I will discuss how writing evocatively, emotionally, and candidly about our own relationship losses provides for authors a method of inquiry, understanding, and restorying ourselves. For readers, personal loss narratives provide companionship in coping with situations of loss, and the stories stimulate moral imagination, relational insight, and emotional understanding. In the present study, I analyze stories that married couples tell about the experience of becoming a parent. I argue that the particular meaning couples attach to the experience of becoming a parent provides insight into the psychological aspects of their ongoing marital and parental experiences. The data for this study were collected from a representative sample of Black and White first marriages in an urban county.
Findings indicate that there are patterns of meaning for the overall sample.
There are also significant differences between Black couples and White couples in the ways in which they construct meaning about the parental experience. The results demonstrate that specific dimensions of the stories relate to overall well- being in the marriage and in the parental role. This paper explores personal narratives from adolescent and preadolescent children of divorce. Presented here in dialogue, the voices represent a merging and blending of the storied interview experiences with my own immediate responses and later reflections and feelings for my participants.