Nested Becoming

Nested Becoming: Parenting as Liminal Process

1. Introduction: Parenthood as Liminal Engine

Nested Becoming reframes parenting not as a stable role, identity, or job but as a sustained liminal process—a threshold state that never fully resolves. Where conventional discourses position parenting as an achieved status or set of competencies, this framework reveals it as an ongoing transformation engine generating recursive identity changes.

This liminality is unique in that it:

Is mutually constitutive (parent and child co-create each other)
Operates on multiple temporal scales simultaneously
Creates nested thresholds where identities continuously fold into one another
Generates permanent in-betweenness rather than moving toward resolution

“To parent is not to occupy a role but to inhabit a threshold—one that transforms both the crosser and the crossed.”

2. From Role to Construct

The Unfinished Ritual

Traditional liminality theory from van Gennep and Turner describes three phases:

Separation from previous identity
Liminal period of ambiguity and transformation
Reincorporation into society with new status

Parenting disrupts this model by suspending resolution—the “liminal period” extends indefinitely:

Traditional Rite of Passage	Parenting as Liminal Construct
Clear beginning and end	Boundary-blurred, ongoing
Single transformative event	Continuous transformative process
Identity stabilizes after completion	Identity remains permanently fluid
Socially acknowledged completion	No clear completion point
Focus on individual transformation	Multiple entangled transformations

Becoming-with

Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of “becoming” offers a more accurate framework—not transitioning between fixed states but ongoing transformation without fixed endpoints:

“A becoming is not a correspondence between relations. But neither is it a resemblance, an imitation, or, at the limit, an identification.”

Parenting thus functions as intersubjective co-becoming where:

Parent identity is continuously destabilized and reformed
Child development shapes parental becoming (not just vice versa)
Boundaries between self/other, past/future remain fluid
Neither parent nor child ever “arrives” at completion

3. Recursive Time: Folding Identity and Temporality

Temporal Multiplicities

Parenting generates a complex temporal structure where multiple timeframes operate simultaneously:

Memory recursion: Parenting reactivates one’s experiences of being parented
Present dissolution: The immediate absorbs consciousness (diaper change, emotional crisis, bedtime ritual)
Future projection: Decisions made through anticipated consequences decades ahead
Genealogical time: Awareness of generational patterns being replicated or disrupted
Developmental time: Child’s growth as marking temporal passage

This creates what philosopher Lisa Baraitser calls “temporal drag”—a stretching and compressing of experienced time.

The Repair Function

For many parents, particularly those working through trauma or difficult childhoods, parenting becomes a site of:

Temporal repair: Attempting to heal past wounds through present action
Recursive growth: Developing capacities in adulthood that weren’t nurtured in childhood
Transgenerational remediation: Consciously breaking harmful patterns

“In becoming a threshold for another, the parent must revisit their own passages—completed, interrupted, or denied.”

Neurodivergent Temporality

For neurodivergent parents (ADHD, autistic, etc.), this temporal complexity intensifies:

Time dilation: Subjective experience of time expanding/contracting unpredictably
Fragmentation: Discontinuous awareness of sequential events
Syncopation: Rhythm mismatches between internal timing and external demands
Hyperfocus/time blindness: Absorption that disrupts conventional temporal tracking

These create both unique challenges and opportunities for neurodivergent parents navigating liminal parenting states.

4. Power, Constraint, and Agency

Constrained Agency

Parenting represents a paradigmatic case of constrained agency—enormous responsibility paired with limited control:

Responsible for outcomes while subject to biological, developmental, social, and economic forces
Expected to shape another’s becoming while lacking full agency over one’s own circumstances
Navigating institutional powers (medical, educational, legal) that structure parental experience

Invisible Architecture

The constraints on parental agency remain largely invisible:

Structural invisibility: Care work as economically undervalued or uncompensated
Institutional pressures: Medical, educational, and social service systems that dictate “proper” parenting
Cultural judgment: Normative expectations that pathologize deviation from dominant models
Resource inequalities: Disparate access to time, money, support, information

Transformative Power

Despite these constraints, parenting remains a site of profound transformation:

Ethical creativity: Developing new values and moral frameworks
Embodied knowledge: Learning through physical and emotional entanglement
Identity reorganization: Fundamental restructuring of priorities and self-conception
Meaning-generation: Creating significance through care relations

This tension between constraint and transformation defines the liminal power dynamics of parenting.

