Parenting in Hindsight

Dear Colleagues

Parenting attracts wide disciplinary attention. Perspectives often explore the universality of this stage in the life-course, often described as both “natural” and challenging. However, the commonality parenting affords can obscure the rich diversity in which parenting takes its various forms: we have either been parented, have parented, or are parenting. Enmeshed in this is the notion of temporality; discussions about parenting and the impact on children are often based on future-orientated outcomes. The consideration of past parenting often leads to wishes to do it differently from the previous generation.

Hindsight, a concept which is often considered chronologically, gives rise to the exploration of something in the past, an experience or event, looked back on from a point in the future. Add to this the layers of experience, events, emotions, memories, and encounters with people, places, and materials, reflections on parenting become entangled with the many elements of existence. Hence, hindsight whilst not present in the moment of making choices or in acting on impulse (Kamp and Kelly, 2014) feels somewhat ungrounded and therefore stands apart from time. Re-positioned ontologically, time can become detached from the trappings of the clock and considered as not past but still very much present.

In bringing together the notion of parenting in hindsight, this Special Issue seeks to explore experiences of parenting from a diverse range of perspectives. We are keen to receive contributions that explore parenting from psycho-analytic, post-humanist, socio-cultural, anthropological, sociological, socio-biological, or psychological perspectives.

Topics may include:

• Family history;
• Historical influences on raising children;
• Patterns of attachment;
• Parenting in times of trouble;
• Histories of parenting and their influences;
• Inter-generational memories;
• Materiality, mattering and parenting;
• Family secrets;
• Lost histories of family, adoption, diaspora, trauma, and migration;
• Hidden families;
• Diaspora and the unmooring of families;
• Images of family past;
• Queering of family;
• Connections and disconnections;
• Timing of parenting;
• The future and raising of children.

Papers published in this Special Issue will receive a 30% discount and hence the Article Processing Charge (APC) would be 300 CHF (Swiss Francs).

Dr. Marie Lavelle
Dr. Norman Gabriel
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Genealogy is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.