Journal of Divorce & Remarriage

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Separate Mothering and Fathering: The Plurality

of Parenting Within the Framework of Postdivorce
Shared Parenting Norms

Sofia Marinho

To cite this article: Sofia Marinho (2017) Separate Mothering and Fathering: The Plurality of
Parenting Within the Framework of Postdivorce Shared Parenting Norms, Journal of Divorce &
Remarriage, 58:4, 288-309, DOI: 10.1080/10502556.2017.1305852

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2017.1305852

Published online: 07 Apr 2017.

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JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE
2017, VOL. 58, NO. 4, 288–309
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2017.1305852

Separate Mothering and Fathering: The Plurality of

Parenting Within the Framework of Postdivorce Shared
Parenting Norms
Sofia Marinho
Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This article explores the components and the plurality of everyday Child custody; everyday
parenting among separated mothers and fathers. Drawing on an parenting; separate
online survey of 114 mothers and fathers, it presents a topological fathering; separate
analysis of mothers’ and fathers’ childrearing activities and decision mothering; shared parenting
norms
making; unilateral, parallel, and negotiated relationships; residence
and contact; and legal orders. The findings revealed 5 mothering
and fathering patterns: unilateral, traditional residential, and inter-
changeable mothering, and involved nonresidential and inter-
changeable fathering. They disclose the relational and gendered
structures of motherhood and fatherhood practice and social
representation that are shaping postseparation parenting within
the legal framework of shared parenting.

The introduction of the principle of shared parenting in the divorce legislation

of many Western countries has offered separated mothers and fathers a new
model of parenting by linking the well-being of their children to both parents’
engagement in parental responsibilities and to flexible options on residence
and contact (Neyrand, 2009; Pasley & Minton, 1997). This has been under-
stood as a landmark in the traditional gendered patterns of practice and social
representations regarding the parental roles and identity of separated mothers
and fathers—and even as the outcome of the incorporation of cultural models
of equal parenting, father-inclusive motherhood and relational and involved
fatherhood into postseparation parenting (Neyrand, 2009). If we turn to
modernization theory, it can also be argued that the impact of late modern
processes of detraditionalization and individualization in the family was at the
base of change in family law (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 1995; Giddens, 1992).
Underlying these lines of thought is the possibility that this legal reform
opened the way to the pluralization of postseparation parenting practices,
social representations, and identity.
However, most of the earlier research that addressed the effects of this
legal reform followed other paths of inquiry, as it focused on examining

CONTACT Sofia Marinho scmarinho@ics.ul.pt Research Fellow, Institute of Social Sciences, University of
Lisbon, Av. Professor Aníbal de Bettencourt, 9, Lisbon 1600-189, Portugal.
© 2017 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
 JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 289

whether the new arrangements for joint legal custody and joint physical
custody were helping to increase the levels of paternal involvement and the
parenting cooperation between parental partners (Nielsen, 2011). Although
the mothers’ traditional practice, roles, and identity as the exclusive primary
parent were called into question by the new shared parenting principles, their
views on their own involvement and on parental cooperation received much
less attention than their views about the fathers’ involvement (Kruk, 2015).
Research has tended to focus on measuring the intensity or frequency of
paternal involvement in restricted domains of childrearing activities and in
major decisions about how the child should be raised (Day & Lamb, 2004;
Pasley & Minton, 1997). Analytical approaches have drawn on variations of
Lamb’s (1986) three-part construct of engagement, accessibility, and respon-
sibility; on its association with McHale, Khazan Erera, Rotman, DeCourcey,
and McConnell’s (2002) coparenting construct of conflict, communication,
and collaboration; and on paternal involvement and coparental interaction
scales (Moyer, 2004; Pasley & Braver, 2004). Typical measurements include
level of father–child contact or estrangement; level of participation by the
father in decision making; child-support payment (Amato, Meyers, & Emery,
2009; Madden-Derdich, & Stacie, 2000; Moyer, 2004; Seltzer, 1998); and
levels of conflict, communication, and cooperation between the parents
(Arditti & Kelly, 1994; McHale et al., 2002).
However, the different forms of involvement in the various aspects of
parenting1 have frequently been too narrowly measured and defined, as
Palkovitz (1997) and Pasley and Braver (2004) argued. This also applies to
the reporting of parental involvement in residence or contact with the child,
given that each parent’s actual time with the child was either ignored or
measured crudely and living arrangements were often only measured by
custody type (Sodermans, Vanassche, Matthijs, & Swicegood, 2014).
This article argues that to gain a better understanding of the possible
effects of the legal reform on postseparation parenting, it is important to
explore (a) the multidimensionality and plurality of both the mothers’ and
fathers’ parenting; and (b) the question of whether the relations between
traditional models and the new models of mothering and fathering generated
by shared parenting norms are reformulating the social space of postsepara-
tion parenting.
The analysis draws on sociological perspectives of the dynamics of family life,
taking in particular a theoretical approach to family practices (Morgan, 2011).
This perspective provides an analytical framework for conceptualizing parental
involvement as the practice of everyday parenting and, therefore, as one of the
elements of family practice that overlaps with gender (Morgan, 2011). Building
1
Palkovitz (1997, p. 216) referred to the following parenting aspects: planning, providing, protection, emotional
support, communication, teaching, monitoring, thought processes, errands, availability, affection, caregiving,
maintenance, shared activities, and shared interests.
290 S. MARINHO

on this theoretical approach and previous research, the article maintains that
postseparation parental involvement is multidimensional and plural because it
entails the interplay of four social processes: (a) how mothers and fathers can, in
their different ways, bring together a variety of different childrearing activities
and decisions in their everyday parenting; (b) how everyday parenting is linked
with unilateral, parallel, or negotiated relationships with the children and
between the parents; (c) how that parenting is located in family times and spaces
that are framed by residence and contact, and in the social structures of family
life, which can operate as structures of restraint or support for it; and, finally, (d)
how, through these processes, parents set up parental and gender roles and
identity (Kaufmann, 1994).
To explore these theoretical assumptions, the analysis focused on five
research questions:

