Efforts to maintain a ‘just great’ story: Lesbian parents’ talk about encounters with professionals in fertility clinics and maternal and child healthcare services

Abstract

After lesbian couples have decided to become parents, their family-making journey entails a wide range of encounters with professionals in fertility clinics and/or in maternal and child healthcare services. The article presents the results of an analysis of 96 lesbian mothers’ interview talk about such encounters. In their stories and accounts, the interviewees draw on two separate and contradictory interpretative repertoires, the ‘just great’ repertoire and the ‘heteronormative issues’ repertoire. Throughout the interviews, the ‘just great’ repertoire strongly predominates, while the ‘heteronormative issues’ repertoire is rhetorically minimized. The recurrent accounts of health services as ‘just great’, and the mitigation of problems, are meaningful in relation to a broader discursive context. In a society where different-sex parents are the norm, the credibility of other kinds of parenthood is at stake. The ‘just great’ repertoire has a normalizing function for lesbian mothers, while the ‘heteronormative issues’ repertoire resists normative demands for adaptation.

Keywords

Lesbian parent maternal healthcare child healthcare heteronormativity discursive psychology interpretative repertoire

Along with several other western countries, Swedish legislation has addressed lesbian and gay liberal demands for same-sex marriage and parenting. In the early 21st century, two significant legislative changes took place. First, in 2003, same-sex couples were given the legal right to apply for adoption on equal terms with different-sex couples. In reality, this legislation has hardly been followed by any practical opportunities for same-sex couples to apply for adoption together. However, second-parent adoption, where one spouse adopts the biological (or previously adopted) child of the partner, turned out to constitute a real opportunity and is now being carried out mainly in female couples. The second legal change of significance took place in 2005, when lesbian couples gained access to assisted reproduction treatment at fertility clinics within the public healthcare service. As a consequence, female couples can now have children and become parents in a way that implies full legal and socio-political support for both parents. Despite these liberal legal changes, Sweden can be described as a heteronormative society that privileges heterosexual parenthood, where heteronormativity is expressed and performed variously depending on the context (Kulick, 2005; Ryan-Flood, 2009).

This article reports on a research project on lesbian-parent families with children born after the legal change of 2003.¹ A total of 96 Swedish lesbian parents have been interviewed, as couples or individually, about their journey towards a family life with children. The project is a continuation of previous research in which a so-called pioneer generation of Swedish LGB families was studied (Zetterqvist Nelson, 2007). Those families had their children in the late 20th century, prior to any kind of legislative support. In the current research project, a new generation of LGB families is in focus, namely lesbian parenting couples who receive full legal support and recognition of children born in 2003 or later.

In this study, we analyze lesbian parents’ stories and accounts of received treatment in their encounters with professionals working in fertility clinics and maternal and child healthcare services. Our approach contributes to a broadened understanding of heteronormative mechanisms, relevant to gay and lesbian studies of parenthood. Our focus is also of relevance to healthcare providers in improving their treatment of lesbian families.

Previous research and theoretical framework

Studies of lesbian parenthood form a growing body of research within sociology, psychology and medicine (Biblarz and Stacey, 2010; Bos and Van Balen, 2010; Clarke, 2005). An overview of previous research on lesbians’ encounters with the healthcare services in general presents a contradictory and multifaceted picture in the sense that studies report exposure to prejudicial and condescending attitudes as well as respectful care from competent healthcare providers (Bjorkman and Malterud, 2009; Platzer and James, 2000; Polek et al., 2008). Similar variation in both positive and negative experiences appears in studies of lesbian mothers, or prospective mothers, in their encounters with fertility clinics and maternal and child healthcare services (for an overview, see McManus et al., 2006). Several studies describe how some lesbian women have had positive experiences of healthcare, whilst other studies speak of negative experiences of nurses, physicians, or midwives as lacking in knowledge of lesbian families and making incorrect assumptions about the family (Bos et al., 2004; Buchholz, 2000; Dahl Spidsberg, 2007; Goldberg and Sayer, 2006; Larsson and Dykes, 2008; McNair et al., 2008; Shapiro et al., 2009).

Among previous studies, we find two articles in which results showing both positive and negative treatment are dealt with from another angle. The interviewees’ descriptions of their experiences are analyzed not only for what is said but also for how it is said (Lee et al., 2011; Röndahl et al., 2009). Lee et al. (2011) describe how lesbian women, in their talk about prenatal care, tend to distance themselves from negative experiences while protecting their positive descriptions. For instance, negative attitudes were framed by interviewees as personality features of the individual professional rather than as expressions of insufficient knowledge and discrimination of lesbian couples. Similar findings have been discussed by Röndahl et al. (2009), who show that interviewees seem to prefer explaining negative experiences in terms of poor personal chemistry, thus relating to individual characteristics rather than to systematic unfriendly attitudes towards lesbians.

