Parenting Beliefs and Practices of Immigrant Chinese in the Midwestern United States: A Qualitative Study

Parenting Acculturation and Enculturation

Parenting styles, beliefs, and practices are well-established factors associated with various child outcomes, such as mental and physical health, cognitive development, school achievement, and behavior problems (Rose et al., 2018; Tully & Hunt, 2016; Yee et al., 2017). Parenting in a new land is accompanied by tremendous changes in context to which parents need to adjust. It is particularly complicated when new childrearing customs may conflict with parenting beliefs rooted in parents’ cultural traditions due to moving from one context to another. The development niche framework (Super & Harkness, 1986) has articulated how the migrant context exposes parents to the dynamics of physical and social contexts of everyday life (settings), childcare and childrearing customs (customs), and caretakers’ attitudes and behaviors in two cultures (caregiver psychology), which indirectly influence child development. To maintain the balance of the system consisting of the settings, childrearing customs, and caregivers, these parents may adjust their perceptions of parenting and evaluation of the two customs to acculturate to the new social context and finally respond to the larger human ecology. For example, a study reveals that some immigrant parents find that spanking in public, a common disciplining method in their original culture, is no longer legal and culturally acceptable in the new context. As a result, parents may evaluate this disciplining and other childrearing customs from their original culture and change their parenting practice to fit the requirements in the new context. Another example is that parents need to decide whether they will adopt the cultural way to co-sleep with children in the new context (Garcia & de Guzman, 2017). These evaluations and adjustments are essential acculturation process.

Prior acculturation research has also summarized two common cultural approaches to adjusting parenting in the migration context: acculturation and enculturation (Bornstein, 2016; 2017; Kim, 2008). Parenting acculturation helps parents adapt their parenting-related attitudes, values, and beliefs to the host culture. Berry (2005) also proposed four acculturating strategies based on one’s attitudes toward their original and new cultures. These strategies included integration (i.e., retain original and accept new), assimilation (i.e., abandon original and accept new), separation (i.e., keep original but reject new), and marginalization (i.e., abandon original and reject new). Among the four strategies, integration is the most desired and beneficial to the family through relieving parenting stresses and preparing the family to cope with cultural shocks (Leyendecker et al., 2018). Reserving heritage culture is also found to contribute to the wellbeing of American Chinese (Wang et al., 2019). In contrast to acculturation, parenting enculturation (Kim, 2008) refers to adhering to heritage parenting in the new culture. Studies reveal that higher parenting enculturation is associated with low general stress but high parenting stress when caregivers need to intentionally collect ethnic resources (Conroy et al., 2021).

Immigrant Chinese Parenting

Immigrant Chinese parents are studied as a homogeneous group represented by those residing in densely populated US cities (e.g., Los Angeles and New York City) (Chen et al., 2015, 2017; Yu et al., 2016). Findings show that, similar to other immigrant parents, Chinese immigrants strive to acculturate their parenting beliefs, attitudes, and practices into the dominant culture in the new country to fit in (Ho, 2014). Meanwhile, immigrant Chinese parents stay connected with their traditional culture emphasizing ethics, education, and family. They hold some unique parenting goals regarding knowledge, social norms, morality, and relationships (Luo et al., 2013). For example, many parents tend to view the success of their children also as their own and familial success, so they often set high expectations of child academic success and spend efforts to support children to achieve their educational goals (Chen et al., 2015; Ng et al., 2014). They also rely heavily on regular communication with their ethnic group to seek and exchange parenting resources (Zhou, 2014).

Despite these similarities, immigrant Chinese in the US are a heterogeneous group. They have diverse reasons for migration, various socioeconomic statuses, and different attitudes toward their cultural heritage. For example, early immigrants consist of many low-skill laborers, but recent immigrants mainly move for better educational and employment opportunities. As a result, recent immigrant Chinese on average hold higher educational and socioeconomic status than earlier generations (Omori, 2016). Moreover, early Chinese migrants perceive inherited culture and language as a stigma in the new context (Zhang, 2010), whereas recent Chinese migrants value Chinese culture and language (Guo, 2013). Immigrant Chinese parents’ supportive practices for children’s learning also vary by available resources. Parents with low socioeconomic status focus on building a less stressful learning environment at home and perceive high parental responsibilities for children’s learning. In contrast, those with high socioeconomic status value reading, so they spend a significant amount of time planning diverse reading activities for children (Yamamoto et al., 2016). Notably, contrary to the stereotype of the “tiger mother” parenting style, immigrant Chinese parents increasingly value children’s well-being and social competence (Ren & Treiman, 2016). Being exposed to co-parenting notions in the US, these immigrant Chinese parents emphasize father involvement more than other Chinese parents (Chen et al., 2017). Given these different contexts and parental characteristics, a culturally bounded approach is needed to study immigrant Chinese parenting beliefs and notions.