(1) Do mothers and fathers combine childrearing activities and decision

making in different ways in their practice of everyday parenting?
(2) Do these different combinations interplay with the unilateral, parallel,
and negotiated relationships with the children, and between the par-
ents themselves?
(3) What are the roles of the actual times of residence and contact and the
legal arrangements in shaping them?
(4) Do these processes shape particular forms of separate mothering and
fathering, and ways of combining them?
(5) What do the answers to these questions say about how women, men,
and children are adapting to and participating in cultural and social
changes that, more broadly, are redesigning the social relationships
between the sexes and between the parents and children in families?

To obtain a comprehensive overview of the multidimensionality and plurality

of mothering and fathering that could answer these questions, this study under-
took a topological analysis of the social space of postseparation parenting from
the perspective of Portuguese society, in which little is known about postdivorce
or separation mothering and fathering under shared parenting norms. This
method is useful to capture an integrated overview of the structures of inter-
dependency and differentiation in the mothers’ and fathers’ parenting practice,
along with their plural features. Such an integrated approach can contribute to
achieving a broader understanding of the social processes that in Portugal and
elsewhere are reshaping the practice of separate everyday parenting, by means of
the relationship between traditional models and the new models of mothering
and fathering generated by shared parenting norms.
The analysis draws on a nonrepresentative online survey that was con-
ducted between 2014 and 2015 among 114 separated mothers and fathers. It
addressed the everyday parenting by examining the interplay of (a) mothers’
 JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 291

and fathers’ perceptions of the activities and decision making in which they
are engaged and that of their parental partner; (b) the unilateral, parallel, and
negotiated nature of this engagement; (c) residence and contact routines; (d)
the legal arrangements (sole custody, joint legal custody, or joint physical
custody); and (e) the social and gender contexts in which mothering and
fathering is experienced.
In the following section, the article briefly discusses the research on every-
day parenting among separated mothers and fathers and on its relationship
with the legal reforms connected with shared parenting.

The components of everyday parenting after separation

The literature provides a certain amount of evidence on the components of
parenting by separated mothers and fathers, as well as on plural mothering
and fathering. This article picks up on that research to provide a broader
approach.
Taking a family practice approach, Neale and Smart (1997) argued that
postdivorce parenthood is shaped by two important sets of family relation-
ships: parental care and parental authority. The first includes the relationship
between each parent and the child through physical and emotional care: It
can include activities such as child care or children’s games. The second
covers the relationship between the parents themselves through their deci-
sion making on schooling, leisure times, or daily routines: it involves the
“degree to which parents share or monopolize the overall decision making
about how the child should be raised” (Neale & Smart, 1997, p. 205). Within
the framework of both sole and joint legal custody, separated mothers’
parenting includes shouldering all the everyday childrearing activities and
decision making and, therefore, all the power over their children’s upbring-
ing. The authors stated that this might result in sole parenting, in which the
father loses contact with the child, or parallel custodial parenting, in which
the mother often controls the level of the father’s involvement.
In fact, other research confirms that mothers can exclude fathers by
limiting his contact. This mainly arises when the mother devalues the father’s
importance to their children, distrusts his parental competence, disagrees
with his financial contributions (Markham, Ganong, & Coleman, 2007), or
engages in gatekeeping behavior (Fagan & Barnett, 2003). On the other hand,
Madden-Derdich and Stacie (2000) showed that custodial mothers might also
actually promote paternal contact with their children, particularly when they
believe that the father is important to the children’s upbringing.
The involvement of nonresident fathers has been often characterized as a
Disneyland type; that is, it focuses on recreational activities and permissive
parenting (Furstenberg & Winquist, 1985). Conversely, Stewart (1999, p. 551)
demonstrated that not only nonresident fathers, but also nonresident mothers,
292 S. MARINHO