As we approach the subject of lesbians’ treatment in reproductive healthcare, we consider the findings of Lee et al. (2011) and Röndahl et al. (2009) to be of importance. Still, we argue that there is yet another way to approach variations and contradictions in interview talk that is related to methodology (Aguinaldo, 2012). The studies referenced above draw on a realist epistemological assumption, approaching the data as factual accounts. In these studies, descriptions of experiences are sorted into categories that are either positive or negative, assuming that attitudes are individually based cognitions directly linked to specific experiences. As a consequence, the variation on an individual level is not attended to, the social complexity of the interview interaction is overlooked and, finally, the social, cultural and historical embeddedness of the participants’ talk is not acknowledged in the analysis. In the present article, we approach the interview data from a social constructionist point of departure that sees language as context bound and acknowledges the constructive and performative functions of talk (see Burr, 2004; Potter and Wetherell, 1987). This approach enables a multifaceted analysis of the interviewees’ accounts and stories (see Stephens et al. 2004; Willig 2000). Firstly, these accounts/stories are understood as embedded in a broader social and cultural context of heteronormativity, where heterosexuality is privileged and construed as natural and where being a lesbian mother necessitates a constant negotiation of the production of heteronormativity (Kitzinger, 2005; Land and Kitzinger, 2005; see also Archakis and Lampropoulou, 2009; Berland and Warner, 1998; Cameron and Kulick, 2003). Secondly, a social constructionist perspective also stresses the performative dimensions of talk (Burr, 2004), which in this case means focusing on how the participants talk about their encounters, and what available discourses and accounting strategies they draw on in the specific context of a research interview situation.

Methodologically, we are inspired by the synthetic approach to critical discursive social psychology outlined by Wetherell (Wetherell, 1998: 388; see also Edley, 2001; Reynolds and Wetherell, 2003; Reynolds et al., 2007). This approach embraces both the tradition of discursive psychology that focuses on communication and argumentation as social actions (Edwards and Potter, 1992), and the critical tradition inspired by post-structuralist and Foucauldian approaches that focuses on discourse, power relations, and subjectivities (Hollway, 1989; Willig, 2000).

Following this tradition, descriptions of experiences are expected to be varied and multifaceted rather than coherent (Edward and Potter, 1992). We set out to address such variations as particular instances of discursive practices rather than as individual attitudes. In fact, variations, contradictions and complexities are of special interest, as they will display what social and cultural discourses the interviewees draw on when discussing their encounters with healthcare professionals during pregnancy and childbirth. Closely adhering to how the mothers talk also shows what conflicts of norms arise and how contradictory norms are negotiated and dealt with in the interview conversation.

A core analytical tool employed in the analysis is the interpretative repertoire (Potter and Wetherell, 1987; Edley, 2001; Wetherell, 1998). An interpretative repertoire provides a ‘relatively coherent way of talking about objects and events in the world’ (Edley, 2001: 198). When a speaker draws on a specific interpretative repertoire, she/he uses terms and metaphors adjusted to the specific context in question, where such terms appear to be natural. Potter and Wetherell (1987) highlight the fact that the same speaker may draw on different, or even contradictory, repertoires as she/he talks. Another important analytical focus is accountability, i.e. closely adhering the ways in which speakers make use of excuses, justifications, apologies, requests and disclaimers in an attempt to pass with their opinion as well as to avert any negative evaluations they may anticipate (Edwards and Potter, 1992; Potter and Wetherell, 1987). Accounting is of specific interest, as a careful analysis of the discursive components conveys assumed normative values and standards to which the speaker is relating. By using a variety of rhetorical strategies, the speaker constructs factual accounts with the aim of making them appear external to themselves (Edwards and Potter, 1992).

Through the lens of critical discursive social psychology, we analyze the interviewees’ talk about their encounters with healthcare providers prior to and during pregnancy, at childbirth and during early stages of parenthood, in a way that allows an analysis of the talk as embedded in a social context and that specifically focuses on the variations and contradictions in the talk.

Methods

Because the focus of the entire research project is on Swedish lesbian couples who share legal parenthood of their children, families with children born between 2003 (when the second-parent adoption legislation made shared legal parenthood possible) and 2009 (when data collection was initiated) have been of interest. In order to establish contact with same-sex parental couples from the entire country, Anna Malmquist initially collected decisions on second-parent adoption from all district courts in Sweden. Applications for adoptions dated within a 6-year period after the legal opening were included, if the adoptee was born in 2003 or later. Juridical decisions in which a female partner adopted the infant offspring of her spouse were found that pertained to a total of 185 unique families, with 1–3 children in each family. Invitations to participate in the study were sent out by regular mail to all identified parents, excluding four families with personal connections to the researcher. Of the 181 families approached, 109 expressed an interest in participating. All positive replies were answered, but due to the large number of families, we had to limit the number of participants. When selecting interviewees from the group of interested families, an effort was made to ensure a geographical spread among them. In total, 51 families participated.