5. Domestic Heterotopias

Regulated Chaos

Foucault’s concept of “heterotopias”—spaces that are simultaneously real and unreal, ordered and disordered—aptly describes homes with children:

Spaces organized around bodily needs yet constantly disrupted
Temporal zones structured by routines yet unpredictably interrupted
Order systems continuously created and demolished

“The family home becomes a threshold space—neither fully ordered nor chaotic, but a negotiated terrain of competing temporalities and needs.”

Threshold Objects

The material culture of parenting teems with liminal objects:

Doorframes: Marking boundaries between sleep/wake, supervision/independence
Bathtubs: Spaces of transition between states (dirty/clean, play/routine)
Nightlights: Physical manifestations of the threshold between consciousness and unconsciousness
Carseats: Mobile thresholds between domestic and public spheres
Digital monitors: Technologies that extend parental presence across physical boundaries

These objects materialize the continuous boundary-crossing work of parenting.

Spatial Reconfiguration

The physical environment undergoes continuous transformation:

Spaces repeatedly repurposed as children develop
Boundaries between public/private, child/adult zones constantly renegotiated
Material accumulation and divestment marking developmental passages

The home becomes a physical manifestation of the ongoing liminality—never settling into permanent form.

6. Nested Becoming

The Folded Self

Drawing on Deleuze’s concept of “the fold,” parental identity can be understood as a folding inward to create space for the child:

Self-identity curves to create an interior space for the other
Boundaries between self/other become topologically complex
Neither separate nor merged, but continuously folding into each other

This creates what might be called enfolded subjectivity—identities that develop through continuous incorporation of the other.

Reciprocal Becoming

The child-parent relationship generates a reciprocal becoming where:

Child becomes through parent’s structuring presence
Parent becomes through responding to child’s needs and development
Each continuously reshapes the other’s trajectory

“The parent does not simply guide the child across a threshold—they become the threshold itself, transformed by each crossing.”

Never-Stable Identity

This recursive process means parental identity can never stabilize:

Each developmental phase requires identity reconfiguration
The parent must continuously adapt to the changing child
The relationship itself evolves unpredictably through mutual influence

Parental identity thus remains permanently liminal—always becoming, never arriving.

7. Implications & Applications

Reframing Early Parenthood

This framework offers new parents a more accurate model than conventional “role transition” discourses:

Normalizes ongoing disorientation rather than expecting quick adaptation
Values process over mastery or expertise
Acknowledges inevitable identity destabilization as generative rather than problematic

Care Work Visibility

Understanding parenting as liminal process highlights:

The continuous labor of threshold maintenance
The cognitive and emotional complexity of caregiving work
The structural conditions that shape care possibilities
The developmental importance of liminal spaces for human flourishing

Neurodivergent Parenting

For neurodivergent parents, this framework:

Validates different temporal and sensory experiences as legitimate modes of care
Reframes “consistency” demands as problematic rather than essential
Recognizes alternative approaches to structure and routine
Identifies system failures rather than individual deficits

Educational Applications

For family support systems, this perspective suggests:

Replacing “parenting skills” models with facilitating reflection on transformation
Supporting parents in navigating institutional thresholds
Creating community structures that honor the liminality of care work
Designing interventions that work with rather than against temporal complexity

8. Conclusion: Parenting as Epistemic Threshold

Parenting functions not just as a social role but as an epistemic threshold—it fundamentally changes how one knows, feels, and acts in the world. This transformation is not a one-time crossing but a continuous process of becoming that reshapes:

Embodied knowledge
Temporal perception
Ethical frameworks
Identity boundaries
Relational capacities

The concept of Nested Becoming offers a framework for understanding this complex, recursive process—one that honors both its constraints and its generative potential.

“To parent is to build a bridge while becoming the river.”