen molemmat vanhemmat. Myös yhteisen kasvatuksen merkitystä korostettiin. Yhteishuoltajuuteen päädyttiin myös jätetyn puolison hyvittelemiseksi tai etävanhemmaksi ryhtyvän oikeuksien varmistamiseksi. Arjessa huoltomuodon merkitys jäi kuitenkin vähäiseksi. Monet lähiäidit tunsivat itsensä käytännössä yksinhuoltajiksi ja etäisät kokivat, etteivät pystyneet vaikuttamaan lapsensa elämään niin paljon kuin halusivat. Yhteishuoltoon kaivattiin ulkoapäin tulevia sääntöjä helpottamaan etenkin tunnekuohuisia aikoja. Kun arki sujuu yksityiskohtaisten sopimusten ja sääntöjen avulla, ajan myötä niissä voi helpommin joustaa.

The purpose of this sociological study is to investigate how divorced mothers and fathers with joint custody experience their parenthood in a life situation of children being at times present, at times absent. Special attention is given to gender and context, time and place. The main qualitative data of the study consist of interviews of 11 divorced mothers and 11 fathers from Central Finland, performed during spring 2000. There are no former couples among the interviewees so information was received from 22 different cases. The interviews of the heterogenous group of parents were acquired partly by ‘snow ball’ method, partly with the help of a key person. The women’s interviews were transcribed to 117 pages, the men’s to 112 pages. Hermeneutics and phenomenology form the methodological base of the study. The study uses family debate of women’s studies, results of motherhood and fatherhood studies, sociology of emotions, and (post)modern sociology on individualism. The practical method is content analysis performed by close-up reading. I searched for mother- and father-conventionalities (concepts stem from bodily phenomenology) as well as ’thirds’ (inspired by Simmel and Jallinoja) that turned out to be persons or things that had a mediating or moderating effect on the two examined. Gender played a significant role in the study and different ways of acting, knowing and experiencing between the sexes were found. Many of the findings were also context-bound. Time and place affected for example the experiences of closeness and remoteness in parent-child relationships. Parenting in your own time and place brought trust into spotlight between parents. The results showed that a mother’s relationship to the father is mediated by the children and a father’s relationship to the mother is sometimes mediated by money, the economic result of the divorce or the amount of child support. No ‘thirds’ were found in parent-child relationships which can be interpreted as a good sign. A mother’s relationship to a new partner is also mediated by children as well as that of a resident father. A new partner of a parent moderates the parent-parent relationship by making a hostile relationship better or by making a good relationship worse.