The project followed the Swedish Research Council’s rules and guidelines for ethics in research, and the collection of adoption decisions and procedures to guarantee research participants’ proper information about the research project, for an informed consent to participate, was approved by the Regional Ethical Review Board at Linköping University (Reg. No. 165-09).

In total, 51 semi-structured parent interviews, with 96 interviewees, were conducted by Malmquist during 2009 and 2010. Most interviews took place in the interviewees’ homes, while a few took place at public cafés or at the interviewees’ workplaces, according to the interviewees’ desires. In 45 interviews, two mothers participated and were interviewed together as a couple; in six, only one mother participated, either due to conflicting schedules or because the mothers had separated. Each couple/individual was asked to provide their family narrative, following a chronology from when the couple first met, until family life at the time of the interview. The interviewer followed the parents’ narrative, interjecting questions about specific experiences, amongst others encounters with healthcare. The interviews provide a broad picture of the interviewees’ path to parenthood and everyday lives as a family.

All interviewees parented one (25 couples) or two (26 couples) children conceived within a lesbian relationship, but three of the former also included children from previous relationships, making 29 families with more than one child. In 19 of those 29 families, both mothers had given birth, while in the remaining 10 families, one mother had given birth to all children. At the time of the interviews, all children conceived within the lesbian relationships were between infancy and 10 years of age, with at least one child per family born between 2003 and 2009. The vast majority had conceived at fertility clinics with anonymous or identity-release donors, while a smaller group had conceived through home insemination with friends or acquaintances as donors or fathers. All of the lesbian couples shared custody and legal parenthood of the children conceived together (except for a few cases in which second-parent adoption of the babies had not yet been legally granted). Second-parent adoption in Sweden is available only for married spouses or registered partners; hence all of the lesbian couples were married/registered partners at the time of the adoptions.

The interviewees were born between the early 1950s and mid-1980s, with a mean age 36 years at the time of the interview. The families were spread over the southern and central parts of Sweden, settled in cities and suburbs as well as in smaller towns and rural areas. Most of the interviewees were employed, while a minority were running their own company or studying. A few interviewees were currently on parental leave, unemployed or on long-term sick leave. About one-third of the interviewees had an upper secondary level education, while the remaining two-thirds also had a university level qualification. The majority of interviewees were born in Sweden, while a few had migrated from other European countries.

Each interview lasted between 41 and 101 minutes, with a total recording time of 63 hours and 37 minutes. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim including both the interviewer’s and interviewees’ talk. Some non-verbal expressions, such as laugher or sighs, were noted in the transcriptions, while more detailed information, such as overlapping speech and length of pauses, was not. In the excerpts below, emphasis is shown in bold print. When a shorter part has been omitted from the transcription, this is marked with square brackets and three dots. Square brackets have also been used where a clarification is inserted. Names of parents and children have been replaced with pseudonyms. The vast majority of the interviewees label themselves as mothers, regardless of biological ties; all parents are therefore presented here as mothers. When of relevance to the analysis, the mothers have been separated by labelling one as non-birth mother and the other as birth mother.

Transcriptions were read through, and an index of the content of the entire body of interview data was made by Malmquist. Sections of special interest, focused on encounters with medical healthcare, have been scrutinized in more detail, using the tools of critical discursive social psychology. Malmquist searched for similarities and variation in the interview talk, aiming to identify specific rhetoric patterns in the data. Initial drafts were discussed with Karin Zetterqvist Nelson and modified collectively. Interviews were conducted and transcribed in Swedish, and all analysis was conducted on the Swedish original. Excerpts were translated to English before publishing (for a discussion on working with translated data, see Nikander, 2008).

The main findings presented here draw on an analysis of a striking feature that appeared in the data as a whole, namely the interviewees’ ways of talking about them being treated with concern and respect throughout their process of becoming parents. Such ‘just great’ stories recur frequently in the data, shaping a broad picture of positive, joyful and uncomplicated journeys towards parenthood. This way of talking forms an interpretative repertoire that we call the ‘just great’ repertoire, which is particularly frequently employed when interviewees depict their encounters with maternal and child healthcare services. However, a closer analysis of the participants’ talk reveals a more complex picture. Despite the claims about ‘just great’ encounters, most interviewees also depict meetings as problematic or treatment as inadequate. When highlighting such difficulties, they refer to aspects relating to their family formation, thereby pointing out heteronormativity. Thus a second interpretative repertoire, the ‘heteronormative issues’ repertoire, challenges the ‘just great’ story. Some interviewees draw strongly on the ‘heteronormative issues’ repertoire, commonly in relation to descriptions of encounters with fertility clinics. Most frequently, however, interviewees mobilize both repertoires alternately, and descriptions of ‘heteronormative issues’ are found incorporated into the stories of ‘just great’ treatment.

