Teenage Pregnancy and Intergenerational Transmission
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Newcastle University eTheses Great Expectations: Teenage Pregnancy and Intergenerational Transmission Ann McNulty Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Geography, Politics and Sociology University of Newcastle upon Tyne August 2008 Abstract Thirteen women composed the life stories that form the basis of this thesis. The women, each with experience of pregnancy before the age of twenty, are connected as mothers and daughters across generations in six white, working class families in a setting in North East England. Their accounts are a medium for exploring intergenerational transmission of values, beliefs and practices relating to young women’s sexual relationships and pregnancies. Current UK policy defines teenage pregnancy as a social problem and a ten-year plan aims to halve the rate of under- eighteen conceptions in England by 2010. Despite a substantial body of teenage pregnancy literature, relatively little attention has been given to women’s representations of how they learnt about sex and relationships, began sexual relationships with men, became pregnant and decided what to do next. The research addresses this gap in one UK area. The women’s accounts, produced in biographical narrative interviews, show how professional anecdotes about a cycle of teenage pregnancy ignore historically changing definition of some pregnancies (and by implication, some sexual relationships) as ‘out of order’. This is reflected in a vocabulary shift from ‘illegitimacy’ to ‘single parenthood’ to ‘teenage pregnancy’, with changing stigma and consequences for individual women. Interview data suggest no intergenerational transmission of a message promoting teenage pregnancy, rather the degree to which pregnancy is contingent on circumstance and linked with reproduction of gender and social class positions. Women expressed mixed feelings about becoming a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother “too young”, as well as investment in these social identities. Transmission of information about sexuality and sex has improved across the generations. However, younger women’s accounts indicate that they are still not equipped to discuss and negotiate pleasurable and safer sex within heterosexual relationships. The women were generally positive about relationships with men, and a significant minority referred to the impact of male violence. The women’s accounts illustrate intergenerational exchange of practical (eg childcare) and emotional ii support, as well as transmission of aspiration for a “good job”, although no transfer of financial wealth. iii Acknowledgements Special thanks to the thirteen women who took a risk in producing a life story in interviews with me, someone they had not met before. Many other people have helped me produce this thesis, some without knowing how important their contribution has been. I want to thank: • Catherine, Frances, Joe, Maura, Anne, Mandy, Lee, Lynda, Hilary, Bärbel, Sarah, Joan, Gill, and especially John, for different sorts of encouragement • Professor Diane Richardson for excellent academic supervision and support through the challenges of each stage, together with Dr Robin Humphrey and Dr Margaret Rangecroft • Mandy Cheetham and Meena Poudel for inspiration in peer supervision • Mark Casey who set a great example in the postgraduate room • Dr Peter Selman for many interesting discussions • the Economic and Social Research Council (award PTA-033-2002-00047) and the CASE partner, Northumberland NHS Care Trust • Judith Stonebridge, Northumberland NHS Care Trust, whose interest in intergenerational transmission started off the PhD • Kathleen, Sarah, Michelle and Sarah, who made me think twice. I want to say a big “thank you” to my sister Hilary. She watched over the PhD and with great tact pulled me through the times when I was close to giving up. Shortly after the start of the studentship, our father Ron died suddenly. We inherited files of family-tree materials that he had been working on, including photographs, letters and other documents that I had not seen before. They were an amazing gift and they set off many memories of our mother Marjorie who died in 1991, and grandparents Dora, Ron, Isabella and Jack. I dedicate the thesis to Hilary and, in the spirit of intergenerational transmission, to my daughters and son in memory of their grandparents and great-grandparents, with love. iv Contents Chapter 1: Introduction page 10 Introduction to the women who participated in the research page 19 Outline of the remainder of the thesis Chapter 2: Putting ‘Teenage Pregnancy’ in its Place page 21 Introduction page 22 Section One: Research setting page 27 Section Two: Social settings