Facebook Parenting Groups as a Source for Parenting: An Investigation on Mothers

The main aim of the present study was to examine the reasons for parents’ following of Facebook parenting groups. Another aim was to investigate the demographic, Facebook-use related, individual and parenting-related factors related to the frequency of active and passive following of these groups. One hundred ninety-three Turkish mothers (Mage = 33.56, SDage = 5.03, Range = 21-48) completed the demographic information form, the use of social media form, the trait anxiety inventory, the perceived offline social support scale and the self-perception of parental role questionnaire. Results demonstrated that parents were following Facebook parenting groups more passively and its frequency was related positively to the parent’s education level and the frequency of using Facebook, and negatively to the children’s mean age. The frequency of active following was found to be predicted positively by the frequency of using Facebook and the frequency of sharing on Facebook, and negatively by the level of parental competence. These findings were discussed in terms of the idea that Facebook parenting groups might provide informational support to the parents and have become a source for parenting. Keywords: Parenting, Facebook, online social network, information

Popularizing and Promoting Nene Hatun as an Iconic Turkish Mother in Early Cold War Turkey

This article traces Nene Hatun’s popularity and legacy for women’s image in Turkey. The rediscovery of Nene Hatun and the political construction of her public image during the rule of the Democratic Party (DP), as an icon of anticommunist Turkish mothers, not only maps out the gendered effects of intensified anticommunist policies in Turkey in the period under consideration but also showcases the immediate consequences of the growing conservative discourses and gender anxieties on the public images and roles of women. Exemplified by Nene Hatun’s sudden popularity, the 1950s witnessed a change in the references to motherhood in the discourses of politicians and other public figures. Framing the family roles of women as a question of security, such discourses referred to mothers as the protectors of family values against communist threats, which assigned further domestic duties to women in Turkey, already living in a strongly patriarchal society.

Impacts of Urban Terror Attacks on Turkish Mothers’ Daily Experiences

This phenomenological study aims to provide a deeper understanding of the day-to-day experiences of Turkish women with caregiving responsibilities in terms of (a) how they respond to and regulate their lives around the fear of terror, (b) how their caregiving roles affect their reactions, and (c) how they cope with terrorism induced distress in their day-to-day life. A total of 21 women were interviewed for the study about their daily experiences following terrorist attacks that occurred in their urban hometowns. The qualitative analysis program called Atlas.ti was utilized for the coding procedure. Four main themes (the nature of the terrorist attacks, reactions to the event, coping strategies, and the role of the media) and several subcategories emerged from the data. The participants were emotionally affected by these events as they were shocked and confused, their sense of security was shaken, and they felt anxious not only during the events but they also continued to perceive such danger days or weeks after the events. All participating mothers reported some degree of shock, anxiety, fear, threat, risk alertness, and a shaken sense of security even though none of the mothers themselves or their loved ones were direct victims of the events. Overall, the results reveal that Turkish mothers feel terror threat perception and security-related stress even around 6 months after the events. Having a caregiving responsibility exacerbates the women’s distress level. The unpredictability, uncertainty, and physical proximity/familiarity of the location of the event appear to have vital impacts on participants’ cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions as well as in their coping. Similarly, the media, including social media, play significant roles in meaning making and responses as well as the coping process. The results were discussed in the light of the related literature.