Below, we first analyze excerpts where the ‘heteronormative issues’ repertoire is strongly and primarily expressed. Thereafter we analyze instances where both repertoires are evoked, and demonstrate how the ‘just great’ repertoire is utilized to downplay heteronormativity. Finally, we analyze examples of the ‘just great’ repertoire when it is drawn on alone.

Drawing strongly on the ‘heteronormative issues’ repertoire

In parts of some interviews, heteronormativity in healthcare encounters is depicted explicitly, in terms of overtly expressed dissatisfaction from a non-accepting position. In the following, we will present two examples of such straightforward use of the ‘heteronormative issues’ repertoire. Susanna, the non-birth mother of her family’s second child, presents a delivery story.

Excerpt 1

Susanna: When you went in for your C-section, they were completely aware that we were together. But when he had come out, I went along with him down to the neonatal ward. And then they stood there and talked over my head and asked for the mother’s name. That made me super angry. I said: ‘you can ask me instead because she’s my wife. I know her personal number like. It’s my son.’ It was like then the nurse who was still there reacted: ‘would you like to carry him to the incubator?’ After that I was pretty angry at them like really: ‘whatever [inaudible] with him you inform me too’, because I stayed with him while they sewed Moa [birth mother] up and everything. And just being treated like someone, like a friend or something like ‘who are you suddenly sitting there with that child’.

Susanna depicts, using lively rhetoric, the staff’s treatment of her shortly after the caesarean delivery of her son. She claims that staff members ignored her: they ‘talked over my head’, and she contrasts this to her crucial position as a partner and parent; ‘she’s my wife […] It’s my son.’ The interviewee strengthens her account when describing her emotional reaction as being ‘super angry’, and later as ‘pretty angry’. She also specifically focuses on her closeness to the baby when highlighting that ‘I stayed with him while they sewed Moa up’. The concrete presence of her as a mother is formulated in sharp contrast to her claim that the staff treated her as a ‘someone’, as a ‘friend’; she even talks about their possible wondering ‘who are you suddenly sitting there with that child’. Vivid descriptions and rhetorical contrasts have been identified as effective rhetoric in making a statement appear factual and strong (Edwards and Potter, 1992), strategies drawn on when something is worth defending. Susanna’s rhetoric thereby shows her stance: the heteronormative exclusion of a non-birth mother as a parent is unacceptable.

Clear examples of interviewees drawing on the ‘heteronormative issues’ interpretative repertoire appear more frequently in relation to some settings than others. Most common in this regard are fertility clinics, contacted before the first pregnancy has been initiated. The couple in the excerpt below was planning to conceive with the help of the Swedish public healthcare system when one of the prospective mothers, Ida, phoned a fertility clinic to make an appointment.

Excerpt 2

Interviewer: Did you place yourselves on the waiting list [for insemination]?

Ida: No, but we were about to […] And it took ages to explain over the phone. I called then and was going to explain, and anyway they’d already had a [female] gay couple, but she didn’t understand a thing. But, so unbelievable, I said: ‘we want to have a child and we want help getting on the waiting list for insemination.’ I don’t know how many times I had to go through it.

Ida uses reported speech (Bahktin, 1986; Clark and Gerrig, 1990) to quote herself from the telephone call, as a demonstration of how she, despite her clarity and straightforwardness, was misunderstood or ignored when asking for help to get on the waiting list for insemination. The woman at the clinic did not to ‘understand a thing’, according to Ida. Ida stresses that it ‘took ages to explain’ and that she did not ‘know how many times’ she had to explain. In her account, no excuse is made for the woman’s claimed ignorance, instead, Ida's account functions as a way to make herself trustworthy, and the clinic blameworthy. This excerpt is followed by a long story depicting how the appointment finally proceeded. Ida states that they left the clinic ‘in tears’, owing to the inadequate treatment. Like several other couples, Ida and her partner argue that unfriendly treatment at the Swedish fertility clinics was the single crucial reason for contacting a well-known lesbian-friendly fertility clinic in Denmark. Ida later states: ‘if you were treated like that through the whole thing you’d hardly have the energy’. In Ida’s account, deficient treatment is presented as a consequence of heteronormativity; staff at the fertility clinic are claimed to be lacking in knowledge on how to respond to lesbian couples as prospective parents. Ida’s account is rhetorically strong; holding the staff accountable for the claimed deficiency (see Edwards and Potter, 1992). However, a far more common approach to heteronormativity is seen in most interviews, where descriptions of deficient treatment and lack of knowledge are downplayed and rhetorically justified.

