Childfree and “bingoed”: A relational dialectics theory analysis of meaning creation in online narratives about voluntary childlessness

Abstract

We utilize RDT 2.0 to analyze 424 narrative accounts by voluntarily childless (“childfree”) Reddit users of bingo-response interactions to explore how discourse constrains and enables meaning creation. Contrapuntal analysis revealed competing Discourses of Reproductive Normativity (DRN) and Reproductive Autonomy (DRA). We identified both dialogically expansive and contractive discursive practices. The carnivalesque, a communication genre characterized by the sample, enabled discursive closure to occur via single-voiced monologue. Calcification is offered as a discourse marker through which authoritative monologism is accomplished. Discursive interplay occurred via countering, negating, and one discursive hybridization, pet parenthood. We offer the bingo-response interaction as a heuristic framework for advancing future RDT inquiry and critically oriented research about challenging social topics. We describe additional implications and future directions.