Parenting in Italy: Exploring compliance and resistance to the expert-led parenting model during the transition to parenthood

This work explores the role of scientific knowledge and professional expertise in shaping notions and standards of “good”, “proper” parenthood and parenting by analysing ideas and beliefs on parenting roles in heterosexual couples during the transition to parenthood. According to the international literature, perinatal and infancy experts and professionals (midwifes, gynaecologists, paediatricians, infant developmental psychologists, and so on) whom women and men enter into relation with during this phase of their life and whose cultural products (books, TV programmes, magazines) they “consume” are relevant actors. They can influence the delivery of the perinatal welfare and health services and the pursuit of policy goals at institutional level. They are also “relevant others” in the process of social construction of gendered parental roles. The article analyses the narratives of 22 Italian middle-class, dual-earner couples interviewed between 2010 and 2015, in Turin (Italy), a first time during the pregnancy, and a second time after childbirth (18 months later), for a total of 88 longitudinal interviews.