A ‘just great’ repertoire downplays the ‘heteronormative issues’

Descriptions like the ones presented above, of uninformed professionals who lack knowledge about lesbian families, are common in the interviews. Other themes highlighted in the data are notions of not receiving treatment equivalent to what heterosexuals receive, or on the contrary, not receiving treatment adapted to lesbian families’ specific needs. In contrast to the examples above, however, negatively framed encounters are commonly presented in ways that rhetorically minimize (Potter, 1996) their impact. As a result, the ‘heteronormative issues’ repertoire is mitigated as the interviewees draw on another interpretative repertoire: the ‘just great’ repertoire. While the ‘heteronormative issues’ repertoire put the focus on deficiencies, the ‘just great’ repertoire contradicts the picture and depicts treatment as respectful and careful. The minimizing of heteronormativity takes two separate forms; either the heteronormative issues are presented as exceptions, deviating from how treatment is ‘otherwise’ carried out, or they are smoothed over with excuses and justifications. In the following, we analyze one example of each kind of rhetorical account. In the first, Jenny, a non-birth mother, shares her recollections from the maternity ward when she had her second child, Olivia.

Excerpt 3

Jenny: […] And Olivia she really got to feel the closeness, I carried her in a shawl and took care of her there on the maternity ward. It even happened that the staff there told me off, and really I think that was a little [Vendela, birth mother: yeah, that was a little] it was pretty bad, they said: ‘don’t forget now that the baby is supposed to lie there and find the breast.’ Almost like ‘don’t forget that the biological mother also has to have the baby, don’t walk around with it all the time’, which they didn’t say, but I was irritated, because I felt like it was none of their business. We already have a kid, we’re not stupid you know. Like that. They butted in. But like I said, otherwise we have to say that everything on the maternity ward was pretty good, there weren’t any, we haven’t felt discriminated against because we’re two women, I don’t think. Well wait there was one thing, those plastic bassinets that really irritated me, [...] they’d written ‘mother’ and ‘father’, up on the neonatal ward for premature babies, that made me irritated. They crossed out “father” and wrote my name, like. [...] That was the only thing I felt, no that wasn’t good. And then there was a paediatrician there too [Name of paediatrician] who, uh, who was sort of strange, I think. [Vendela: I don’t remember] Or who had a problem with it, she didn’t say anything, but I felt like it was a bit difficult. Otherwise it was fine.

This excerpt includes a picture of three situations that Jenny argues had irritated her, during her short stay on the neonatal maternity ward. First, she claims that the staff recommended that she give the newborn to the birth mother, which Jenny says is ‘pretty bad’. Additionally, the labels attached to the bassinet are described as irritating, because they had the pre-printed text ‘mother’ and ‘father’, with a space left to fill in each (different-sexed) parent’s name. Finally a paediatrician is claimed to have had a problem with ‘it’, presumably with them being a lesbian family. The mother makes no excuses on behalf of the professionals; the care providers are held responsible for the presented heteronormativity. Still, the impact of the ‘heteronormative issues’ repertoire is minimized, and Jenny turns to a ‘just great’ repertoire, as every example of deficiency is presented as an exception to the treatment as a whole. Her first story of treatment that made her irritated is followed by the statement that ‘otherwise we have to say that everything on the maternity ward was pretty good’. Added to this is her second example, similarly ended by saying that ‘that was the only thing I felt, no that wasn’t good’. Finally yet another example is added and completed with the claim that ‘Otherwise it was fine’. That the same speaker draws on different or even contradictory interpretative repertories like this is not surprising in itself, because different repertoires account for different interests (see Potter and Wetherell, 1987). We might ask, however, why this is done by Jenny in this particular case. Shortly after this excerpt, Jenny concludes the following:

Excerpt 4

Jenny: […] we were lucky it was as good as it was. It would have been really difficult if they hadn’t like, we just want to be treated like everybody else […].

In spite of Jenny’s claimed irritation over several incidents and conditions on the maternity ward, she provides an evaluation of the entire stay as ‘good’. The alternative presented, not being ‘treated like everybody else’, is stated as something that ‘would have been really difficult’. As drawing on the ‘heteronormative issues’ repertoire implies something ‘really difficult’, turning to the ‘just great’ repertoire seems to be a reasonable choice. Just as in previous excerpts, the ‘heteronormative issues’ repertoire is drawn on to claim rights to respectful treatment as a mother. Yet the ‘heteronormative issues’ are disarmed in relation to the positive ‘otherwise’. Jenny’s calling for treatment like ‘everybody else’ further provides a space for her to depict herself as being just like any other mother. In the following excerpt, the impact of the ‘heteronormative issues’ is minimized through repeated justifications. Sandra and her partner Nora tell a story from the delivery room, where Nora has given birth to their child Linnéa.

Excerpt 5

Sandra: […] well the staff there were really good, I think, we were treated well. [Inaudible] and then they came in with this diploma, and explained that I couldn’t be on it, uh, because I wasn’t a legal guardian or something.

Interviewer: What kind of diploma was it?

Sandra: They said it was something

Nora: Well, you get one, but it’s pink for a girl and blue for a boy, it’s important who it is, so you get this diploma, what’s on it?