can engage in either leisure-only activities or mixed activities (i.e., ones that also
involve school-related activities) and argued that nonresident parents “are not
completely uninvolved in their children’s daily lives.” Moreover, she stated that
these patterns of involvement are an “adaptive strategy” in the light of the
constraints of contact relationships.
The studies of Côté (2000) and Neyrand (2004) showed that the parenting of
joint physical custody mothers and fathers is organized around similar, parallel
routines that are shaped by their paid work and their children’s school schedules.
Both parents have individualized relationships with the children and see their
practice as reflecting symmetrical and complementary roles in parenting and in
paid work. In contrast to Neale and Smart’s (1997) study, Côté (2000) advanced
that the parents’ engagement in parental authority can be negotiated or parallel,
thus confirming the evidence in the Maccoby, Depner, and Mnookin (1990)
study. Mothers might continue to give important support to fathers, as Neale
and Smart (1997) sustained, particularly on the level of coordinating family and
work responsibilities, although fathers might also want to act as autonomous
parents (Côté, 2000; Marinho, 2011).
This relationship between parental care and parental authority lies at the
core of the shared parenting legislation across different countries. In fact,
one of the latter’s main features was the separation of parental authority
from residence and contact with the child (Neyrand, 2009). This set the
stage for a shift from the system of the mother’s sole residential care and
authority, with access for the father, toward models of joint legal custody
and joint physical custody. In the former, shared decision making regard-
ing the “most important issues of the child’s life” is combined with sole
residence and contact care. In the latter, shared decision making on the
most important issues is combined with dual residence and care (35–50%
of the time; Nielsen, 2011).
Portugal’s crude divorce rate has been above the European average since 2002,
reaching a value of 2.4% in 2012 (INE, Annual Crude Divorce Rate, 2015). In the
last decades, double-earner couples with young children became a widely accepted
norm and practice in Portugal, reflecting the high female full-time activity rates
throughout the childbearing years: above 80% for women 25 to 44 years old,
between 2001 and 2012 (INE, Active Population, 2015). There is evidence that
the division of family work within the couple has been changing toward gender-
balanced arrangements, and that this has been changing and diversifying father-
hood and motherhood. Despite variation in men’s involvement with parenting,
most fathers see fatherhood as being about breadwinning, child care, and having
close relationships with children (Marinho, 2011). This took place in the context of
work–family and gender policy and legal frameworks that implemented gender
equality in marriage, provided support for work–family reconciliation for both
sexes and, more recently, fatherhood rights and men’s involvement in child care
(e.g., leave policies).
 JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 293

The norm of joint custody (termed joint paternal power) was introduced as
an option in Portuguese family law in 1995,2 on the presumption of sole custody
(usually maternal). The law did not specify whether the basis of joint custody
should be interpreted as merely legal or both legal and physical (i.e., with shared
residence). The 2008 Divorce Act3 suppressed the concept of paternal power and
replaced it with that of parental responsibility. Shared parental responsibility,
which is equivalent to the concept of joint legal custody, has become the rule and
sole parental responsibility the exception. The law established that the children
in these cases should have one residential parent and keep a close relationship
with both parents, who, together, should then make the major decisions about
their upbringing. Joint physical custody does not figure in the law as an explicit
option.
Census data from 2001 and 2011 suggest that the standard package of
maternal residential care and paternal access (Smyth, 2004), which took root
over decades in Portuguese society, remained prevalent after the legal reform
(Marinho, 2014)—a position supported by a recent study on court parenting
orders (Pedroso, Casaleiro, & Branco, 2014). This means that collective
representations of traditional sex roles and work patterns in the family
continued to be the main normative foundation both for the parenting
practices of separated parents and the interpretation and application of the
new law by the legal actors. However, alongside this, certain family judges
have since 1995 issued joint physical custody orders to parents who ask for
them. Additionally, research shows that some parents do not comply with
court orders giving sole or joint legal custody, but rather opt for shared
residence arrangements (Marinho, 2011).
Thus, on one hand, there is no consensus in Portuguese jurisprudence on the
benefits for the children or the legality of joint physical custody orders. On the
other hand, despite not having access to an institutional framework that vali-
dates shared residence arrangements universally, parents are engaging in shared
residence parenting and, thereby, incorporating equal parenting representations
and practice into postseparation parenthood (Marinho, 2011). This scenario
reveals the normative contradictions that are being formed in social relations by
the coexistence of traditional and late modern social representations of the
parental and gender roles of women and men in the postseparation family.
They are largely connected with the tensions created by the use of gender to
define whether the interest of the child in divorce is best served by continuity of
the traditional gender differentiation of parental roles or by the institutionaliza-
tion of gender-equal ones—thereby accepting the changes in motherhood and
fatherhood being built by a large proportion of couples who did not undergo a
separation. This context makes Portugal a special observation platform from

2
Law 84/95 (August 31, 1995).
3
Law 61/2008 (October 31, 2008).
294 S. MARINHO

which to explore the plurality of the separate mothering and fathering that is
being shaped by the incorporation of shared parenting norms into family
relationships.

Methodology and data

Data
The analysis draws on an online survey of the perceptions, practices, and attitudes
of divorced or separated mothers and fathers regarding postdivorce parenting, on
the one hand, and their biographical, family, and socioeconomic characteristics,
on the other. The survey was carried out during 2014 and 2015. Parents were
recruited by snowball sampling and by information campaigns conducted
through social media networks and institutional mailing lists (public organiza-
tions, nongovernmental organizations, schools, and private businesses). The sur-
vey required that respondents (a) had at least one child (biological or adopted)
who was not more than 16 years old, belonged to a relationship that had ended,
and had contact with both parents; (b) had been separated or divorced from their
previous partner for more than a year; and (c) set the focus on their youngest child
in their reports. The survey opening page provided to participants an information
sheet about the study and an informed consent form, on which their acceptance
was requested to proceed in completing the survey.

