Prelims

Half Title

TRANSITIONS INTO PARENTHOOD: EXAMINING THE COMPLEXITIES OF CHILDREARING

Series Page

CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES IN FAMILY RESEARCH

Series Editor: Sampson Lee Blair

Recent Volumes:

Editorial Board

• Anja-Kristin Abendroth

  Bielefeld University, Germany

• Clarence M. Batan

  University of Santo Tomas, Philippines

• Eli Buchbinder

  University of Haifa, Israel

• Yu-Hua Chen

  National Taiwan University, Taiwan

• Patricia Neff Claster

  Edinboro University, USA

• Teresa M. Cooney

  University of Colorado-Denver, USA

• Rosalina Pisco Costa

  University of Évora, Portugal

• Alda Britto da Motta

  Federal University of Bahia, Brazil

• Olufemi Adeniyi Fawole

  University of Ilorin, Nigeria

• Giovanna Gianesini

  University of Bologna, Italy

• Ana Josefina Cuevas Hernandez

  University of Colima, Mexico

• Bryndl Hohmann-Marriott

  University of Otago, New Zealand

• Cardell K. Jacobson

  Brigham Young University, USA

• Josip Obradović

  University of Zagreb, Croatia

• Matthias Pollman-Schult

  Social Science Research Center Berlin, Germany

• Ria Smit

  University of Johannesburg, South Africa

• Helen M. Stallman

  University of South Australia, Australia

• Fleur Thomése

  VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Title Page

CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES IN FAMILY RESEARCH Volume 15

TRANSITIONS INTO PARENTHOOD: EXAMINING THE COMPLEXITIES OF CHILDREARING

EDITED BY

SAMPSON LEE BLAIR

State University of New York at Buffalo, USA

ROSALINA PISCO COSTA

Universidade de Évora, Portugal

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright

Emerald Publishing Limited

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First edition 2020

Copyright © 2020 Emerald Publishing Limited

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83909-222-0 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83909-221-3 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83909-223-7 (Epub)

ISSN: 1530-3535 (Series)

Contents

About the Contributors

Katrina A. R. Akande is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Auburn University. She holds a joint appointment as an Extension Specialist with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. Her research interests include paternal involvement among incarcerated fathers and fathers with children not residing in the home. Currently, she is partnering with the National Fatherhood Initiative and Head Start agencies to implement fatherhood programs for rural fathers with low incomes. Dr Akande’s research also includes collaborating on fatherhood research with the Mississippi State University, Department of Social Work and correctional institutions in Alabama and Mississippi. Dr Akande received her Ph.D. in Family Sciences from the University of Kentucky, Department of Family Sciences. She also earned a Bachelor of Science in Corrections and Juvenile Justice and a Masters of Art in Community Counseling from Eastern Kentucky University.

Amira L. Allen is a Graduate Assistant at Bowling Green State University. Her research interests include work–family conflict, parent–child relationships, and work–family policies, with an emphasis on the role of gender in shaping work and family roles.

Elaine S. Barry is an Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Penn State Fayette. She has always been interested in a biologically informed perspective of human behavior; she earned a B.S. in Biology along with her B.S. in Psychology. After completing her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Houston, she joined the faculty at Penn State with a specialization in the cognitive development of children. Her current research interests include understanding the learning and memory processes of children and situating the cultural practice of co-sleeping into existing developmental theories and understanding its impact on infant and child social and cognitive development.

Nerina Caltabiano is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the Cairns Campus of James Cook University. Her teaching subjects include Social Psychology in Everyday Life, Psychological Research Methods, and Interpretation and Psychology: Now and the Future. She is the Cairns Campus Honors Coordinator and the subject coordinator for Social Psychology in Everyday Life and the Psychological Research Methods and Interpretation for the Cairns, Townsville and Singapore campuses. As a Social Psychologist, her research interests incorporate multidisciplinary perspectives from social, health, developmental, educational, and abnormal psychology. She employs both quantitative and qualitative methodologies in her research. Her Honors thesis investigated symbolic hand gestures in children from different cultures which extended knowledge of non-verbal communication in 3–6 year-old children, and employed an innovative stroboscopic photographic technique to depict the gestures. Her Ph.D. thesis combined aspects of pathology and social psychology in examining community reactions to compulsive casino gamblers who differed in terms of gender and ethnicity. While keeping the issue of psychological well-being uppermost in her research she has published work on mother–child relationships, romantic relationship difficulties, body image, trauma, cannabis use and withdrawal in male inmates, youth suicide, anger, bullying, and classroom digital technologies. She is a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society and a member of the American Psychological Society.