Sandra: Weight and length I guess and

Nora: It’s her weight and length and Linnéa’s name

Sandra: and mother and father, but I couldn’t be on it

Nora: and then I guess the names of the staff too who

Sandra: Right, but they, they said, they said it in a nice way anyway, they could have written me in, it wouldn’t have mattered, but anyway they said it in a nice way, so I remember it in a positive light even though I thought it was pretty lousy still it was positive.

The non-birth mother Sandra’s initial statement in this excerpt – that the staff had been ‘really good’, and that she and her partner had been ‘treated well’ – is her concluding judgment of the staff’s contribution after what has been depicted as a complicated delivery. This statement is followed by the story of a diploma, a ceremonial greeting given to new families at this particular hospital. According to the interviewees, the diploma lists the names of everyone involved in the delivery: the child, the birth mother and the present care providers, but excludes the non-birth mother. However, when Sandra presents the event she points out that she remembers it ‘in a positive light’. Repeatedly she stresses that they ‘said it in a nice way’, a framing that maintains the coherence of the previous narrative about competent professionals. Edwards and Potter (1992) have identified the use of narrative sequences as rhetorical strategies to make ends meet in a narrative. In this sense, Sandra’s statement is embedded as a reliable part of the longer story, the ‘just great’ recollection of the delivery staff makes sense in spite of their excluding her, because they had ‘a nice way’ about them. When this ‘nice way’ is claimed, an excuse is made for behavior that is also depicted as ‘pretty lousy’. In this quite contradictory claim, indicating that the same treatment was ‘nice’ and simultaneously ‘lousy’, both interpretative repertoires, ‘just great’ and ‘heteronormative issues’, are drawn on.

The two repertoires are frequently linked together throughout the interviews, almost as if they were performing a couple’s dance. In the following section, we will show the ‘just great’ repertoire in its gloss, where deficiencies are claimed to be absent.

Just the ‘just great’ repertoire

When summarizing their journey towards parenthood, the interviewees often make statements describing things as ‘just great’ or as involving ‘no problems’. These claims could be presented in sweeping, vague formulations, like ‘no problems at all’ (Pia), ‘really positive reactions on the whole’ (Monika), ‘I haven’t met a single person here in Small Town who hasn’t been positive’ (Veronica) or ‘They were so nice at the maternity ward here. Nothing felt weird at all’ (Birgitta). When closely scrutinizing the ‘just great’ repertoire, we note that it is built up by to two closely related discursive themes: an emphasis on the warmth or positivity of professionals’ treatment alongside stressing the absence of any problems in the encounters. The ‘just great’ repertoire is distinctly drawn on in the excerpt below, in which the couple Pia (the birth mother) and Daniela (the non-birth mother) tell their story about the delivery of their first-born child.

Excerpt 6

Pia: […] they took such good care of us and everybody was so wonderful and nice and helped with breastfeeding and everything, really dedicated and like

Daniela: Yes, it was really good in that way, there were wonderful midwives and nurses, so helpful, because we had problems with breastfeeding at first, she didn’t suck hard enough. […] [inaudible] they didn’t question me at all, and I didn’t feel excluded or anything, no they took really good care of me too.

The parents draw on the ‘just great’ repertoire through a common characterization of nurses and midwives as wonderful and dedicated. In this couple’s vivid, lively shaping of the staff at the maternity ward as ‘so wonderful and nice’, ‘really dedicated’ and ‘so helpful’ the staff members’ contributions are construed as extraordinary. Women’s descriptions of their first childbirth do tend be vivid and associated with deep emotions (Simkin, 1992), and when looking at the interviewees’ descriptions of their delivery room experiences, the emphasis on wonderfulness in treatment may have borrowed its tone from their amazement about childbirth itself. However, the ‘just great’ repertoire is found in relation to other topics as well. In the following excerpt, we see how strong emphasis on positive treatment reoccurs when far more regular encounters are in focus.

Excerpt 7

Interviewer: What were your experiences of encounters at the child wellness clinic and maternity clinic?

Ellen: Completely positive

Jessica: Yeah, completely positive

Ellen: Well almost, they were almost too nice, no well, you know. They were really great. Never any weird reactions [Jessica: no] from anybody.

