ABSTRACT
Chapter 10 investigates the performance of intimate relationships at a particular time of day and activity, bedtime. This is a time in Western cultures that entails anxieties related to separation of children from parents. Loving, caring, and sharing are features of intimate bedtime routines. Through concurrent activities of touch, close alignment of bodies, prosody, and loving talk, caregivers – mothers and fathers – with their children close off their evening encounters with talk that speaks to affection for the other. Intimate talk entails terms of endearment, closing farewells, and expressions of anticipation for reunion the next morning.
Using touch, prosody, and close bodily alignment in space, family members can invite another to participate haptically in a shared experience (a hug or kiss). Family members can also invite emotional intimacy through the sharing or disclosure of fears coming from the day’s experiences. Corporeal orders of family institution, how families choreograph haptic routines, are constituted in various ways that bring attention to children’s and parents’ emotional co-dependence and mutuality.
