“No, I won't eat that!” Parental self-transformation in clashes of role enactment and children's will

Céline del Bucchia (1) , Liza Penaloza (2)

1 Audencia Business School
2 Kedge BS - Kedge Business School

This study addresses one aspect of self-transformation, namely, the way consumers develop understandings of themselves through enacting parental roles in the context of everyday family consumption. In-depth interviews are used to examine informants' evolving understanding of themselves as parents in relation to their daily meal practices. Overall, this study extends the literature on parenthood and the negotiation of the self by detailing the dynamics of mothers' and fathers' self-transformation processes as they grapple with contemporary changes in the parental roles they internalize to socialize, accommodate, and please their children. This study shows how the parents' self-transformation process is strongly gendered, inadequately guided by roles, and inflected by the market. It introduces an emerging model of a more pleasure-based form of parenting in consumption, shaped by the market.

Keywords: Child consumer; Gendered Roles; Family Meals; Self-transformation; Motherhood; Fatherhood

Domains: Humanities and Social Sciences; Business administration

Céline del Bucchia, Liza Penaloza. “No, I won't eat that!” Parental self-transformation in clashes of role enactment and children's will. Journal of Business Research, 2016, 69 (1), pp.145-154. ⟨10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.07.028⟩. ⟨hal-01232368⟩