In this short excerpt, the mothers depict their contact with the maternity and child healthcare services as ‘completely positive’. By emphasizing the word ‘completely’, Ellen explicitly marks that the positive contact did not consist of anything but the positive. At the same time, however, she touches on the possibility of having different experiences. In her next sentence, the matter is clearly expressed; in contact with healthcare institutions she claims that they have ‘never’ met with ‘any weird reactions from anybody’. Ellen’s rhetoric illustrates an extreme case formulation (Edwards and Potter, 1992; Potter, 1996), where extreme formulations like ‘completely’, ‘never’ and ‘anybody’ builds a strong case. Her claim, that they never have met weird reactions, comes to validate the ‘completely positive’ and ‘really great’ description of the encounter. At the same time, ‘weird reactions’ is presented as something likely to occur. This rhetoric orients to the minority position of lesbian motherhood; because ‘weird reactions’ is a reasonable expectation in relation to a heteronormative discourse (see Clarke, 2001; Malmquist and Zetterqvist Nelson, 2008). Ellen is not unique in explicitly pointing out positive encounters as non-discriminatory; similar accounts appear frequently in the interviews. Another example has already been shown in Excerpt 6, where non-birth mother Daniela expressively states that she, in her specific position, was never questioned or excluded, something thereby presented as likely to happen. The ‘just great’ repertoire forms a robust account, in relation to which interviewees are able to claim treatment as fully unproblematic, and thereby position themselves as ‘just like’ any ‘ordinary’ mothers; in Daniela’s words: not being ‘excluded or anything’. However, starting from the ‘just great’ repertoire, it seems impossible to speak of lesbian motherhood without some orientation to potential problems, i.e. without relating to heteronormativity, even while claiming that there were no problems. The minority position and the heterosexual norm in parenting (Clarke, 2001) are thereby equally present, albeit in quite different ways, when participants draw on a ‘heteronormativity issues’ or a ‘just great’ repertoire.

Discussion

In this article, we have discussed lesbian parenting couples’ talk about their encounters with healthcare providers prior to, during and after pregnancy. Two separate interpretative repertoires have been identified: the ‘just great’ repertoire and the ‘heteronormative issues’ repertoire. The ‘just great’ repertoire was highly predominant in the interview data, while the ‘heteronormative issues’ repertoire often appeared to be rhetorically minimized (Potter, 1996). In the following discussion, we attempt to make sense of the dominance of the ‘just great’ repertoire and the discursive efforts made to keep it valid.

The first issue to consider is the interview setting, as the employment of any interpretative repertoire must be understood in its specific context (Potter and Wetherell, 1987). Given the study’s focus on same-sex parenting, the interviewees responded to the context of being part of this research project. The explicit stressing of ‘no problems’ may have been a response to an assumption that prejudices or issues were the actual focus of the interviews, and may have been motivated to provide positive accounts to bolster the public acceptability of lesbian parenting (e.g. Clarke et al., 2004). Furthermore, when a speaker has a stake or an interest to defend, she/he would make efforts to present a credible narrative (Edwards and Potter, 1992), hence downplaying contradictions is of strictly rhetorical relevance.

Beyond considering the interview setting, the features of the told stories are of interest for further discussion. Because several of the accounts in focus depicted experiences in delivery rooms, we could compare these stories with a previous study on women’s delivery memories. Simkin (1992) notes that vivid and highly emotional memories are typical for childbirth experiences. Because one striking characteristic of the ‘just great’ repertoire was the vivid expressions, where strong adjectives created a picture of excellent care provision, some of these rosy descriptions must be seen in relation to the context of depicting deliveries. However, strong descriptions utilizing rhetoric strategies like extreme case formulations, which functions as a way of claiming things to be ‘just great’, were seen in relation to a variety of settings, including regular pregnancy or baby wellness check-ups. Besides the dramatic experience of childbirth, ‘just great’ stories need additional interpretation. As shown above, the two repertoires frequently occurred together in the interviews. When this happened, the ‘just great’ repertoire usually dominated the stories, while ‘heteronormative issues’ were rhetorically minimized. This downplaying of heteronormativity reveals the strength of the ‘just great’ repertoire and indicates that when lesbians’ encounters with healthcare professionals are the topic, something is at stake (see Edwards and Potter, 1992; Potter, 1996). To address this matter, we need to take a wider sociological perspective on parenthood and, more specifically, on lesbian motherhood.

According to Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (1995), child–parent relationships differ from other close relations in that they are considered the most stable and non-negotiable in modern western culture. Becoming an involved parent, where spending a great deal of time with the child and developing a close relation is seen as a parental responsibility, has elsewhere been described as a strong norm for Swedish parents (Forsberg, 2009). Furthermore, a child’s unhappiness or deficient upbringing is often regarded as a reflection on the parents’ personal shortcomings (Bäck-Wiklund and Bergsten, 1997). ‘Good parenthood’ forms a core discursive ideal to which parents generally relate as they navigate through their everyday lives. When held morally accountable for all sorts of troubles a child might get into (Clarke et al., 2004), it would seem desirable for any parent to draw on a ‘just great’ repertoire in which difficulties are parenthesized. The ‘just great’ story coincides in this sense with a broader account of ‘good parenthood’. In other words, when our interviewees claimed their ‘just great’ stories, despite their descriptions of inadequate encounters, they were accounting for their creditability as competent parents.

