Conceiving Online: Anticipation, Family Planning, and Aspiring Parenthood

• In Event: 41021 - Student Forum Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Roundtable 8: Geography, Space, and Place

Abstract

This study uses the case of online posters discussing their experiences with “trying to conceive” or “TTC” to make the case for a cognitive dimension of fertility work, or the work aspiring parents do to achieve their ideal fertility. Despite prior work on the physical dimensions of fertility work, the cognitive dimension of fertility work, including anticipation, identification, decision-making, and monitoring, is undertheorized. This data comes from introduction threads posted in the r/TryingForABaby community on the social networking website Reddit. Early findings show that posters’ pursuit of information and community online reveals underlying orientations toward the riskiness of the transition to parenthood and the intensiveness of parenting itself (especially mothering). These findings shed light on the cognitive dimension of fertility work and elucidate how aspiring parents use digital spaces to manage, reproduce, or resist the intensiveness of modern family life.

Author

• Kaitlin Hope Joshua, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill