Culturally shared and unique meanings and expressions of maternal control across four cultures.

Abstract

Maternal control is a major dimension of parenting and has different meanings, practices, and potential consequences across cultures. The present study aimed to identify and compare mothers' conceptualizations of parenting control across four cultures to reveal a more nuanced understanding regarding the meaning and practices of control: European American, Chinese immigrant, Korean immigrant, and Turkish. Using a semi-structured open-ended interview, 100 European American, 102 U.S. Chinese immigrant, 103 U.S. Korean immigrant, and 109 Turkish mothers of preschool-aged children reported the ratings of importance, specific reasons, and strategies for exerting control over their children in daily life. Results revealed both shared and unique conceptualizations of maternal control across four cultures. Specifically, all mothers reported that it is important to express maternal control over their children in order to set behavioral norms/standards, maintain child safety, support social relations and respect for others, provide guidance, and guide moral development. Moreover, mothers discussed utilizing nonphysical punishment, setting and maintaining rules, reasoning/negotiating, consistency, physical punishment and verbal control, showing parents' serious/stern attitude, correction, and psychological control forms of control. However, the levels at which mothers emphasize the different reasons and strategies varied across cultures, reflecting culturally-emphasized values. The findings of the present study further enrich our understanding of the complexities of maternal control across cultures.

Risk and protective processes in the link between racial discrimination and Chinese American mothers’ psychologically controlling parenting.

“…In Confucian-based Chinese culture, parents tend to be ego involved in their children’s performance and development, as suggested in the proverb of “Yang bu jiao, Fu zhi guo, (养不教,父之过).” This proverb translates to “it is the father’s fault if a child is not adequately educated” (Mo, 1996) and emphasizes parental responsibility for governing and disciplining their children (Chao, 1994; Wu et al, 2002). Ego-involving parents may be more likely to engage in controlling parenting (Grolnick, 2002), which is considered a training tool to teach the child right from wrong and achieve child obedience (Cho et al, 2021; Fung, 1999). Psychologically controlling parenting has been found to be more prevalent in interdependence-oriented cultures than in Western cultures (e.g., Wu et al, 2002), and has been associated with various child outcomes, including bullying aggressive behavior in school (Yu et al, 2019).…”

Toward complementarity: Specificity and commonality in social‐emotional development

“…The latter may reflect what is potentially common or less dependent on contextual variations in the human species, for example, common qualities in the domain of social-emotional development, such as a fundamental capacity to express caring concern for the self and others. Shared challenges in parenting in urban, middle-class contexts can also lead mothers across seemingly diverse immigrant and non-immigrant cultures to similarly express maternal warmth to nurture their children, and maternal control over their children to set behavioral norms/standards, maintain child safety, support social relations and respect for others, provide structure, and guide moral development (Cheah et al, 2015;Cho et al, 2021). At the same time, however, mothers' emphasis on specific reasons and strategies varied across cultural groups, reflecting culturally prioritized values and modes of adaptation within their specific contexts (Cheah et al, 2015;Cho et al, 2021).…”

“…Shared challenges in parenting in urban, middle-class contexts can also lead mothers across seemingly diverse immigrant and non-immigrant cultures to similarly express maternal warmth to nurture their children, and maternal control over their children to set behavioral norms/standards, maintain child safety, support social relations and respect for others, provide structure, and guide moral development (Cheah et al, 2015;Cho et al, 2021). At the same time, however, mothers' emphasis on specific reasons and strategies varied across cultural groups, reflecting culturally prioritized values and modes of adaptation within their specific contexts (Cheah et al, 2015;Cho et al, 2021). How such philosophical questions and discourse translate into the study of child social-emotional development is certainly an exciting task to tackle for future multidisciplinary endeavors.…”

Parents' disciplinary practices and attitudes towards physical punishment: A latent class analysis

“…In fact, elevated levels of parental control and restrictiveness are not only seen among parents of Chinese descent, but have also been observed among parents in other Asian societies, such as Japan and Vietnam (for a review, see Chao & Tseng, 2002). A recent study with European American, Chinese American, Korean American, and Turkish mothers also showed cultural variation in reasons for expressing control with their children, and Korean American mothers additionally valued control more highly than mothers in the other groups (Cho et al, 2021). Similarly, "light caning" has been further linked to parental love and concern among parents in Singapore (Ngiam & Tung, 2016).…”