Peggy C. Giordano is a Distinguished Research Professor of Sociology at Bowling Green State University. Her research focuses on adolescent and young adult relationships, particularly romantic relationships. Dr Giordano’s prior studies have centered on violence within intimate relationships, as well as mechanisms underlying the process of “desisting” from these relationship behaviors. Her research has also focused on family dynamics associated with the intergenerational transmission of a range of problem behaviors, including criminal behavior.

Claudia J. Heath is an extensively published Researcher specializing in issues related to the well-being of families, individuals, and specifically, women from both economic and family science perspectives. Currently, her research focuses on the economic causes and economic and social consequences of income and wealth inequity on individual and family well-being. She has a Ph.D. from Iowa State University in Economics with a dual-major in Family Environment, a master’s from the University of Missouri-Columbia in Family Economics, and a bachelor’s in Education from the University of Oklahoma. After completing her doctorate in 1981, Dr Heath was an Assistant Professor of Consumer Studies at Oklahoma State University; following promotion to Professor in 1988, she went, in 1989, to the University of Kentucky as Professor and Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies in the College of Human Environmental Sciences. Additionally, during 2000–2005, she served as Director of the college-wide Research Center for Families and Children. After 15 years in college-level administration, Dr Heath became Full-time Faculty serving, for a period as Director of Graduate Studies, then Interim Department Chair, and later as Director of the Department’s Family Sciences Survey Research Center. Currently, Dr Heath serves as Coordinator of the Consumer Economics and Family Financial Counseling program. Dr Heath is a 2001–2002 American Council on Education Fellow and 2012 Distinguished Fellow of the American Council on Consumer Issues. Dr Heath served, 1997–2001 as editor of The Journal of Consumer Affairs. She currently serves as a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning, she is a reviewer for the Journal of Family Economic Issues and the International Journal of Consumer Studies, and she has been an occasional reviewer for the Journal of Family Issues.

Jessica Hutchinson, M.S., is a Doctoral Student and Teaching Fellow at the University of North Texas in the Department of Educational Psychology with a concentration in Human Development and Family Science. She earned a B.S. in Psychology from Texas Woman’s University, and a M.S. in Counseling Psychology from Tarleton State. Her research interests focus on congenital heart disease as it relates to family functioning, mental health, and neurodevelopmental risks, and the quality of care pertaining to provider practices and treatment inequality among minority children. Her research also focuses on transitions to motherhood, protective factors in mothers parenting a biracial child, and incorporating diversity within the classroom. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor Intern, voluntarily working with diverse, underserved populations within her community.

Anthony James, Ph.D., is Director of the Family Science Program and Associate Professor in the Department of Family Science and Social Work at Miami University (OH). His scholarly work uses an interdisciplinary approach to understanding social interactions and human development, with an expertise in positive youth development, religion and spirituality, diverse family systems, and family processes. His works included publications in referred journals and book chapters, on topics in the areas of youth development and family relations, to include an edited book on black family life using a systems perspective. He is the current deputy editor of the Journal of Family Theory and Review and a consulting editor for the Journal of Research on Adolescence. Dr James is a certified relationship assessment facilitator through the PREPARE/ENRICH program, a certified family life educator through the National Council on Family Relations.

Monica A. Longmore is a Professor of Sociology at Bowling Green State University. Her interests include social psychological processes, parenting and family dynamics, and connections between these processes and adolescent and young adult behavior and well-being.

Wendy D. Manning is the Howard E. Aldrich and Penny Daum Aldrich Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Bowling Green State University. She is the Director of the Center for Family and Demographic Research and the Co-Director of the National Center for Family and Marriage Research. Her research focuses on family formation and stability with an emphasis on young adults. She studies the increasingly complex relationship pathways through young adult and the implications for well-being.

