MACMILLAN Paths to Parenthood: Emotions on the Journey through Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Early Parenting

This interdisciplinary book explores the affective dimensions of becoming a parent, traversing the life-cycle journey of pregnancy, childbirth, and early parenting. Bringing together researchers from sociology, history, feminist studies, cultural studies, general medicine, and psychiatry, Paths to Parenthood analyses rich narratives that represent a diverse cross-section of parents, including migrants, same-sex couples, and single parents. Review “Becoming a parent changes lives in all sorts of ways and the chapters in this collection sensitively chart experiences of undertaking mothering and fathering in a range of contexts…Across the chapters experiences from wanting a baby, through birth to early parenting and “balancing” caring demands with paid work, are examined. This approach captures and collectively crystalizes the ambivalence, which continues to pattern experiences of parenthood and especially motherhood. Experiences of pain and joy, regrets, guilt and love are narrated: even so, this book is challenging and honest, rather than depressing. Collectively the chapters pose fundamental questions for societies about how parenthood is assumed and configured and how parents are supported. This fascinating book provides a unique contribution to parenthood and feminist scholarship and is a must read for anyone interested in real life experiences of motherhood, fatherhood and the doing of modern family lives.” (Professor Tina Miller, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK)“This edited collection is important reading. Based on interviews with new parents, the stories it tells belie idealised images of early parenthood. Interviewees report attempts to accommodate a new identity within changing relationships with partners, wider families and friends. Paths to Parenthood makes a significant contribution to contemporary social science and health care.” (Dr. Kerreen Reiger, author of Our Bodies, Our Babies: The Forgotten Women’s Movement) From the Back Cover This interdisciplinary book explores the affective dimensions of becoming a parent, traversing the life-cycle journey of pregnancy, childbirth, and early parenting. Bringing together researchers from sociology, history, feminist studies, cultural studies, general medicine, and psychiatry, Paths to Parenthood analyses rich narratives that represent a diverse cross-section of parents, including migrants, same-sex couples, and single parents. About the Author Renata Kokanović is Professor of Medical Sociology and Vice Chancellor's Senior Research Fellow at RMIT University, Melbourne,Melbourne, and Adjunct Professor, Monash Public Health and Preventative Medicine, Monash University. She works at the intersection of the critical social sciences, humanities, psychiatry, cultural studies, and social theory. Her current research is focused on the phenomenology of psychosis and borderline personality disorder, and on emotional responses to trauma. Professor Kokanović is Director of Healthtalk Australia, a digital repository of narrative accounts of health and illness experiences in Australia, and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Mental Health.Paula A. Michaels is Associate Professor of History at Monash University. She is the author of two prize-winning books: Lamaze: An International History (2014) and Curative Powers: Medicine and Empire in Stalin’s Central Asia (2003). Focusing on the intersection of medical and political history, her work has been supported by the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia,  the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council for Learned Societies, and the Social Science Research Council.Kate Johnston-Ataata (Editorial Associate) is a Research Fellow in Sociology at RMIT University, Healthtalk Australia Coordinator, and was lead researcher on the project underpinning this book. Dr Johnston-Ataata’s research