Immigrant Chinese Parenting in the Midwest

Immigrant Chinese parents in the Midwest have some unique features and challenges from those in other US areas (Chuang et al., 2018). Census data show that there were over two million immigrant Chinese, and most of them concentrated in large western or eastern coastal states and areas, such as California and New York City, and only a small proportion reside in the Midwest (United States Census Bureau, 2017). Those immigrant Chinese living in the metropolis have diversified backgrounds and resources. Many are descendants of early Chinese laborers who came to the US in the mid-19th century for low-skill jobs in construction. Many recent migrants are first or second-generation immigrants who come to the US for higher education or advanced-skill jobs in technology. In comparison, immigrant Chinese in the Midwest mainly consists of well-educated and financially sufficient university students (e.g., undergraduates, graduates, and visiting scholars) and professional services providers (e.g., technical experts, language teachers, and researchers) (Zong & Batalova, 2017). Moreover, the living costs in the Midwest are also lower than in the coastal areas (McCann, 2018). Therefore, immigrant Chinese parents in the Midwest often have lower levels of economic stress but fewer culture-based parenting resources compared to their counterparts (Hsiao et al., 2018; Maskileyson & Semyonov, 2017). Parenting behaviors and choices are embedded in the social context, where social norms and cultural values endorse or oppose certain behaviors. Immigrant parents uphold their traditional values despite moving to new communities (Bornstein, 2017, 2016). Immigrant parents living in the Midwest face unique challenges because, in this context, the new communities’ parenting norms are predominant, and their traditional parenting notions and practices are seen as divergent. Evaluating and negotiating two notions can be a more significant stressor than parents living in a more culturally diverse context. For example, several studies with Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino parents reported that these immigrant parents find it challenging to raise children in a context with limited ethnic resources. They also expressed the difficulty to maintain their cultural way of parenting and children’s attachment to the heritage culture (Endo, 2013; Garcia & de Guzman, 2017; Wang et al., 2021). It is worth investigating how immigrant parent view and address these contextual challenges. According to the development niche framework (Super & Harkness, 1986), these unique characteristics of the Midwestern immigrant Chinese parents and the Midwest context may lead to different parenting experiences, further shaping their parental notions and practices. The continuities and changes of their parenting may be different from those of parentings residing in developed areas. However, immigrant Chinese parents in the Midwest context are under studied. Therefore, this study seeks to understand immigrant Chinese parenting in the Midwest by exploring the continuities and changes of parenting beliefs and practices to fit the migrant context.

Participants

Table 1 lists the demographic information of the participants. The researchers identified nine immigrant Chinese parents (eight mothers and one father) who fit the inclusion criteria and agreed to participate in the research. The study interviewed nine immigrant Chinese parents living in two Midwestern states, among whom two were a couple from the same household. The mothers’ average age was 37.4 years, ranging from 31 to 43. Seven mothers and the father were born in mainland China, and one mother was born in Taiwan. They all self-reported as Chinese or Chinese American. Their stay in the US ranged from 4 months to 13 years. Most of them had no religious affiliation, but two mothers self-identified as Christians. The parents were generally well-educated, with six having received degrees beyond college (e.g., Ph.D., MA, or J.D.), two having received college degrees, and one having received an associate degree. They migrated to the US mainly for education (of themselves or their partners) or work. Five mothers were full-time or half-time employees in schools as Chinese language teachers or research scientists; two mothers held dependent visas, which did not allow them to work in the US, and were unemployed as housewives; both of the couples were visiting scholars. Their household income varied, with the highest estimated household income being six times the lowest. Three households earned more than the median income of USD 53,217 at the time; four earned less than the median; and the couple reported incomes in Chinese, which was above the median in their hometown. All the participants had one or two children living with them in the US.

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Table 1.

Demographic Information of Participants.

Characteristic	Participant
Name	Bai	Chen	Fan	Hong	Juan	Ling	Mei	Mrs. Wong	Mr. Wong
Age	42	36	43	31	38	41	31	—	—
Birthplace	China	China	China	China	Taiwan	China	China	China	China
Years in the US	10	4	13	7	13	2.5	1	0.3	0.3
Religion	Christian	None	Christian	—	None	—	None	None	None
Education	Beyond college	Associate	College	College	Beyond college	Beyond college	Beyond college	Beyond college	Beyond college
Employment	Full-time research scientist	No job	Part-time mentor in public school	No job	Part-time teacher in public school	Full-time Chinese language teacher	Full-time Chinese language teacher	Visiting scholar specializing in childhood education	Visiting scholar (full-time university administrator in China)
Household income	$90,000	$14,400	$70,000	$60,000	$40,000	$36,000	$35,000	¥80,000 ($12,024)	¥80,000 ($12,024)
Number of children	2	2	1	2	1	1	1	1	1
Age of children	8 and 4	5 and 1	7	5 and 4	7	6	3	4	4