Simone Martin-Howard is an Assistant Professor in LIU-Brooklyn’s School of Business, Public Administration, and Information Sciences. Dr Martin-Howard received her Ph.D. in Global Affairs from Rutgers University-Newark where she completed her dissertation entitled “Evaluating Income Generation, Nutrition, and Parenting Programs on Maternal and Child Health Outcomes: A Multi-Program Case Study of a Community-based Organization in the Western Cape, South Africa.” She holds an M.A. in International Relations and an MPA from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Dr Martin-Howard also received three Advanced Certificates of Study in Health Services Management and Policy, Conflict Resolution, and Security Studies from the Maxwell School. She received a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice, magna cum laude, with a minor in Spanish from St. John’s University. Simone’s multidisciplinary background has formed her research interests which include healthcare administration and policy, global health, maternal and child health, transnational crime, prisoner re-entry, and addressing violence as a public health issue. Dr Martin-Howard has taught at Rutgers University-Newark and John Jay College of Criminal Justice and has held positions at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the Onondaga County Health Department, the New York State Department of Health, the Syracuse VA Medical Center, and the Vera Institute of Justice. Her work has been published in the Journal of Health and Human Services Administration, the Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs, Criminal Justice Review, and the Encyclopedia of Corrections. Simone is a Member of the American Society of Criminology, the American Society for Public Administration, the International Studies Association, the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action, the American Sociological Association, and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.

Byron Miller, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Sociology for the Interdisciplinary Social Science Program at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. Dr Miller is a social epidemiologist who has conducted research on the effects of racial discrimination on the mental health of African Americans (Coping with Racial Discrimination: Assessing the Vulnerability of African Americans and the Mediated Moderation of Psychosocial Resources), the impact of interracial romance on mental and self-rated health (What are the Odds: An Examination of Adolescent Interracial Romance and Risk for Depression; Exploring the Effects of Spousal Race on the Self-Rated Health of Intermarried Adults), as well as how the racial identification of multiracial persons is linked to mental health (The missing link in contemporary health disparities research: a profile of the mental and self-rated health of multiracial young adults).

Yolanda Mitchell, Ph.D., is Program Steward of the Family Policy and Program Administration Program and Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of North Texas. She received her M.S. in Marriage & Family Therapy and Ph.D. in Family Studies from Kansas State University. Her scholarship centers on families and culture with a focus on racial socialization in the parenting of biracial children and intercultural competence of Family Science professionals. She is currently on the Editorial Board of Family Relations: Interdisciplinary Journal of Applied Family Science and Chair of the Ethnic Minorities Section of the National Council on Family Relations. Dr Mitchell is a Qualified Administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory®.

Roudi Nazarinia Roy, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and Area Coordinator of Child Development and Family Studies in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences at California State University Long Beach. She has a B.A. in Psychology and a M.A. in Family Sciences from the University of British Columbia. She received her Ph.D. in Family Studies from Kansas State University. She teaches courses related to the transition to parenthood, family life education, families and diversity and parent education. Her research interests revolve around the transition to parenthood, relationship satisfaction, relationships and money, and cultural influences on parental roles. She has co-authored a book on the Transition to Parenthood and most recently co-edited a book on Biracial Families. She is currently the book review co-editor for the Journal of Family Theory and Review. She is Past Chair of the Ethnic Minorities Section of the National Council on Family Relations and serves as a consultant and evaluator for community agencies serving diverse populations of families. Dr Roy is a certified family life educator through the National Council on Family Relations.

Yi-Ping Shih, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at Fu Jen Catholic University, Taipei, Taiwan, specializing in research on cultural capital, parenthood and cosmopolitanism. Her research is at the intersection of symbolic inequality, domestic socialization and cultural globalization. Via longitudinal survey and ethnographic data analysis, Dr Shih has developed a contemporary understanding on Asian parenthoods and childhoods in the context of family to answer how global cultural capital has been constructed and practiced in the East Asian local societies.

Maria Siemushyna is a Ph.D. student in Social Sciences at the University of Strasbourg. Her Ph.D. work focuses on the role of languages (heritage language, language of the host country, and other languages) for migrant families in different domains of their lives, and more specifically in the field of parenting. Through this work, while conducting narrative biographical interviews with people of different origins in Strasbourg (France) and Frankfurt-am-Main (Germany), she learned to use qualitative methodology in international, multicultural and multilingual contexts. Alongside her Ph.D., she has carried out additional, complementary work at the University of Strasbourg where she has taught classes in English for Social Sciences Masters students. In addition, Maria has participated in the European Voluntary Service project with children in a child care and protection institution in Strasbourg (ex-Youth in Action, now Erasmus+ program). She is also an active member of the Familangues association in Strasbourg, which strives to promote the recognition and development of children’s plurilingual competences and works with families, schools, social, cultural and education centers. She has also given several classes within the “Ouvrir l’école aux parents” (Open our school for parents) government initiative which aims to encourage parents with migrant backgrounds to improve their knowledge of French, to get to know the French school system better, to learn about how the French state functions and discover other aspects of French culture and everyday life. These different experiences enabled Maria Siemushyna to discover different perspectives around her domains of interest: migration, education, families and languages.

