I addressed a life course perspective as a primary overarching theoretical framework across all three qualitative studies presented in this thesis. The life course theory evolved from multiples intellectual traditions and disciplines such as human development, family studies, history, psychology, and sociology, among others (Allen & Henderson, 2016). Since its emergence in the 1960s, wider
research using the life course theory has been suggested that the developmental possibilities individuals encounter are influenced by their historical and cultural context (Bengtson & Allen, 1993; Elder, 1994, 1998).
Life course theory has emphasised the relationship between human development and a changing society, the timing of lives (cohort effects), linked or
interdependent lives, and the human agency (Elder, 1994). According to Elder (1994) each of these central themes has a particular contribution to the
107
differences in birth cohorts expose individuals to different historical worlds. Thus, individual life courses may reflect these different times and opportunities that arise in them. Secondly, the timing of lives refers to the incidence, duration, and the sequence of social roles, and to relevant expectations based on age. Thirdly, human lives are linked and interdependent as they are embedded in social relationships across the life span. Social regulation and support are the
consequence in part of these relationships, which might include family, friends and coworkers. Fourthly, the human agency suggests that within a changing society, people are planful and make choices among options that construct their life course.
The life course theory is particularly useful for the study of lesbian and gay parented families since it locates parents and children into a wider socio-cultural and historical context (Cohler, 2005). The life course theory also pays attention to the diversity of LG parented families along central axes of social stratification, including gender, sexual orientation, age, generation, race and ethnicity, and community and region (Demo & Allen, 1996). LG parented families, as an increasingly visible contemporary family type, continuously challenge patriarchal notions of the family and gender relationships, and push the family research into a broader understanding of family structures and processes (Allen & Demo, 1995; Demo & Allen, 1996). The life course theory highlights the interplay of historical, demographic, and socio-cultural influences (such as stigma) in shaping the
experiences of members of LG parented families, as well as the dynamics of intergenerational relations (Allen & Demo, 1995; Bengtson & Allen, 1993). From this particular perspective, transitions and trajectories of each member need to be studied taking into account the family as a system, the local, community and
108
cultural contexts in which each member and the family live, the historical period, and the social climate regarding sexual minorities (Cohler, 2005; Demo & Allen, 1996).
I adopted a life course perspective because my research purpose was to examine how time, culture, context and the interdependence of family relationships affected lesbian mothers and prospective LB mothers' lives. According to Allen and Henderson (2016) the advantage of the life course theory is in understanding individual and family development across ever-changing cultural and historical contexts. Unlike static stage models, such as life cycle theory, the life course theory provides a powerful tool to take into account all the forces guiding an individual’s development. For example, the exploration of a Chilean lesbian mother's life course would be enriched by considering her trajectory and pathways before and after becoming a mother, the transitions and turning-points she
experienced in relation to her coming out process, her family support and
relationships, her developmental and social age, her cohort and historical location, the social barriers and cultural expectations, and her statuses as a woman, lesbian and mother in Chilean contemporary society or her hopes for same-gender
relationships and family formation. Hence, this integrative theory allows to take a panoramic view when gathering and analysing data.
As the main purpose of this thesis is to examine understandings of lesbian motherhood through the lens of the life course theory, I further need to critically evaluate the concepts of gender, sexuality and motherhood within this theory. Life Course Theory applied to human development aims to reconcile divisions
109
experiences, including gender, sexuality and motherhood, can be seen as
influenced by the socio-cultural and historical context in which people grow and live, yet the embodied aspect of these experiences can also be considered. This means that these human experiences are in part socially constructed over development and over time but at the same time are biologically impacted. Life Course Theory then seeks to integrate common division of the body and the social environment. For instance, gender development can be understood as a result of the intertwining between bodily (and neurobiological) sex differentiation and gendered knowledge of a particular culture (Fausto-Sterling, Coll, & Lamarre, 2012). Sexuality, including sexual orientation, can be thought as a biological disposition to respond emotionally and sexuality to members of a particular sex that can be manifested through sexual desire and expressed through behaviours and (sexual) identity in a particular cultural context (Hammack, 2005).
Motherhood can be considered as an embodied experience which might include pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, body size, body weight and diet, but it is also a socially constructed role that historically has been associated with childrearing and womanhood (Nicolson, Fox, & Heffernan, 2010).