Low-Income Turkish Mothers’ Conceptions and Experiences of Family Life

Abstract

The current qualitative study explores women’s conceptions of the normative family and their day-to-day family lives. To that aim, we conducted five focus group interviews in two low-income neighborhoods of Istanbul. The sample included 43 women (42 biological mothers and a grandmother) who had at least one child between ages 3 and 8 in their care. Participants were 35.64 years old on average (SD = 4.74) and were all married. Women had approximately two children (SD = 0.72) whose mean age was 7.92 years old (SD = 3.11). Each focus group was semi-structured, lasted for 1–1.5 h, and included 5–12 participants. Thematic analysis of the focus group interview data, moderator memos, and observer’s notes revealed five defining features of healthy family functioning: cohesion, healthy child, parenting, conflict, control, and family organization. Overall, women prioritized motherhood over their other social identities and idealized the happy family, which contradicted their actual lived experiences in the family system. We discuss how women’s depictions of all family processes revolved around cultural constructs of gender, socio-economic status, and independence/interdependence. The findings of this study shed light on future interventions for low-income women and their families in Turkey.

Pathways to Children’s Behavioral Problems during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Fathers’ Parenting Stress and Parenting Approaches

“…It is worth discussing that fathers and mothers may have experienced different levels of parenting stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Considering the culturally informed gender roles in the Turkish family context, mothers may carry more weight when it comes to child caring, and this may have increased mothers’ parenting stress more compared to fathers [ 69 ]. Furthermore, Cheung et al [ 70 ] suggest that fathers’ stress levels are only related to their regulation, while mothers’ stress levels are related to their own and their child’s dysregulation.…”

Do maternal power assertive discipline and warmth interact to influence toddlers' emotional reactivity and noncompliance?

“…Similarly, Nacak et al (2011) found that parents living in more rural areas used more obedience‐demanding and punitive behaviours compared with mothers living in metropolitan areas. A recent qualitative study also showed that low‐income mothers in Turkey report difficulties in setting up clear rules in disciplining their young children (Erdem et al, 2022). Lower levels of maternal sensitivity were also identified toward 12 months of children (Koşkulu et al, 2021) as well as toward 3‐year‐old children (Baydar & Akcinar, 2015), in a nationally representative sample by Turkish mothers of lower socioeconomic status (SES) compared with higher SES background.…”