Backpacks, driving, fun and farewell: examining the ritual experience of the weekend amongst non-resident parents and their children

Abstract

If not in reality, then in the cultural imaginary of Western society, the weekend is often pictured as a pilgrimage site for families. By particularly focusing on the experience of the weekend amongst non-resident parents and their child(ren), this article offers a simultaneously new and innovative gaze on the issue. Drawing on middle-class non-resident parents’ accounts collected through episodic interviews, it explores the beginning, the middle and the ending of those fortnightly weekends. Making use of a qualitative approach, key moments of anticipation, experience and farewell are examined, and the main features highlighted. Using a sociological perspective, the findings suggest that whilst outside the week, its promise is to synchronise everyone under a same family clock in the view of a ‘quality’ and ‘special’ time; inside the weekend, non-resident parents and their children experience a family ritual. In between the expectation and joy in the anticipation and the sadness and the sorrow of farewell, a ‘different’ time disrupts the daily life, and imprints a ‘unique’ and ‘special’ occasion. Always ephemeral, the weekend is, thus, unveiled as a liminal time span, not least as far as post-separation parenting is concerned.