Transcript Slide 1

A narrative-discursive
approach to stories of later
life
Dr Jill Reynolds, The Open University
Inaugural conference of European Network in Aging Studies
Theorizing Age: Challenging the Disciplines
7th International Symposium on Cultural Gerontology
6-9 October 2011
Qualitative data from existing
datasets
• 80 interviews men and women over 65 years (UKDA
5237, Bowling, A. Adding Quality to Quantity: Quality
of Life in Older Age, 2000-2002) of whom 14 had no
children (9F:5M)
• 85 interviews men over 65 years (UKDA 6011 Arber, S.
and Davidson, K., Older Men: their Social Worlds
and Healthy Lifestyles, 1999-2002 of whom 15 had no
children
Interviews with single women
• Seven childfree women initially interviewed in 1998
agreed to a further interview now they are aged 60+
• Reynolds, J. (2008) The Single Woman: a Discursive
Investigation, Routledge
Identifying a self-narrative
• an individual's account of the relationship among several self
relevant events across time. In developing a self-narrative we
establish coherent connections among life events. (Gergen, K.J.
1994: 187)
• Not one single story waiting to be brought out, narratives shaped to
the purpose of that telling.
• Discontinuities, multiple pathways rather than developmental
stages
• Canonical narratives (Bruner,1991) culturally available plots
(Mishler, 1999)
• Talk rhetorical within the larger argumentative context of the culture
(Billig, 1987), and is the site where identities constituted
• Identities both conferred through positioning (Davies and Harré,
1990) and constructed, contested by active speakers (Wetherell,
1998; Taylor, 2006).
Narratives of grandparenting
• Most respondents who were parents produced some
self-narrative in describing life events.
• Often these focused on children or grandchildren,
perhaps talking about frequency of visits or of caring
help they received.
• In the all male dataset, most refer to children or
grandchildren themselves without waiting to be asked.
• Co-construction of excellence of having children nearby.
• Many parents mention children or grandchildren in
response to what makes them most happy, while nearly
half refer to family on ‘the good things that give life
quality’.
Constructions of people alone
without family
51
I: A lot of family. You started to talk a little about the
different things you do. What do you think of when you
hear the words quality of life?
R: I suppose I’m quite lucky, I mean going out on a
Monday and my family around me more or less. I hear
other people talking and they are very lonely. So I think
I’m lucky.
Constructions of people alone
without family
28
Interviewer: Do your son and daughter live nearby?
Subject:
They live in Guildford; one lives in
Sheephook Road and the other lives in York Road.
Interviewer: You are very lucky aren't you?
Subject:
Well I am, yes. I am able to go and visit
them and make a fuss of them and leave them and let
the parents get on with it.
Patterns in narratives of nonparents – men
• Family question meets some accounting from widowers,
or protestations of being a bachelor
• One married man talks of being ‘grandma and grandad’
to neighbours’ children
• Less self-narrative, questions often met with factual,
abstract answers
• Co-construction of male identity as desirable
• Bachelors often say happy with own company
• Happiness in terms of relationships – friends’ successes,
marriage
Accounting for no children 025 m
I: Uh-huh. OK - and have you got any children?
R: No children, none at all - been married for 52 years.
I: OK, that's fine - I won't ask you too many questions.
R: No, go on, you fire away, I'll be alright.
I: (laughs) OK. Um - what, what do you think of when you
hear the words quality of life?
Neighbours’ kids 025 m
R:(pause) Well I'm not too sure I understand - life quality
to me is the simple things of life we've got. (Mm.) I've got
me own things to do, watercolours, painting. (Uh-huh.)
The kids live all the way round here, (laughs) we've got
a load of them (clock starts to chime). No, but up until
now I've got no problems, we've got our own little
caravan in K, we go down to there, we've got a car, we
get out and about. (Mm.) But I can't think of anything
else that - you know, it's simple enough but it's happy
enough. (Yeah, yeah.) It's my way of life. (Yeah) Er
we've had no beefs about it, er as I say we've got good
neighbours around here, very good neighbours we have
a lot of fun with them. We're the grandma and granddad
round here. (laughs) Er –
Identity work as desirable still
Interviewer: Have you ever been engaged. Subject: No.
Interviewer: Or ever wanted to marry.
Subject: No. I have been chased twice but that is all.
[LAUGHS]
Interviewer: Why didn't you leap what was wrong.
Subject: One was over religious and the other one was
married.
Interviewer: Was that recently.
Subject: And I was very interested in her. [LAUGHS]
Interviewer: And you would never think of marrying.
Subject: Not now no, it is too late, I value my freedom as it
were
Attitude concerning children – 29
Naturally, if I'd had children, I'd have wanted a larger
house, yes.
Interviewer: The fact that you didn't have children, is that
something which doesn't concerns you?
Subject: I would have liked to, yes, looking back on it. I
suppose that's my main regret that I didn't have anyone
to follow me, but there you are.
Interviewer: Your partner has children?
Subject: She has a daughter.
Interviewer And do you feel that she's part of your family?
Subject: Yes. We haven't know one another all that long,
but we get on very well, and there is a closeness which
is building up.