In this particular context, however, the ‘just great’ repertoire can also be highlighted in relation to rhetorical and ideological tensions that arise when lesbians aim at motherhood (Kawash, 2011; Thompson, 2002). Feminist theories have dealt with lesbian motherhood as a form of resistance to heteronormative parenthood, but also as an assimilation of the lesbian to traditional notions of femininity (Clarke, 2005; Kawash, 2011). It has been argued that same-sex parenthood, in forming a minority identity, is more vulnerable than heterosexual parenthood to how others judge the family (Clarke et al., 2004). Because the ‘just great’ repertoire refrained from articulating specific needs or vulnerability, it functioned as a way of presenting one’s own motherhood as assimilated to normative motherhood. This in turn, is interesting to consider in relation to public debates on same-sex parenting.

An intense debate on gay and lesbian families is part of an ongoing battle in various parts of the world, not least in the US, where there has been a wave of ballots on same-sex marriage and adoption (Fingerhut et al., 2011). In Sweden, a debate on same-sex parenting culminated around the turn of the millennium in the parliament as well as in the mass media (Malmquist and Zetterqvist Nelson, 2008). Analysis of the debate rhetoric reveals that one core argument, drawn on by those objecting to liberal changes, was the assumption that children of same-sex couples would suffer from exposure to homophobic prejudices (Malmquist and Zetterqvist Nelson, 2008; for similar debate in Great Britain, see Clarke 2000, 2001; Clarke et al., 2004; Speer and Potter, 2000). Official reports published in Sweden during the 1980s and 1990s (SOU 1983: 42; SOU 1984: 63; SOU 1993: 98) maintained that ‘society’, ‘people’ and even ‘peers’ were not ready to deal with same-sex parenthood. Such a ‘society is not ready’ discourse quite recently offered the predominant view of lesbian families, and continues to be raised whenever the issue comes up for discussion (see Malmquist and Zetterqvist Nelson, 2008). It is possible that the interviewees oriented to this discourse when accounting for themselves and their families. Previous research has shown how lesbian and gay parents rhetorically minimize their children’s exposure to bullying (Clarke et al., 2004). Clarke et al. (2004) discuss how parents balance between the risk of describing difficulties, which would be picked up by opponents of same-sex families, and claiming no problems at all, which opponents would undermine as ‘unbelievable’. Following this argumentation, we could suggest that our interviewees’ ways of alternately drawing on two contradictory repertoires were a reasonable way of balancing between these two pitfalls when accounting for them as good parents. Hence, at stake was the risk of feeding opponents of lesbian parenthood with arguments they could use against these families, namely that it would be harmful for any child to be brought up in a two-mother family. Instead, the unproblematic journey, a ‘just great’ story, was stressed, highlighted and emphasized over and over again.

For clinicians encountering lesbian families, the apologetic, conciliatory nature of the ‘just great’ repertoire is worth reflection. We argue that when deficient treatment is apologized for, the responsibility imposed on healthcare providers may easily be overlooked. Consequently, for healthcare professionals aiming to improve the treatment they provide, high levels of sensitivity would be required, as the patients themselves tend to smooth over deficiencies. To address this matter, we suggest that professional training of all healthcare providers should include education on how to provide informed and competent treatment of minority patient groups.

Despite the strength of the ‘just great’ repertoire, we have also shown interview excerpts in which ‘heteronormative issues’ were strongly drawn on. In those instances, focus was put on care providers’ responsibility. No excuses were made on their behalf; the interviewees’ critique leaved no room for justifications. In these stories, the speakers accounted for their creditability as competent parents, not by being apologetic, but by demanding adequate treatment that recognizes their specific needs. This repertoire raises political demands that could be further developed in relation to a queer political movement (see Warner, 1999).

Whether Swedish lesbian parents’ reasoning is in line with how lesbians would argue in other western countries could not be established based on the present interviews, but is rather a question for further research. In Sweden, contemporary legislation does recognize lesbian couples as parents. It is evident, however, that lesbians continuously defend and justify their positions as parents. This in turn, shows that their parenthood has to be accounted for, a finding that makes sense in relation to the remaining presence of heteronormative ideals for parenthood.

Footnotes

Note

Author Biographies

Anna Malmquist is a doctoral student in psychology at Linköping University. Her doctoral research project focuses on Swedish lesbian couples who share legal parenthood with each other. Together with Karin Zetterqvist Nelson she is responsible for the section on ‘Gay and lesbian parents’ in Oxford Bibliographies in Childhood Studies. Malmquist is herself a non-heterosexual parent.

Karin Zetterqvist Nelson is Professor at Child Studies, Department of Interdisciplinary Thematic Studies, Linköping University. Her research about Swedish lesbigay families has been published in a book (Mot alla odds, 2007, Liber) and together with Anna Malmquist she is responsible for the section on ‘Gay and lesbian parents’, in Oxford Bibliographies in Childhood Studies. Another research area concern the history of child psychiatry and child therapy (see, for instance Paedagogica Historica 47: 6), and the role of behavioral sciences in the development of Swedish health services for children from 1945 to 2000.

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