Kishani Townshend is an Australian trained, Registered Psychologist with over 15 years counseling experience. Currently she is the Lead Psychologist, managing the training provision for seven remote Family Well-being Services in Far North Queensland. Her psychological practice draws on the latest evidenced-based treatments including cognitive behavior therapy, acceptance commitment therapy, and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, as well as current best practices in the treatment of trauma. Her clinical work assists those addressing issues with depression, anxiety, anger management, learning, grief, loss, trauma, parenting and perinatal mental health. Kishani has a diverse cultural background, having been born in Sri Lanka, then growing up in Africa, England and Australia. This gives her a broad cross-cultural understanding of her clients enabling her to help them each develop their unique capacity for developing resilience. She explored the psychology of parental resilience for her Honors thesis. Her Ph.D. dissertation critically analyzed the associations between mindful parenting and affect regulation. When conducting research, she combines her clinical experience with both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Some of her research interests include evaluating effective treatments for depression, anxiety, stress, and perinatal depression. She is registered with the Psychology Board of Australia and a member of the Australian Psychological Society. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals. Kishani has presented her research at national and international scientific conferences.

Heidi M. Williams is an Instructor in the Department of Sociology at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She earned her Doctorate in Applied Sociology from the University of Louisville. Her research focuses on family instability, child well-being, and extended family relationships among disadvantaged families. More specifically, her research longitudinally investigates how non-marital childbearing influences parental bonds, extended kin involvement, and child well-being. Currently, she is working with undergraduate students on a study that examines the ways in which homelessness is conceptualized among a group of low-income mothers who are participating in a program that offers unilateral support (e.g., housing) to single parents as they pursue baccalaureate degrees. She is also working on two quantitative studies that investigate where mothers and their children reside during partnership transitions and whether residence with maternal kin influences child well-being outcomes. At Virginia Tech, she teaches a variety of courses, including Family and Crime; Sociology of Family; The Sociology of Intimate Relationships; and Systems of Justice.

Andrea S. Young is Professor of English at the Faculty of Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of Strasbourg, France. Throughout her career in the French education sector and within the framework of a variety of initial and continuing professional development programs she has sought to raise language awareness amongst education professionals working in multilingual environments. She has worked in close collaboration with colleagues in Scotland, Greece, Japan and Germany who share these interests and been invited to speak at international conferences and events organized by/held at the European Commission, the OECD, the European Parliament as well as a variety of academic organizations and universities. As a member of the European plurilingualism research group (GEPE, EA1339 LILPA), her research interests include teacher knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about languages and language, home-school educational partnerships and plurilingual and intercultural education in the school context. She has published in a variety of international journals and contributed to a number of edited books specializing in these areas and has also participated in several European projects, notably with the ECML (European Centre for Modern Languages) – Collaborative Community Approach to Migrant Education.

Xing Zhang is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Health Disparities Research Program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in the School of Medicine and Public Health. She is also an affiliate with the Center for Demography and Ecology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She received her Ph.D. in Policy Analysis and Management from Cornell University in 2018. She works in the areas of family demography, race and ethnicity, the transition to adulthood, health, and inequality. She examines how parent–child relationships shape health outcomes in the transition to adulthood, and variation by race, ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status.

Preface

A common sentiment shared in many cultures around the globe is that parenting is “the hardest job you will ever love.” For many, this association is related to the many long, sleepless nights spent attending to the needs of infants. During this time, feeding, bathing, and the seemingly endless diaper changes lead many to assume that their decision to have a child was perhaps a bit premature, as they had not accounted for the tremendous physical demands that childrearing places upon mothers and fathers. However, while the needs of children will change as they age, the truly complex nature of parenthood begins to reveal itself. Around their second birthday, children begin to speak, thus opening up a completely new set of needs, as parents now have to engage their child in conversation. At this point, children can now express not only their physical needs, but also their wide array of emotional and cognitive needs to parents. Later, as children grow and are able to leave the home for school, their needs become ever more complicated, as interactions with peers and the larger society outside the family begin to influence their development. The middle childhood years offer little relief for parents, nor do their often turbulent adolescent years. Simply, there is considerable recognition that parenting is, indeed, a most demanding role for mothers and fathers.

