A Phenomenological Study of the Lived Experience of Couples’
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“IT’S BEEN A ROLLER COASTER OF EMOTIONS” A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF COUPLES’ FIRST-TIME PARENTING AND THE MOTHERS’ RETURN TO EMPLOYMENT. A NEW ZEALAND AND MALAYSIAN STUDY BY SYARIFAH FATIMAH ALZAHRAH BINTI SYED HUSSIEN A thesis submitted to the Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Victoria University of Wellington (2017) [page left blank] i Abstract The purpose of this study is to examine New Zealand and Malaysian couples’ lived experience of first-time parenting and women’s experience of returning to work. Although each member of the family has different individual experiences of a particular event, families make decisions about parenting, employment, and childcare collectively. First-time motherhood and fatherhood have been researched separately, and motherhood, extensively from a variety of disciplines. However, the holistic study of the lived experience of first-time parenthood and employment from a couple’s shared narrative is still sparse. This research explores the shared experience of both parents after the arrival of a first-born, thereby adding a new perspective to the existing literature. In this thesis, I utilise an original synthesis of transcendental and interpretive phenomenology, guided by the works of contemporary phenomenologists Max Van Manen and Clark Moustakas. This phenomenological framework and methods aim to unpack the shared experience into two components; the essence and the peripheries. The essence of the experience is shared by all the participants, whereas the peripheries are socially and culturally dependent. Transcendental phenomenology serves to filter out the essence, and interpretive phenomenology investigates the peripheries. As part of the phenomenological analysis, I adopt epoché or bracketing through a written personal narrative. In addition, twenty-four longitudinal dyadic interviews were conducted with eight first-time parent couples from Malaysia and New Zealand. Each couple was interviewed three times to capture the experience before, during, and after the mothers’ return to employment. Following this, focus group interviews with three separate groups of eleven mothers were conducted to validate the analysis. The thesis findings show that the lived reality of first-time parenthood for twenty-first-century couples in Malaysia and New Zealand, including breastfeeding and return to work, is an adventure into the unpredictable and the unknown, and a constant learning and emotional experience. The overall experience for the participants was a negotiation between the dissonance of the ideation ii and idealisation of parenthood, and the lived reality of parenthood. The landscape of parenting beliefs surrounding the family affects the families’ expectations and experience in a significant way because families make employment, childcare, and feeding arrangements pre-birth based on these beliefs and expectations. A series of recommendations is generated based on the thesis findings. Among the recommendations of the thesis is further exploration into shared couple narratives for a better understanding of familial life experience for first-time parents. iii Acknowledgment This research and thesis would not have been possible without the help of so many people. Firstly, I would like to extend my appreciation and gratitude to my participants, thank you for letting me into a part of your lives, and sharing your beautiful experiences and time with me. Your stories have taken intimate parts of my heart and they will live with me forever. Thank you to my primary supervisor, Associate Professor Rhonda Shaw. I am grateful for your patience, support, and encouragement especially your efforts going over countless drafts over these years. I will always strive to have your grace and spirit. To my secondary supervisor Professor Kevin Dew, your experience, thoughtful recommendations, and cheerful disposition has guided and supported me in the final year. In hopes to not sound like a complete romantic, I would like to also acknowledge my best friend, and husband, Harris Irsyad. You have been with me throughout this whole process and more; from the moment we planted this seed, to the time we left all that was familiar, through loss of family members, major earthquakes, and to the numerous times you found me crying in all the odd corners of our apartment. You have more faith in me than I will ever have, and for that I will forever be grateful. To my wonderful parents, Norizah Abdul Shukor and Syed Hussien Al-Attas, you are my bundles of joy. Your unconditional love, unwavering support, and most of all, your prayers, are my lifeline. Special recognitions to my brothers Kamalarif and Aaliredha for flying all the way from Malaysia to New Zealand to care for your nephew while I worked in the final months. Haraz, my beautiful son, I don’t think you know a life outside of this PhD. You have been my cheerleader, rewarding me with little cards and treats, and cheering me on. In the final months, you have stayed with me in my office while I worked, and also fought this PhD for my attention, and time. I have gotten valuable insights to the pressures of being a “good” mother as we live and iv navigate it every day. I would like to thank Mothers Network Wellington for helping me in my recruitment process. I extend my sincere gratitude to the taxpayers of Malaysia for making my scholarship possible through the financing that MARA has awarded me. I would also like to acknowledge and express my appreciations to The Faculty of Graduate Research specifically - Dr Lizzie Towl, the School of Social and Cultural Studies and its administrative staff, and Student Learning Support Services. The support available at Victoria University of Wellington has made my time here very pleasant. Thank you to my fellow PhD comrades for helping read my drafts, organising writing retreats, checking up to see if I was doing all right, and sometimes forcing me to eat lunch and take breaks. Special recognitions go to Alia Ariffin, Diana Siwiak, Hollie Russell, Julie Howe, and Reneeta Morgan. Thank you for being my shoulders and for reading those last drafts. v Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................................ ii Acknowledgment ....................................................................................................................................... iv Chapter 1: Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1 Background of Study .............................................................................................................................. 3 Greater body of literature and this study ........................................................................................ 6 Overview of Chapters ........................................................................................................................ 8 Chapter 2: Phenomenological Framework and Method ............................................................. 11 Phenomenological framework ............................................................................................................ 11 Background ........................................................................................................................................ 12 Interpretive and Descriptive phenomenology .............................................................................. 13 Essences and Peripheries ................................................................................................................. 14 Phenomenological reduction .......................................................................................................... 18 Method ................................................................................................................................................... 19 Ethical considerations and Human Ethics Application .............................................................. 19 Recruitment ....................................................................................................................................... 24 Participant demographics ................................................................................................................ 27 Data Collection and Analysis .......................................................................................................... 30 Chapter 3: Personal Narrative ............................................................................................................ 43 How did you feel in the first few weeks of giving birth? What was the experience like during that time? ................................................................................................................................................ 44 Did you breastfeed? How was breastfeeding for the first time like for you? .............................. 57 vi How did you feel about yourself in that first few weeks of delivery? ........................................... 60 What was your plan after having the baby? ...................................................................................... 62 What was your plan for when you return to school? How did that make you feel? ................... 63 What was the first day of returning to school like? And the days and weeks that followed?