Sample
The sample was nonprobabilistic and nonrepresentative. It included the reports of
107 parents: 72% were mothers and 28% were fathers, from varying parental
dyads. They were either separated (41%) or divorced (59%), mostly (80%) after the
2008 legal reform. Most parents (52%) were living in single-parent households,
39% in reconstituted family households, 6% on their own, and 3% in households
of couples with or without children. The distribution of the respondents’ youngest
children’s age groups was as follows: up to 6 years old, 31.5%; 7 to 11 years old,
48%; and 12 to 16 years old, 20%. The respondents’ average age was 39 and that of
their parental partner was 40. Most respondents (75%) lived in the metropolitan
area of Lisbon; of the others, 9% lived in the northern region, 6% in the central
region, and 8% in the southern region of Portugal.
The study was exempted from institutional review board review. Even so,
ethical research practice was ensured. First, the response to the online survey was
anonymous. Second, the name and contact of the author and of the research
center in which the study was being done were given to participants on the
information sheet, which explained that they could ask any question about the
study and the use of the information gathered in the survey before deciding to
participate. Third, the informed consent made clear that participation in the
 JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 295

study was voluntary, and that the respondents could withdraw their consent at
any time, before and after completing the survey, without suffering any con-
sequences. Finally, the participant’s privacy and confidentiality were guaranteed
by data protection procedures, which included the data being accessible to and
analyzed only by the author, and data encryption.

Measurement and data analysis procedures

Given that the main aim of the study was to understand the structure of the
interdependencies between the components of the parenting included in the
analysis and to obtain a comprehensive overview of this structure, a multiple
correspondence analysis (MCA) was carried out. MCA, also known as
homogeneity analysis, is a method of statistical analysis that allows the
simultaneous approach of multiple qualitative (categorical) variables of a
survey. It is an appropriated method to explore the relational and multi-
dimensional structures of social processes, as it identifies configurations of
relations of interdependence between multiple variables and the nature
(association or opposition) of the different combinations that result from
their interaction (Carvalho, 2008). Thus, MCA was carried out both to
capture the cooccurrence of the components that structure mothers’ and
fathers’ parenting and to identify and characterize the groups of mothers,
fathers, or both, who, although coexisting in the same social space of post-
separation parenting, share different systems of parenting practice and
representation.
The analysis drew on two sets of categorical variables. The first included the
parenting practice variables, which were projected in the MCA as active variables:
(a) parent–child residence and contact, by sex of the respondent; (b) legal parental
responsibility arrangements; (c) childrearing activities; and (d) childrearing deci-
sion making. The second set addressed the family life and socioeconomic char-
acteristics of the respondents and their parental partners, which were projected in
the MCA as passive variables (see Table 1).
The analytical procedures were carried out in two main steps. First, a descrip-
tive analysis was conducted to evaluate the variables and to identify and exclude
those that did not differentiate the respondents and their practice. Second, the
variables retained were included in the following MCA procedures: (a) analysis
of the number of dimensions with higher inertia values and validation of the
number of dimensions to retain; and (b) evaluation of input variables through
discrimination measures and their category-contribution scores, to exclude
variables that did not help to differentiate the dimensions. Various solutions
were tested to find a model that included the variables that both represented the
attributes of the respondents’ parenting practice and made a greater contribu-
tion to the variance explained by the dimensions retained. The final set of
variables is described next.
296 S. MARINHO

Table 1. Multiple correspondence analysis dimensions: discrimination measures.

Active variables Dimension 1 Dimension 2 Dimension 3
Inertia .519 .165 .139
Parent–child residence by sex .626 .155 .062
Legal parenting arrangement .620 .257 .224
Childrearing activities
1. Bathes and dresses .571 .099 .045
2. Prepares and gives meals .609 .058 .059
3. Puts child to bed .604 .116 .089
4. Gets children up and ready .660 .122 .090
5. Takes to and fetches from day care or school .536 .106 .047
6. Expresses love, listens, and talks .303 .034 .168
7. Plays and shares leisure activities .274 .012 .172
8. Teaches behavior rules .373 .021 .139
9. Plans child’s life .505 .080 .046
Childrearing decisions
1. Child’s routine .517 .439 .107
2. TV/PC time .554 .362 .060
3. Leisure activities .548 .297 .291
4. Behavior rules .572 .473 .307
5. Reprehension and discipline .499 .310 .382
6. Which school children should go to .505 .019 .085
7. Extracurricular activities .467 .004 .133
Alpha .946 .707 .636
Note: Scores shown in bold indicate the dimension in which the variable discriminates with the highest scores.
Underlined scores indicate that the variable also discriminates in that dimension, but with lower scores. Total
variance explained by each dimension: Dimension 1: 37%, Dimension 2: 12%, Dimension 3: 10%.

Active variables: the parenting practice construct

Parent–child residence and contact was the main independent variable in the
analysis. It assessed the division of parenting time between the parents by
measuring the number of overnight stays by the youngest child (0–30) during
the week and on the weekend at the respondent’s and the other parent’s
houses, in any given month during the school years 2013–2014 and
2014–2015. In an open question, the respondents were also asked to explain
the details and underlying motives of their time-sharing schedules. These
reports were used in the analysis whenever they were relevant to the inter-
pretation of the results.
Drawing on the classification in the literature of types of residence and
contact (Nielsen, 2011; Smyth, 2004), the categories for the parent–child
residence variable were defined as follows: exclusive residence (100% of
overnights with one parent; daytime and holiday contact with the other),
standard residence (73–96% of overnights), standard nonresidence (3–20% of
overnights), and shared residence (33–67% of overnights). They registered
the following distribution in the sample: exclusive residence, 18%; standard
residence, 30%; standard nonresidence, 15%; and shared residence, 37%. To
gain a better understanding of gender differences, this variable was then
crossed with that for the respondents’ sex and its categories were reclassified
into five groups. The types of residence for the mothers reflected the
 JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 297

