Mana mātua: Being young Māori parents

Young Mäori parents strategically navigate Western parenting expectations, and issues of indigeneity in their construction of early parenting. A culturally based narrative approach to research with young Mäori parents revealed personal stories of early parenting located in wider expectations from family and peers, their Indigenous community and society. The application of a Mäori relational analytical framework reveals how young Mäori parents navigate and negotiate assumptions about being young and being Mäori. They draw on Mäori understandings about raising children to resist assumptions that having a child at a young age contributes to entirely negative experiences. Furthermore, identifying with Western attributes of good parenting helps to counter the negative social outcomes often attributed to Mäori parenting. Further strengthening of positive experiences of early parenting for Mäori requires a broader approach to developing positive representations of Mäori caregiving and Mäori identity and integrating these into parenting supports. * Ngäpuhi. Lecturer, Te-Pütahi-a-Toi: School of Mäori Art, Knowledge and Education, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand. Email: f.j.ware@massey.ac.nz † Senior Lecturer, School of Public Health, College of Health, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand. ‡ Rongomaiwahine, Ngäti Kahungungu. Senior Lecturer, Te-Pütahi-a-Toi: School of Mäori Arts, Knowledge and Education, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand. DOI: 10.20507/MAIJournal.2018.7.1.2