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Abstract
Our qualitative study investigated the ways in which bisexual mothers came to identify as such and how their identity interconnected with their personal relationship and parenting histories within the social contexts they experienced. Eight women (ages 28 to 56 years old) who had experienced sexual relationships with both women and men over their life span were interviewed. At the time of their interview the participants were mothers to children of various ages from infancy to adulthood. A Labovian narrative analysis was conducted to highlight key points in their understanding of their sense of self in relation to particular social contexts and their story of how they came to identify as a bisexual mother or not. Our findings pointed to involvement in various self-identity projects that were variously integrated and resolved within their life course story, namely, the construction of a positive sexual identity and the development of a romantic relationship and the desire to parent. Our life course development study emphasized sexual self-identity as providing a source of agency and organization with respect to personal development in embracing or sidelining opportunities as these occurred or did not occur within changing social contexts over time.
Funding
This research was supported by a Leonardo da Vinci Training Placement grant to Marie Delvoye at the University of Liege to study under the supervision of Fiona Tasker at Birkbeck University of London. The authors wish to thank participants of the UK Bisexual Parenting Project who gave us insights into their experiences and identities. We also wish to thank Dr. Meg John Barker of the Open University UK who acted as a research consultant to the project and Dr. Pedro Costa of the Psychology and Health Research Unit (UIPES), Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada, Portugal, who conducted the independent audit of our findings.