following distribution: exclusively resident mother, 24%; standard resident

mother, 42%; and shared residence mother, 34%. The types of residence for
the fathers were standard nonresident fathers, 56%; and shared residence
fathers, 41%. Standard nonresident mothers, along with fathers declaring
exclusive or standard residence, were not represented in the sample.
The legal parenting plan identified which of the plans the respondent
opted for at the time of the divorce or separation. These included parenting
orders (44%); parenting plan consent orders (34%), of which 80% were issued
under the 2008 law; and parenting plans negotiated privately between coha-
biting parents (22%). This variable also captured the division of parenting
time, through the respondents’ legal model of residence and contact with the
child, although it did not reveal the actual amount of time the child spent
with each parent. It was thus used to capture the legal regimes of parental
responsibility and their relationship with legal residence and contact (stan-
dard residence and contact or shared residence). This variable was divided
into three categories with the following distribution: sole responsibility (with
standard residence and contact), 35%; standard shared legal responsibility
(with standard residence and contact), 32%; and shared legal responsibility
and residence, 33%.
Childrearing activities and decision making are the dependent variables of
the study. Respondents were asked to report who carried out a set of 16
childrearing activities (mother, father, or both parents) and who made the
decision in 11 childrearing domains (mother, father, both together, or both
separately), to capture their perceptions of their own parenting and that of
their parental partner.
Initial descriptive analysis revealed that the father category had empty cells
in all the items, so the mother and father categories were combined and
reclassified as one parent. MCA testing showed that only 11 activity items
and 7 decision-making items contributed to discrimination of the factorial
plane dimensions. The former covered five important childrearing domains:
child care, affection and emotional support, play and leisure, guidance and
schooling supervision, and planning for the child’s life. The latter covered
everyday decisions (meals, homework, play and sleep routines, leisure activ-
ities, behavioral rules and discipline) and important decisions (school and
extracurricular activities; see Table 1).

Passive variables
The descriptive analysis results showed that parent–child residence and contact
was the only variable that differentiated legal parental responsibility arrange-
ments and engagement in parental activities and decisions. Most family life
variables (the conjugal situation before and after divorce or separation, number
of children, etc.) and socioeconomic variables (social class, professional life
indicators, etc.) did not differentiate any of the variables in the parenting
298 S. MARINHO

practice construct. The exceptions were the youngest child’s age group (up to 6,
7–11, and 12–16) and the educational attainment levels of the respondents and
their parental partner (up to secondary and tertiary education), which were
associated with the parent–child residence variable. Therefore, these three
variables were projected in the MCA as passive variables.
The following section presents the results of the MCA. It provides a
comprehensive interpretation of the mothering and fathering constellations
that shape the topology of postseparation parenting.

Results
Topology of separate mothering and fathering
This study sought to understand whether mothers and fathers combine
childrearing activities and decisions in different ways in their practice of
everyday parenting; the interplay of these different combinations with the
unilateral, parallel, and negotiated nature of family relationships; and the role
of the relationship of residence and contact and legal parenting orders in
shaping them. The MCA results revealed that the relational space of post-
separation parenting is structured by the interplay of three dimensions
(Table 1), each shaping the involvement of mothers and fathers in different
combinations of domains of activity and decision making, residence and
contact, and legal parental responsibility plans.
Dimension 1 structures the association between residence with the child
and child-care activities (Activities 1–5 and 9), on the one hand, and school-
ing decisions (Decisions 7 and 8), on the other. It sets the unilateral practice
of exclusive and standard residence mothers (under sole and standard shared
legal responsibility parenting plans) against the parallel and negotiated prac-
tice of shared residence mothers and fathers (under shared responsibility and
residence parenting plans).
Dimension 2 shows that everyday decision making (1–5) is a particular
domain of practice, separate from engagement in parental activities and
schooling decisions. It contrasts the nonresident father’s parallel, everyday
decision making (under standard shared legal responsibility plans) with the
unilateral decision making of exclusive residence mothers (under sole
responsibility plans).
Dimension 3 associates affective, play, and guidance activities (6–8) with
leisure and guidance decisions (3–5), separating unilateral practices from
parallel and negotiated practices.
These results show not only various unique combinations of domains of
parenting activities and decisions in mothers’ and fathers’ involvement, but
also that these combinations are linked with relations of association and
opposition among unilateral, parallel, and negotiated family relationships.
 JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 299

Moreover, they show that these processes are differentiated by residence and
contact and legal parenting plans.
This study also sought to understand whether these components of par-
enting build particular forms of separate mothering and fathering, and to
what extent they reflect the participation of mothers and fathers in the
cultural and social changes underlying the legal framework of shared parent-
ing. The intersection of Dimensions 1 and 2 (Figure 1) and Dimensions 1
and 34 (Figure 2) formed six constellations of maternal and paternal parent-
ing, three in each factorial plane. They were shaped by different groups of
mothers, fathers, or both, who shared the same parenting practice and social
representation of parental and gender roles and identity, thereby revealing
plural forms of mothering and fathering and the systems of parenting
practice and social representation in which they are embedded.
The six constellations represented five main mothering and fathering
patterns that structure the social space of postseparation parenting: unilateral
mothering, traditional residential mothering, involved nonresidential father-
ing, interchangeable mothering, and interchangeable fathering. The main
features of each pattern are described in the following sections.

