Caring for Teenage Children

Abstract

In this article, the author explores the care involved in parenting teenage children. Parenting at this stage, when teenagers are on the cusp of independence, requires strategies of monitoring and controlling children that are often not thought of as carework. The author focuses her analysis on one particular area of great concern to parents—control over teenagers' freedom of movement. Parents see control over their children's whereabouts as essential for keeping children safe. In presenting her data—interviews with mothers and teenagers—the author highlights the interactive aspect of this work. This kind of carework is above all a series of negotiations between parents and teenage children as teenagers try to gain more independence and parents try to maintain some control over them. Another important part of this analysis is to demonstrate that this type of parenting work is strongly affected by larger social forces of gender, class, and race.