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Through written life stories of lone mothers, this article examines changes in lone motherhood in twentieth-century Finland. While the older life-story writers' narratives are clearly influenced by an 'ethos of survival' and the regulation of female sexuality, the younger writers relate their experiences with the help of scripts on gender equality and the psychological importance of 'good' parenting. These narrative shifts point to important changes in cultural scripts on women's positions in families, on the labour market, and in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses a study of residence and contact disputes in court which utilised a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods in order to gain a multidimensional picture of these disputes. It is argued that in a study such as this, the different datasets are best viewed as complementary, rather than as a means of validating each other. The data from each stage address a different aspect of these court disputes, thus offering a better understanding of the complexity of what goes on at court. I examine the ways in which the mixed methods approach improved the research team's ability to interpret the findings. I conclude that the study has highlighted that because there is not just one view of how well the courts work, a variety of criteria needs to be used in evaluating this: when, for whom, for which problems and on which measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Children Act 1989 gave priority to the welfare of children when family courts make orders for residence and contact. As a consequence, other issues came to be viewed as less significant. In this article, we examine the court records of three County Courts to determine to what extent the disputes that parents bring to court are actually about children (seen as legitimate concerns) as opposed to other matters (seen as illegitimate concerns). Our findings indicate that underpinning legitimate concerns over children are a multitude of other 'illegitimate' issues such as quantum of child support and unresolved anger between the parents that remain central to parents' concerns. We conclude that, although a return to adjudicating 'blame' and 'guilt' would be a regressive step, it might be sensible to try to find a way of acknowledging these arguments as this may aid resolving conflicts between parents to the benefit of their children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to examine how Finnish lone mothers of two age cohorts construct their lone motherhood and also to show how the meanings ascribed to social phenomena are socially and historically embedded. Finland presents an interesting case for studying the links between the social and the individual because the country has experienced rapid social shifts since World War II. It is shown how specific social contexts to some degree set the parameters for how social phenomena are understood and interpreted, as shown by the differences in how two cohorts of life-story writers construct lone motherhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]