Vanhemmuus ja vanhemmuuden diskurssit työttömyystilanteessa

Abstract

The aim of the study was to find out, what parents' discourses in a situation of unemployment are like and what kind of parenthood was constructed by these discourses. The data consisted of discourses drawn from group interviews and women's magazines in 1993-1994. The data from the group interviews comprised of 276 pages of transcribed talk. From the women's magazines (Anna, Kodin Kuvalehti, Kotiliesi) 11 articles based on personal interviews and 10 'letters to the editor' were chosen. All the data were analysed by discourse analysis (Potter & Wetherell 1987) utilising the concept of repertoire. Though parenthood in a situation of unemployment seemed versatile, certain discourses were highlighted. In the 'virtuous mother' discourse the mothers created an implicit ideal of motherhood as nurturing, which guided their activities, while simultaneously, presenting themselves as possessing these qualities. Repertoires of fatherhood constructed the 'gender equality' and the 'new father' -discourses. According to the 'new father' discourse, fathers had learnt, grown and developed as persons. In the 'gender equality' discourse the fathers were constructed more as spouses. Through these hegemonic parenting discourses the speakers, who have almost all experienced unemployment, followed the cultural expectations relating to parenting in the home: the mothers' identities approached that of the traditional mother while the identities of the fathers came closer to the identity of the new more-involved father. Those repertoires which rebelled against or contradicted to these hegemonic discourses described situations where speakers desired to separate mothering and fathering from its close ties with the family. In this case the motherhood constructed by the speakers reflected individualistic values and aimed at disengaging motherhood from the home, while fatherhood mirrored the traditional desire of fathers to be breadwinners. This study described both fathers' and mothers' experiences. Mothers as women or as wives talked repeatedly about men who have faced unemployment. In this discourse the jobless man was presented as miserable and incapable at home. However, in particular, the men's own descriptions of their daily life did not bear out this discourse. The combination of a man and unemployment does not necessarily seem to mean failure.