First-Time Parenting Journeys Expectations and Realities
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Biographical note
Damien W. Riggs is a Professor of Psychology at Flinders University, Australia. He is also a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society and a psychotherapist who specialises in work with trans children. He has authored more than twenty books, including Diverse Pathways to Parenthood: From Narratives to Practice (2020). Clare Bartholomaeus is an Adjunct Research Fellow at Flinders University, Australia. Her previous books include Home and Away: Mothers and Babies in Institutional Spaces (with Kathleen Connellan, Clemence Due, and Damien Riggs, 2021) and Transgender People and Education (with Damien Riggs, 2017).'Ever considered the gap between expectations of parenthood and the reality? This book offers insights for readers contemplating parenthood, while giving social scientists and their students glimpses into how feelings absorb social norms into personal family values. Moving, readable, and methodologically rigorous, this book is a rare gem!' Fiona Tasker, Birkbeck University of London, UK
'Riggs and Bartholomaeus turn the spotlight on the taken-for-granteds of heterosexual parenthood, which goes beyond the usual 'transition to parenthood' scholarship. They use innovative theory to investigate the affective dimension of first-time parenthood; and, along with an intergenerational perspective, the book makes a highly novel and thought-provoking contribution to scholarship on kinship and belonging, parenthood and reproductive decision-making.' Tracy Morison, author of Queer Kinship and Men's Pathways to Parenthood