Procedures

Researchers obtained content from the participants to audio-record the interview and then asked participants to complete a short demographic survey. Two trained researchers interviewed them in Chinese—the language participants preferred. The interview lasted from one to two hours. The interview protocol included open-ended questions about children, parenting, culture, and migration. In this semi-structured interview design, the researchers provided prompts after each question to help participants understand and organize answers if they had difficulties answering the central questions. Upon completing the interview, each participant received 20 US dollars as an appreciation of their participation. The university Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved the project.

Data Analysis

Four researchers working in the US conducted the data analyses: three Chinese researchers were bilingual in Chinese and English, and one researcher from another Asian culture was bilingual in their native language and English. The research team consisting of multiple Chinese members validated the cultural translation including a non-Chinese researcher reduced biased analysis due to some pre-assumptions and beliefs of native Chinese. Audio-recorded responses were transcribed verbatim by three bilingual Chinese researchers and coded in Dedoose 7.0.23 (2016), a web-based program to analyze qualitative data. Two Chinese researchers conducted a qualitative thematic analysis to describe, classify, and interpret the raw data into English codes and themes (Creswell & Poth, 2018).

Specifically, the data coding was guided by the English codebook developed in the project design stage with an extensive literature review. First, due to the semi-structured interview, parents had added information to their previous responses when answering other questions. The two trained bilingual Chinese researchers grouped parents’ responses to questions representing the highest-level codes in the codebook. These questions included how to raise children in the US, how the two cultures and the US context influence their parenting (i.e., parenting goals and practices, division of parenting roles in a family, and expectations on children), what the differences are between parenting in the Midwest and other areas, and how to parent in the Midwestern context. Second, the Chinese researchers coded each response by its meaning into lower level codes in Chinese. They also translated these lower level codes into English so everyone on the team could understand. Third, the researchers grouped the translated codes into higher-level codes and further collapsed the groups into categories by comparing them with those in the codebook. The matched higher-level codes reflected similar parenting practices across settings, and unmatched ones reflected the unique cultural parenting practices among immigrant Chinese parents in the Midwest. To ensure the credibility of the coding, the two Chinese researchers coded 30% of the data independently at the first level code to identify similarities and disparities. They divided up the codes after agreeing with at least 80% of the initial codes. Two Chinese researchers also translated the Chinese excerpts into English for discussion. Finally, all four researchers conducted a cross-analysis of the English codes to detect common themes across participants.

Theme I: Teaching Children Chinese Language and Culture

Immigrant Chinese parents were found to teach their children the Chinese language and culture intentionally. The parents saw language and culture are related to ethnic identity and future opportunities. They mentioned that knowing the Chinese language and culture was a long-term benefit, for it would help their children establish ethnic identity and prepare for future challenges and opportunities. Thus, they sent their children to language school each weekend and spoke Chinese with children at home.

Theme II: Integrating American and Chinese Parenting

Immigrant Chinese parents adjusted their parenting to address contextual differences by evaluating and integrating their perceived best practices from American and Chinese cultures. A clear pattern is that the parents tailor their parenting by dancing between the two cultures. For example, a mother said she endorsed American parents to give unconditional love to children and disagreed with Chinese parents raising children as an investment for their elder life. Ling, 2.5 years in the US, shared a discussion with her husband about integrating two cultures in parenting: “Each culture has its value. My husband and I discussed whether we should raise our children with Chinese or American culture, and we agreed that we would take the merits of both. We liked Chinese culture emphasizing respect for parents, teachers, and elders; we also endorsed Western culture valuing equality and encouraging free opinions from children.” The immigrant parents also highlighted the differences in education and parental interventions. They shared their opinions and practices in balancing two cultures when raising their children. Notably, when the parents could not decide which one between the two conflicting values would benefit their children more, immigrant Chinese parents tend to stay with their inherited culture.

Theme III: Communicating Expectations with Children

The current study asked parents’ expectations for children in the responses to questions about what made them feel proud of their children, what made a good child in general, and their expectations for children and strategies to communicate those expectations.