page 42 Section Three: Conceptions of deviance page 52 Section Four: A new arrival (Teenage Pregnancy) page 60 Conclusion Chapter 3: Methodology Matters page 62 Introduction page 62 Section One: Approaching qualitative data production page 73 Section Two: Approaching potential participants page 85 Section Three: Producing and working with data page 94 Conclusion Chapter 4: Growing up ‘Girl’ page 98 Introduction page 100 Section One: Family matters page 108 Section Two: Textbook perfect upbringing page 116 Section Three: “Remember dear that you’re a girl” page 123 Section Four: Great expectations page 131 Conclusion Chapter 5: Straight Ahead, Sex and Relationships with Men page 133 Introduction page 134 Section One: Breaking taboos page 140 Section Two: Pleasures and dangers of sex with men page 159 Conclusion v Chapter 6: Managing Motherhood page 161 Introduction page 162 Section One: Rite of passage page 177 Section Two: “Getting there” page 190 Conclusion Chapter 7: Next Steps page 191 Introduction page 191 Section One: Narrating women page 192 Section Two: Sociological significance of the findings page 195 Section Three: Methodological development page 196 Section Four: Further research questions page 197 Epilogue page 198 Bibliography Appendices page 256 Appendix 1: Flyer page 257 Appendix 2: Information sheet page 258 Appendix 3: Consent form page 259 Appendix 4: Interview schedule page 261 Appendix 5: Theme map page 262 Appendix 6: Copy of feedback sent to women page 263 Appendix 7: List of presentations of the research findings vi Chapter 1 Introduction This thesis presents an exploratory study of intergenerational transmission of values, beliefs and practices relating to teenage women’s pregnancies in Wansbeck 1, North East England. Thirteen women connected as mothers and daughters, each with experience of pregnancy under the age of twenty, composed versions of their life stories in individual interviews 2. The women are white 3 and working class 4 by background, and have lived all or most of their lives in the research area. Their age range at the time of the fieldwork was seventeen to sixty-nine years. Their accounts of life events and experiences cover the period from the 1930s to the beginning of the 2000s, and are the medium for exploration of intergenerational transmission. Framed by late twentieth century teenage pregnancy discourse (Social Exclusion Unit 1999) that constructs some young women’s pregnancies, births and ways of mothering as problems to be tackled (Blair 1999), the women’s pregnancies are defined as having happened when they were ‘too young’, a definition questioned, for example, by Phoenix (1991). The teenage label that 1 Wansbeck is in South East Northumberland on the coast of North East England. It is an area challenged by what MacDonald and Marsh (2001:373) describe as ‘all the objective problems of ‘social exclusion’ in extreme form’. The impact of the decline of heavy industry includes high rates of unemployment, and economic recovery is slow (Beatty et al. 2005). 2 Use of ‘version’ does not question the veracity of the women’s accounts, rather acknowledges the range of ways of representing experiences (Darlington and Scott 2002, Allende 2003). A biographical narrative interview method (Chamberlayne et al . 2000, Wengraf 2005) invited each participant to compose a life story version across two interviews, as discussed in Chapter 3. 3 Whiteness is often unremarked as a demographic feature (Bhavnani and Phoenix 1994, Nayak 1999). The term refers to the majority UK population. 98.1% of the Northumberland population describe themselves as White British, compared with 87% of the English population (Northumberland Information Network 2004). 99% of people in Wansbeck identified as white in the 2001 census (National Statistics Online 2001). 4 Thompson (1980 [1963]:939) suggests that class is not a fixable concept, rather a ‘happening’ of social relationships. There is diversity of experience within class positions at given historical points (Bertaux and Bertaux-Wiame 1997), and the meaning of being in a particular class position changes generationally. There is potential for social mobility in family groups within and across generations, although this can be limited by historically specific factors. For example, Humphrys (2007) discusses why UK social mobility is presently at its lowest point for decades (Blanden et al. 2005). Stenning (2005) refers to the importance of working class studies at this time of growing social polarisation. 1 retrospectively defines the older women’s pregnancies as part of a cycle of deviance is not relevant to their experiences, as marital status rather than age was the primary marker of convention at the historical points at which they gave birth. The pregnancy of