Coparenting experiences in intact family in Turkey: A qualitative investigation

Parenting is one of the basic facts that many adults take responsibility as having children from past the present. In many societies, couples are expected to have children, especially after the marriage. The parenting process begins when couples decide to have a child. Coparenting is the parenting process in which parents take a common attitude in the child-rearing process. The coparenting relationship has started to take an important place in national and international literature in recent years. The scope of the coparenting relationship, which initially worked with divorced parents, has been expanded in recent years to include all caregivers of the child. Although the concept of coparenting takes place in both at the national and international level nowadays, the number of studies on the concept in the national literature in Turkey is not yet at sufficient level. In the current study, it is aimed to fill an important gap in the national literature by examining the coparenting experiences of intact families in Turkey. In this study, the coparenting experiences and perceptions of married couples and of those living together are examined by using the phenomenological method. While selecting participants for the study, criterion sampling technique, which is one of the purposive sampling methods, was used. Participants were selected from among parents who are married and living together and have children between the ages of 0-18. 10 couples living in the city center and 10 couples living in rural areas, a total of 60 couples participated in the research from the provinces of İzmir, Ankara and Van. In data collection process, demographic information form and semi-structured interview form were used, while creating the aforementioned forms, the findings of previous studies and expert opinions were evaluated and then the forms were finalized by making necessary revision. In the city and in the countryside, face to face meetings were interviewed with the participants separately. After the interviews, the discourses of the participants were coded with the content analysis method and divided into specific categories. Then the data in interpretation phase was started. During the data analysis phase, in order to increase the validity of the data, the opinions of the experts on the subject were taken. For reliability in data analysis, within the scope of intra-rater reliability, the data were coded by the same researcher at two week intervals and the percentage of agreement was calculated. In data analysis the reliability coefficient was calculated as 91.72%. When the findings of the study were reviewed, it was seen that married couples living together in Turkey were generally willing to coparent. At the same time, it has been understood that the coparenting process in Turkey is generally mother-based, while fathers are more involved in the process by helping mothers. It can be said that the basic care needs of children are mostly provided by mother and the father participates in the child rearing process by establishing more authority and providing financial needs. It has been observed that married and living together parents in Turkey have disagreements in the coparenting process mostly about disciplining the child and interfering with each other's parenting style. It has been observed that couples mostly avoid reflecting their negative experiences in the coparenting process to their children. While positive coparenting experiences have positive effects on their children and couple relations, it has been observed that negative coparenting experiences cause problems in the family system, lead to child-parent conflict and difficulties in the child's adaptation. Finally the findings obtained from the research were discussed in comparison with the literature and suggestions were provided for the future studies. KEY WORDS: Coparenting, Qualitative Study, Phenomenological Approach, Semi- structured Interview.