Theme IV: Adjusting Parenting in the Midwestern Context

The immigrant Chinese parents indicated that parenting in the Midwest was challenging but manageable. They acknowledged that the Midwestern context benefits children with its environment and local resources, such as kind people, good public education, safe neighborhood, and low life stress). Meanwhile, the parents were concerned by the limited ethnic resources, such as Chinese community activities, cultural museums, Chinese books, and the Chinese language environment. To address the challenge, the parents shared several strategies to help their children continue learning the Chinese language and culture in the Midwest. For instance, they sent children to a language school during weekends for systematic and structural learning. Among the nine parents interviewed, five parents reported sending their children to Chinese language schools; two did not send their children to a language school because they were Chinese language teachers; the couple did not send their daughter because she grew up in China and just arrived in the US 4 months ago.

The parents also intentionally set a Chinese home environment for contextual learning. Each parent valued the family environment helping children learn the Chinese language and culture. They spoke Chinese, told Chinese stories and poems, and celebrated traditional Chinese festivals with children. Many parents also used local resources that included Chinese elements, such as borrowing English books about Chinese culture from local libraries. On traditional Chinese festivals, the parents and children would do traditional Chinese activities (e.g., writing couplets) and celebrate innovatively with prevailing American activities (e.g., creating posters). Juan, Taiwanese, 13 years in the US, described their parenting in the Midwest:

My son’s primary language is English because I tell him English is the dominant language in the US. He also speaks Japanese with my husband and Chinese with me because I have encouraged him [to speak different languages] since he was very young. We have established a Chinese calligraphy brush pen routine to write spring festival couplets at each Lunar New Year. My son also knows we will eat mooncakes at the Mid-Autumn Festival. I add the Dragon-Boat Festival to our family calendar, telling my son about the story of Quyuan [of whom the festival is in memory] and creating a poster with him to introduce the festival to others.

The parents also reported they seek each opportunity to expose their children to the Chinese context and teach children about their original culture, thus intriguing children’s interests in Chinese culture when the Midwest had limited ethical resources available. For example, some mothers indicated they also took children to Chinese or Asian churches, language schools, and Chinese associations to celebrate with other Chinese. Sending children back to China to gain cultural experiences was also an option if the parents had extended family or close relatives in China and they could afford the costs. A few mothers mentioned that they did so. The parents are also sensitive to ethnic culture. When encountering Chinese cultural elements, the parents would explain the origins and meanings of Chinese traditions. A mother mentioned that whenever the family watched TV together and saw any Chinese elements, parents would highlight them to their daughter. Ling, 2.5 years in the US, said:

The city we live in occasionally has some Chinese events, which can help my son learn about Chinese culture. I have taken his to a Chinese artist’s presentation and exhibition.

Theme V: Maintaining Connections to Chinese Families and Friends

Another shared parenting belief among these immigrant parents in the Midwest was valuing connections to Chinese origins. These parents noted they perceived these connections as good resources for the family, thus maintaining close connections to Chinese families and friends in China and in the US. They contacted people in China on a regular and frequent basis via phone calls and messages on social network software (e.g., QQ and WeChat). They also visited families and friends in person when they occasionally returned to China. Despite being uncommon among all immigrant Chinese, some parents invited their parents or parents-in-law to live with them in the US and help them take care of the children. Even if grandparents and other extended families were not in the US, the parents still relied on their information and valued their suggestions as indispensable parts of immigrant parenting. For example, one mother mentioned that the grandparents would remind them of celebrating festivals with children when they forget. In the US Midwest, the parents stayed connected with other immigrant Chinese by regularly attending ethnic group activities held by reading clubs, Chinese churches, and other communities. They also talked to other parents in the Chinese language school. For example, Bai, ten years in the US, said:

I call my family in China every month or every other month. Chinese alum friends who live nearby in the Midwest are also important to me. We attend activities held by a church every Friday, which offer tea, meals, learning sessions, and opportunities for children to meet. Of course, most participants are Chinese… The Chinese language school opens on Sunday afternoon, Chinese parents will go there, and some will stay after class... We also attended several Spring-Festival celebrations held by the student organization, the Chinese Association, Taiwan Student Organization, and Asian Association in the city.

Regarding children’s relationships, the parents all agreed that having friends from different cultures was important for their children. The parents pointed out the reasons. Chinese friends shared similar cultural values and backgrounds with their children, helping children develop ethnic identity. American friends introduced their children to local cultures, helping children get accepted in the new context. Friends from other countries cultivated a sense of diversity and inclusion for their children, preparing children to team with different people. Bai, ten years in the US, described her daughter spending time with Chinese friends:

My daughter often with a kid named Wenwen in our apartment building on Saturday afternoons, and they go to the same Chinese language school and learn Chinese dancing together though they follow different school schedules. She also likes Tiantian, her classmate from the same Chinese language school. She wants me to talk with Tiantian’s mom because she wants to be invited to their home to play together.