Any children?
• Out of 12 women I interviewed earlier who would now be
over 60 only three talked of a definite decision made
earlier not to have children.
• Several said ‘it just didn’t happen’
• Some did not have confidence in their marital
relationship at a time when they might have thought of
children
• One was sterilised because her husband didn’t want
children
• One told when 23 that the chances of having children
were very remote
Identity work 1
J [...] but is there anything that’s less positive in in the now
than the good things that give you good quality of life
anything that you see as more negative as bad
C Um I don’t think so I think with my friends having
grandchildren or th- those of my friends who have are
having grandchildren who are very tied up with their
grandchildren I (.) am aware I am aware that I haven’t
but I don’t feel it in the same sense of envy that I used to
feel when they used to be tied up with their partners um
so I can genuinely feel their pleasure at their
grandchildren and I can also think at the same time oh
something actually ‘goodness me I don’t know how I’d
cope with all these family ties and responsibilities’ so in
some ways I’m quite glad that I haven’t (laugh) [mm]
Identity work 2
[...] although no having said that then when a couple of
them they just rang up after Christmas and said we
fancy coming down to see you I was really pleased you
know I said ‘oh fancy them wanting to come and see
me-e-e’ you know [yeah] it’s like the aged aunt sort of
thing (hn hn hn) and it’s lovely that they do and they
don’t seem to think of people like me in the same way
that when I was their age like in their 30s I used to think
about [mm] my aunts of [mm] my age they don’t that
generation gap doesn’t seem as wide now
An instinct survived
Jill: And was there, has there been a time when you would’ve kind
of been planning around thinking about having children and...?
Lyn: Only once in my life and I haven’t thought about this for years
but there was a time when I was about 35 (mm) I did have a
relationship with a man quite a lot younger than me at the time
and he was desperate to have children and I knew at that time
that he was not the right person for me to have children with but
did experience some real kind of instinctive cravings to have a
child and I would think that lasted about a year, possibly a year
and a half and then I didn’t have a child and the craving
completely went away and I feel I was saved from something
and I suppose I would like other women to hear that. (yeah
yeah) It was a very strong instinct but I mean only for a very
short time.
Evasive humour
Jill: Ok, I was planning to ask a bit later but I will ask now
as we have got on to that topic, are there other things
about not having had children mean to you now
particularly? You have mentioned there is a difference
with your parents, your brothers and sisters and maybe
an issue for the future that there won’t be people that
you can rely on?
Grace: Yes who is going to put me in a residential home?
[laughter by both about this]. Yes what was the
question?
Resistance
Grace: Only in that sense of uhm, well that not being able
to be part of the conversation, it is a funny thing in a way
and I wish we could talk about something else than the
grandchildren and I used to think I wish people could talk
about something else than their children and of course
people do, eventually conversations move on, I mean it
is sometimes very interesting to hear about what their
children or grandchildren are up to and I do get very
interested, so that is a very minor thing. I mean at the
time I mean I wasn’t bothered, it wasn’t anything I
particularly wanted to do at the time of when I might ‘ve
had children, partly because I didn’t find the right person.
The book is my baby –1
P In fact I remember when I got my first book published, I
took it home, as one does, you know, a copy home and
said ‘There you are mother, you know, look what I’ve’,
and we were sort of in the family front room, and she
picked it up, looked at the cover, and said ‘That’s nice
dear’, and put it on the table, that was it, this is my big
moment you know, this is like I’ve born this child, which
is the equivalent in the family terms, ‘that’s very nice
dear’, I was devastated, I went straight round to my aunt,
who I was very close to, and said ‘How could she do that
to me?’
The book is my baby – 2
C And I got a text book out of it which is still going so that is
like something I can hold in my hand and think well that came
out of it a – hah- and when I went away travelling two or three
years ago to see a friend who was doing VSO in [overseas]
and we went away for a weekend it was just with a group of the
people and she said I’d like you to meet these other volunteers
and one of them two of them were [health care workers in my
speciality] and I said ‘Oh I’d be really interested to talk to them’
so we were introduced and one of them said ‘Claire – what’s
your surname’ and this sounds really big-headed but she said I
thought it was so funny ‘You’re not the Claire X’ and she was
from Australia and she said it was a standard textbook on our
course [Oh terrific!] yes so I felt really pleased yeah that was
really good to hear that.
The book is my baby – 3
C So that was like my baby really. [yes] Yes won’t have as
long a life as a child who er grows up but I think the average
they say books last about ten years [yeah well that’s] I’ve
done a second edition since I was here but um dunno we’ll see.
Conclusion
• There is some evidence that children’s support is
constructed as expected and valued by older people.
• Shown some of the meanings constructed and identity
work in narratives of later life.
• Participants draw on explanatory resources that are
culturally available to position themselves.
• There is some rhetorical work against commonly held
assumptions that being without children is a problematic
category.
• The focus in the extracts I’ve shown has been on
children but participants with or without children do
have other topics in their self-narratives.
Dr Jill Reynolds
Faculty of Health & Social Care
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA
www.open.ac.uk
[email protected]