Figure 1. Spatial projection of multiple correspondence analysis Dimensions 1 and 2.

4
The intersection of Dimensions 2 and 3 was not used in the analysis as it did not shape new constellations.
300 S. MARINHO

Figure 2. Spatial projection of multiple correspondence analysis Dimensions 1 and 3.

Unilateral mothering
Unilateral mothering emerged in the C2 and C5 constellations and is repre-
sented by mothers who are unilaterally involved in all childrearing activities
and decision- making, under sole responsibility parenting plans. In this
study, unilateral mothering underpinned solo mothering and father-depre-
ciative mothering.

Solo mothering. Solo mothering was displayed by the C2 constellation, which is

situated in Quadrant 2 (Q2) of the factorial plane “1, 2” (Figure 1). This
constellation disclosed a group of exclusive residence mothers of 12 to 16 year
olds. They and their parental partners have attained up to secondary levels of
education. These mothers highlighted guidance activities and all childrearing
decisions as the main features of their unilateral parenting. As the father was
rarely involved in contact with the child, they had to shoulder all the parenting
tasks and responsibilities. According to these mothers, paternal disengagement
was due to three types of withdrawal trajectories on the part of the father:
economic emigration, a change of residence to a distant location, and failure
to maintain regular contact and responsibility for the child.
 JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 301

Father-depreciative mothering. This pattern is represented by the C5

constellation, which is situated in the middle of Quadrants 2 (Q2) and 3
(Q3) of the factorial plane “1, 3” (Figure 2). It revealed a group of
exclusive residence and standard residence mothers who were unilaterally
involved in all parental activities and decisions. Their youngest child was
up to 6 or 12 to 16 years old, and the educational levels of both parents
cut across the illustrative educational levels projected in the MCA. These
mothers’ unilateral mothering was depreciative of the father’s role.
Although this group of mothers was not engaged in high levels of
interparental conflict5 and their parental partners were involved in contact
with the child every second weekend, they reported that fathers were not
engaged in any kind of parental activity or decision making. Accordingly,
they diminished the father’s relational and educational contributions to
their children’s upbringing.
These mothers’ reports on their children’s contact schedules repeated
two main ideas that could help to explain what underlies paternal deva-
luation: “For my child’s well-being, it is more important for her to be with
her mother than her father,” and “Until the age of 6 my child only sees
her father on two Saturday afternoons per month because small children
should not be separated overnight from their mother.” In fact, they
revealed a subjective structure of gendered beliefs about maternal and
paternal roles and identity that is shaped by dispositions of maternal
primacy (Cowdery & Knudson-Martin, 2005; Lahire, 2011). This means
that the father is seen as a less needed parent than the mother, particu-
larly for small children. It also means that the relationship between
maternal unilateralism and paternal devaluation might be associated
with gatekeeping behavior; that is “mothers’ preferences and attempts to
restrict and exclude fathers from child care and involvement with chil-
dren” (Fagan & Barnett, 2003, p. 1021). As a result, with these mothers,
parental coordination was limited to compliance with the father–child
contact schedules ordered by the court.
Thus, unilateral mothering reveals a gendered structure of parenting
that establishes a strong asymmetry between the parents in all aspects of
parenthood. It tends to be shaped under sole responsibility parenting
plans. In this study, 70% of these plans were ordered under the new
divorce law, in which sole responsibility orders are supposed to be applied
only when necessary to protect the child from domestic violence, paternal
abuse, and serious parental conflict. According to these mothers, there
was no such danger.

5
The survey included measures of conflict between the parents, which were analyzed to check if conflict was
associated with depreciation of the father’s parenting (analysis not shown).
302 S. MARINHO

Traditional residential mothering and involved nonresidential fathering

These patterns emerged in the C3 and C4 constellations. The C3 constella-
tion crosses Quadrants 3 (Q3) and 4 (Q4) of the factorial plane “1, 2”
(Figure 1). It gathers together standard resident mothers and standard non-
resident fathers of children up to 6 years old, under standard shared legal
responsibility plans. They and their parental partner have attained up to
secondary educational levels. In this group, both mothers and fathers ascribe
child-care activities to the mother alone and everyday decisions (1–5) to both
parents, separately. Schooling decisions (6 and 7) might or might not be
negotiated. Thus, this constellation revealed a pattern of interplay between
traditional residential mothering and involved nonresidential fathering.
By associating child care with living with the child most of the time, these
mothers do not acknowledge the father’s engagement in child-care activities
during overnight contact. However, contrary to unilateral mothers, they
accept the father’s parallel, everyday decision making (1–5).
For their part, the fathers also associate child care with living most of the
time with the child. Thus, even though they are engaged in child-care
activities in overnight contact, they value maternal child care more than
their own. The key component of their parenting practice is their contribu-
tion to their absent child’s upbringing through parallel everyday decisions
every second weekend. Although they are under shared responsibility orders,
they might not have access to shared decision making on schooling.
Research has characterized the involvement of nonresident fathers as a
Disneyland style of parenting (Furstenberg & Winquist, 1985; Stewart, 1999).
However, these results suggest that everyday parallel decision making is an
area of nonresident fathers’ interactions with the absent child as much as
parental activities are. It is also a sphere of paternal investment through
which men perform and validate their paternal role and their competence to
bring up their children, despite the constraints arising from the limited
duration and frequency of contact. This is consistent with Stewart’s (1999)
previous study, which showed that nonresident parents’ involvement can be
broader than the Disneyland style. It also gives a wider perspective of the
components of nonresident fathers’ parenting, which are not discernible
from previous studies.
From the point of view of parental coordination, the C3 constellation
shows a pattern of parallel parenting, which research has identified as a
typical feature of the standard model of residence with the mother and
contact with the father (Furstenberg & Winquist, 1985; Modak, 2007; Neale
& Smart, 1997). Smart and Neale (1999) argued that parallel parenting
operates as a boundary set up by mothers against the former partner to
protect their personal and parental autonomy. As their autonomy is based on
residence with the child, it allows them to hold full power over the decisions
about how the child should be raised. The C3 constellation suggests that
 JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 303

