"And Did He Come to Pick You Up?": Parental Control as an Invisible Barrier to the Spatial Behaviour of Daughters in Distant University Cities
Abstract
Research on perceptions of security has long focused on exploring fear for oneself, but fear for other person, so-called altruistic fear, which can contribute significantly to the overall perception of security, is equally important. Fear for others is also related to the need for surveillance and control over those for whom we worry.
This article focuses on the importance of transferred, spatially absent parental control for the perception of fear for daughters who moved from a small municipality to a large, distant university city. Through semi-structured interviews with female first and second year college students, we examine how their feelings of safety and danger in the new environment transformed during their transition to university, how parents approached their leaving home and how they communicated with their daughters, and how the parents continued to supervise them despite the spatial divide.
Our analysis shows the different forms that the relationship between parental control and their daughter's fear can take, and how fear for oneself can be interwoven with fear for others.