Not prepared for the new social context?: Chinese middle-class parenting worries

• In Event: 2-069 - How changing macro-contexts shape child development and parenting: Examples from China

Integrative Statement

Chinese middle-class parents, like other middle-class parents raising children in developed nations, expend enormous time and resources to raise their children. There are increasingly normative expectations for intensive parenting in many cultures (Hays, 1996), and a failure to engage in intensive parenting practice is perceived to be risky for both parents and children (Smyth & Craig, 2017). Rapid modernization and a change from planned to market-based economy in China in the past several decades have multiple psychological consequences to individuals and to families (Sun & Ryder, 2016; Yoshikawa, Way, & Chen, 2012). In such a rapidly changing societal context, some contemporary Chinese parents have reported worries and distress that they do not always have a roadmap for how to parent their children in the increasingly cosmopolitan and market-based economy (Way et al., 2013).

The current study builds on the previous studies of Chinese parenting narratives (Way et al., 2013; Zhang et al., 2018) to examine the nature of parenting worries and anxieties among mothers and fathers of Chinese middle-class children. Drawing from the larger mix-method longitudinal study of the families of children born in 2005-06 in Nanjing, China, we analyzed the interviews of mothers and fathers of 18 children (11 boys, 7 girls) when the children were 10 years old.

Preliminary results of the thematic analysis suggest that the middle-class parents of urban Chinese fourth graders are acutely attuned to personality and behavioral characteristics of their children that are at odds with the demands of the contemporary Chinese society. As shown in Table 1, the two main areas of parental concern were the children’s academic performance and socioemotional skills. With respect to academics, the parents were most worried about the children who were receiving poor grades at school or those exhibiting poor study habits. With respect to socioemotional skills, the parental concerns centered on children’s social timidity and shyness as well as lack of impulse control. Many of the parents described strong negative emotional responses such as feeling depressed, out of control, angry, and worried about their children’s future.

The parents also articulated ambivalent feelings about these characteristics. On the one hand, the parents understood these as undesirable in context of social competition associated with contemporary Chinese society. They worry that their children’s lack of social intelligence or academic talent are ill-suited to the new demands of Chinese society that privilege elite academic credentials and social skills needed to navigate guanxi (interpersonal connections). On the other hand, the parents felt these characteristics reflected “innocent,” child-like qualities that would not be upsetting if not for the demands of rapidly changing societal context. Although Chinese parents articulated their desire for their children to be, above all, happy, they nevertheless felt compelled to pressure their children to conform to the new societal demands. The findings of parental concern around their children’s shyness provides further evidence of the rapidly shifting societal norms in China around shyness from adaptive to maladaptive trait (Chen et al., 2005), as well as a panicked sense of academic competition.

Authors

• Sumie Okazaki, New York University
  Presenting Author

• Fanya Sun, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Yian Chen, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ruishan Lin, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Niobe Way, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hirokazu Yoshikawa, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Xinyin Chen, University of Pennsylvania
  Non-Presenting Author

• Guangzhen Zhang, Southeast University
  Non-Presenting Author