Modernity and the Communicative Management of Multiple Roles: The Case of the Worker-Parent

This study explores the relations among interpersonal communication, self-identity, and conditions of modernity in the context of work and parenting. The conceptualization of role construction as communicative process is an extension of the idea that social reality, which includes social and personal identity, is created through human interaction. Conditions of modernity intensify individuals' experience of self-identity as constructed rather than given, and heighten the constitutive function of interpersonal communication with respect to the definition and maintenance of role-identities. The data for this study were obtained through in-depth interviews with 8 dual earner couples in the early stages of their first-time transition to parenthood. Interview transcripts were analyzed using Strauss and Corbin's grounded theory approach. Three primary elements of role construction emerged from the respondents' accounts. Three features of modernity that have special relevance to this process are delineated. Evidence from the accounts of the functioning of elements of role construction under conditions associated with modernity is presented.