parallel parenting in standard residence and contact can also include valida-
tion of the autonomy and importance of the father’s contact influence in the
child’s everyday upbringing, by mothers and fathers alike.
The C4 constellation is situated in Quadrant 1 (Q1) of the factorial plane
“1, 3” (Figure 2). It reveals a group of standard nonresident fathers of 7- to
11-year-olds and 12- to 16-year-olds, under standard shared responsibility
plans. They registered up to secondary educational levels, as did their par-
ental partners. These fathers stated that they were as involved as mothers in
affective, play, and guidance activities (6–8) and were engaged in negotiating
all decisions.
This second group of nonresident fathers also associates child care with living
most of the time with the child. Nevertheless, it differs from the previous group in
that its members consider themselves as engaged as their parental partners in
emotional intimacy, childrearing responsiveness, and recreational interactions
toward their absent child, both through activities and decision making. Hence,
this group of nonresident fathers reveals another pattern of practice that goes
beyond the Disneyland type. Moreover, this result suggests that there are non-
resident fathers who, despite the constraints of the contact relationships, are
incorporating key aspects of the new cultural models of involved and relational
fatherhood into their fathering. An example of this is the importance given to the
quality of father–child relationships and parental coordination (Castelain-
Meunier, 2002).
The C4 constellation also reveals that resident mothers and nonresident
fathers might not engage solely in parallel coordination. Instead, they might
engage in combining their individual childrearing projects and styles through
parental negotiation, despite the major role of the mother in the
implementation.

Interchangeable mothering and fathering

These patterns are displayed in the C1 and C6 constellations. The C1 constella-
tion is positioned in Quadrant 1 (Q1) of the factorial plane “1, 2” (Figure 1). It
shows a group of shared residence mothers and fathers of 7- to 11-year-olds,
under shared responsibility and residence parenting plans. These mothers and
fathers reported that both parents were engaged in all childrearing activities and
that the decisions about the child’s everyday routines and schooling were
negotiated with their parental partner. The proximity of this constellation to
affective, play, and guidance activities (activities 6–8) and negotiated everyday
decisions (3–5) suggests that these components can also be included in their
practice, even though they are not what distinguishes this group from the other
groups generated by this factorial plane.
The C6 constellation is revealed in Quadrant 4 (Q4) of the factorial plane “1, 3”
(Figure 2). It shows a second group of shared residence mothers and fathers of up
to 6 and 7- to 11-year-olds, under shared responsibility and residence parenting
304 S. MARINHO

plans. This group also reported that both parents were engaged in all parental
activities. Contrary to the previous group, they were involved in parallel everyday
decisions (1–5) and negotiated decisions about schooling (6–7). In both groups,
mothers and fathers, along with their parental partners, tend to have attained
tertiary education.
The perceptions of these two groups of shared residence mothers and
fathers revealed a matrix of experiences of interchangeable parenting that is
anchored in a gender-neutral structure of parenting. The mother and father
both engage in the same childrearing activities and decision making and see
themselves and each other as capable of replacing and being replaced by the
other, equally competent and responsible caregivers, and equally important
parents for their child’s well-being.
Thus, in this study, interchangeable mothering is shaped by the practice
and perceptions of father-inclusive and egalitarian mothers. They differ from
unilateral and traditional residential mothers in not being engaged in the
residence-contact system and in the underlying gender differentiation of
parental roles and identity. By sharing with fathers the residence with the
child, these mothers are changing traditional patterns of separate mothering
and fathering. The same can be said of the fathers engaged in interchangeable
fathering, as their parenting practice and perceptions show that they are fully
involved fathers. Contrary to disengaged and involved nonresident fathers,
their practice is anchored in rotating residence with the child, which enriches
their practice with the full range of childrearing activities and decisions that
build daily family life.
The C1 and C6 constellations show that parental coordination between shared
residence parents also operates through negotiated or parallel decision making, or
by a combination of the two. This is consistent with previous research, which
shows that these two forms of parental coordination are common to postsepara-
tion families in which the father remains involved (Maccoby et al., 1990; Nielsen,
2011). Moreover, parallel coordination under shared residence arrangements
displays a more balanced level of power between the parents over how the children
should be raised than in the case of standard residence and contact, as neither of
them is excluded from participating in most of their children’s daily lives.

