September 15, 2024 Recently a popular reporter at the New York Times wrote about stressfulness of today’s parenting, responding to the Surgeon General’s address that parenting stress is a national public health issue. My name was cited as a co-author of the article on parenthood and wellbeing published in Journal of Marriage and Family in…
Illustration by Aleutie at Dreamstime August 26, 2024 Today is the first day for my daughter Lucy, who is a high school senior at a local High School, to attend a college course at BGSU in person for the first time. She has already taken several classes at BGSU as part of the State of…
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What it means to be parents in today’s American society? How does it differ across subpopulations?
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How do American parents connect to their children? How does it differ across subpopulations?
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How are American parents doing these days? Are they happy? Are they feeling overwhelmed? Feeling alone? What are they concerned about most?
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How does parents’ well-being influence their parenting practices and children?
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What can we do as a society to help parents/guardians raise the next generation?
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The primary aims of my research are to inform policymakers about disparities in parental and child well-being across subpopulations, what types of the demands of parenting are challenging for specific subpopulations, and what types of resources are scarce for parents of specific subpopulations to meet the demands of raising the next generation of our society.
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My research is about families, particularly about parents and children in the United States, how having children affects adults. As a sociologist, I focus on the social roots of and disparities in challenges and joys of parenting and parent-child relationships in the U.S. I am interested in knowing about the lives of parents with children in early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.
I have an extensive record of scholarly publications that examine how the health and well-being of parents and children differ across social groups by demographic characteristics, like gender, education, employment, marital status/partnership, race/ethnicity, and nativity.
To answer my research questions, I conduct secondary analyses of public-use data of various national surveys collected by the federal government agencies, research institutes, or other researchers.
I primarily teach undergraduate and graduate sociology courses on families and gender. I taught senior capstone courses for several years.
My favorite teaching motto is, “To teach is to touch lives forever.” The courses that I teach at undergraduate level address issues that are and will be super relevant to their lives.
I strive to guide students to refine their skills to analyze and interpret information and data on social issues. I encourage them to evaluate the sources and the quality of data critically. I emphasize the importance of paying attention to the substantive implications of social issues for individual and societal well-being.
I have served on editorial boards of Journal of Marriage and Family, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Society and Mental Health, Sociology Compass, and Social Currents.
I have been a member of scientific review sections for NICHD grant proposals as an ad-hoc member (2022-2023) a regular member (2023-2027).
I have been an active member of the Family Section at the American Sociological Association (ASA). I was on the council (2017-2020) and has been a chair-elect, chair, and past-chair (2021-2024) in the Family Section.
I am currently Director of the Graduate Studies in the Department of Sociology at BGSU.
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I conclude that, mothers, for the most part, continue to be “sweepers” (to borrow a soccer analogy), even in the United States today. Their job is to be ever attentive to what needs to be done to assist in covering the goal—to what they must do to ensure their well-being and that of their family
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Susanne Bianchi
(Demography, 2000 p.412)
Kei Nomaguchi, PhD., Family Sociologist 