A narrative-discursive approach to stories of later life

Dr Jill Reynolds, The Open UniversityInaugural 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 family51

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 non-parents – 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 mR:(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 stillInterviewer: 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 – 29Naturally, 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 1J [...] 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 survivedJill: 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 I 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?

ResistanceGrace: 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 –1P 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 ReynoldsFaculty of Health & Social CareThe Open UniversityWalton HallMilton KeynesMK7 6AAwww.open.ac.uk

j.c.reynolds@open.ac.uk