Discussion and conclusions

This article explored the multidimensionality and plurality in separate
mothering and fathering under the legal framework of shared parenting, by
conducting a topological analysis of the components of mothers’ and fathers’
everyday parenting. It also aimed to understand the reconfiguration of the
social space of postseparation parenting, as revealed in the relationship
between traditional gendered models and the new models of mothering
and fathering generated by the norms of shared parenting.
 JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 305

The results are limited methodologically by the sample size, the fathers’
underrepresentation, and the absence of standard nonresidence mothers and
exclusive and standard residence fathers. Nevertheless, the topological ana-
lysis of the mothers’ and fathers’ reports captured an integrated overview of
plurality in their parenting practice and in their perceptions of parental and
gender roles and identity. This was achieved by uncovering five main
mothering and fathering patterns: unilateral mothering, traditional residen-
tial mothering, interchangeable mothering, involved nonresidential fathering,
and interchangeable fathering.
These patterns established the association of plurality in separate mother-
ing and fathering with the interplay of mothers’ and fathers’ engagement in
particular combinations of childrearing activities and decision making; the
unilateral, parallel, and negotiated nature of this engagement; and how this
engagement is related with the relationship of residence, contact, and legal
parenting orders. Moreover, these patterns revealed the relational structures
of parenting practice and social representation that are shaping the social
space of postseparation parenting. They are gendered structures with a
subjective and objective nature, as they tend to operate as parenting disposi-
tions (Lahire, 2011) and identities (Kaufmann, 1994), although, in addition,
as parenting constraints or resources that are anchored either in traditional
or late modern cultural models of motherhood and fatherhood, or a combi-
nation of both.
Unilateral mothering takes in solo and father-depreciative mothering. It is
connected with the mother’s perceptions of paternal disengagement and mater-
nal primacy in parenting. This is a traditional pattern of acute asymmetry
between mothers and fathers in all aspects of parenthood—which the literature
has associated with the effects of the relationship between gendered ideologies of
men’s inadequacy as parents and the legal provision of sole parental responsi-
bility (Pasley & Minton, 1997). The results showed that the legal provision of
shared responsibility continues to endorse paternal absence and devaluation, by
validating unilateral mothering models by means of sole parental responsibility
orders. Contrary to what is required by law, they are not issued specifically to
protect the mother or child from violence or abuse.
Traditional residential mothering and involved nonresidential fathering
displayed a traditional gendered structure of specialized parenting. For the
group of traditional resident mothers, residence is associated with unilateral
care, so the role of the father is only to engage in parallel everyday decisions
during contact. In contrast to shared legal responsibility norms, fathers tend
to be excluded from the negotiation of important decisions.
The two groups of involved nonresident fathers valued maternal care more
than their own. However, neither of the groups engaged in a Disneyland style
of practice, which is consistent with Stewart’s (1999) study. Additionally, they
both revealed patterns of nonresident fathering that were not clearly
306 S. MARINHO

discernible in previous research. One group maintained that parallel everyday

decisions during contact were the key component of paternal practice,
through which the men emphasized their competence and importance as
fathers. The other group highlighted their being as engaged as mothers in
emotional intimacy and in childrearing and recreational interactions, both
through activities and negotiated decisions. These fathers incorporated key
aspects of involved and relational fatherhood into their practice.
The patterns of traditional residential mothering and involved nonresi-
dential fathering presented a continuation of the traditional use of gender to
establish asymmetries in mothers’ and fathers’ engagement in and access to
parenting: It operates through the shared legal responsibility system.
Moreover, involved nonresident fathers revealed that this gender order is
being reformulated by certain mothers and fathers who are incorporating late
modern parenting trends into their practice.
Overall, involved nonresidential fathering continues to be as fragile in
shared responsibility orders as in sole responsibility ones, as fathers (and
mothers) remain trapped in a parental order of inequality, operating
through the traditional practice of short overnight contact and a social
representation of paternal incompetence that, although becoming obsolete,
resists change.
Interchangeable mothering and fathering patterns presented a structure of
mutually inclusive and symmetrical parenting, in which both the mothers’
and fathers’ practice was shaped by the same activities and decision making,
an equal or nearly equal time of residence with the children, and parallel or
negotiated family relationships. These patterns revealed father-inclusive
mothers and fully involved fathers who are changing the traditional gender
order of separate mothering and fathering. Not all of them had the social
support of shared responsibility and residence orders.
In sum, the reconciliation of traditional and late modern models of
mothering and fathering by means of the law and of mothers and fathers
parenting appears to give rise to a strained and incoherent relationship. The
main consequence is the unequal access of children who are not at risk to the
chance of having both parents play a significant role in their lives after
separation or divorce. This needs to be addressed by the professionals who
are involved in child custody issues.
To increase our understanding of the multidimensionality and plurality
in separate mothering and fathering under the legal framework of shared
parenting norms, future research should address the methodological lim-
itations of this study in the framework of comparative research. It would
be important to apply this study design to representative samples of the
population of separate mothers and fathers, which should include respon-
dents living in all the forms of residence and contact, and with more
diversified levels of education. This would allow not only the capture of
 JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 307

patterns of separate mothering and fathering that this study did not reveal,
but also a better understanding of the association of these patterns to the
position of mothers and fathers in the social stratification structure. To
provide deeper insights into mothers’ and fathers’ parenting experiences
and perceptions of parental practice, gender roles, and identity, future
research should complement survey data with in-depth interviews. This
would shed light on how professionals can address the obstacles to the
equal access of children to a significant relationship with both parents
after separation or divorce, such as gender structures of paternal
incompetence.

Funding
The research that informs this article was fully sponsored by the FCT Portuguese Funding
Agency for Science and Technology by Grant SFRH/BPD/84273/2012.

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