The complex nature of contemporary parenting has its foundations within societal change. Modernization, coupled with the transition of societies through their respective agriculture, industrial, and post-industrial forms have dramatically changed how parents view both their children and their own roles and responsibilities to them. Within agricultural societies, wherein families were dependent upon farming for their livelihoods, children were typically regarded as an economic asset, such that they could provide labor, tending to crops, animals, and other manual labor tasks. In her book, Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children, Viviana Zelizer (1985) posited that as societies modernized, thus becoming more urbanized, with most adults working in service sector occupations, the relative value of children began to change. Specifically, societal modernization and urbanization led to substantially lower fertility rates, leaving parents with fewer children. Within modernized societies, mandatory education and anti-child labor laws meant that children were effectively left unable to provide labor support to families. As their economic value dissipated, the emotional value of children began to be emphasized. For most parents, children were viewed as objects of affection, someone to whom they could commit their love, time, and money. The emotional and affective value of children has become a driving force in parenthood, itself, thus contributing to its complexity.

Around the globe, mothers and fathers typically have the best of intentions in regard to how their efforts as parents will ultimately affect the development of their children. Obviously, and hopefully, most parents want their children to grow into adults who are kind, intelligent, creative, and who have the character and personality traits which will allow them to be happy and successful in their respective lives. Achieving these rather straightforward goals, though, can be quite challenging, and many parents struggle with how to best raise their children. In this volume of Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research, researchers address the complicated nature of parenting and the roles of mothers and fathers. Within the studies contained in this volume, researchers examine a variety of childrearing issues, and offer considerable insights into the very complex roles of parents. In keeping with the goals of the CPFR series, this volume emphasizes a global perspective, with research from around the world. Given the dynamic and ever-changing nature of parenthood, it is absolutely necessary to maintain a sharp focus on childrearing, as it will certainly continue to vary from one culture to another, as well as over time.

Parenting can be quite stressful, as demonstrated by Amira L. Allen, Wendy D. Manning, Monica A. Longmore and Peggy C. Giordano, in “Young Adult Parents’ Work–Family Conflict: The Roles of Parenting Stress and Parental Conflict.” Their work focuses on factors associated with observed variability in reports about work–family stress and consider the role of child characteristics as well as parenting conflict. Drawing on data from employed young adult parents, the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study, a longitudinal study based on a stratified random sample of adolescents registered in Lucas, County, Ohio, the chapter concludes on the relations between having a child perceived as more difficult and work–family stress, highlighting the importance of providing institutional and informal support to such parents.

“Experiences of Family and Social Support during the Transition to Motherhood among Mothers of Biracial and Monoracial Infants” by Roudi Nazarinia Roy, Yolanda Mitchell, Anthony James, Byron Miller, and Jessica Hutchinson was written in a way to explore the lived experiences of a diverse group of women in biracial and monoracial relationships experiencing the transition to motherhood (e.g., biracial or monoracial motherhood). Informed by the symbolic interaction framework, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted to investigate the expectations and experiences of first-time motherhood on a sample of US women. Specifically, this chapter explores a transversal overarching theme of racial/ethnic differences in appropriate infant care, which surfaces during engagement in family and social support interactions.

In “Narratives from Community-based Organization Staff and Black and Coloured Mothers in South Africa: A Qualitative Study on the Impact of Participation in Parenting Programs on Maternal Behaviors,” Simone Martin-Howard explores perceptions about the impact of program participation on parenting styles and behavioral changes using observations and in-depth semi-structured interviews with Black and Coloured staff and mothers at a community-based organization in the Western Cape Province in South Africa. The combined results from data analysis collected from staff and mothers come to point the many factors that impact program participation, either from the broader context (e.g., child abandonment and neglect and the abuse of women) or individual (e.g., domestic abuse and personal issues with alcohol and drugs). While the chapter presents successful outcomes among parent participants, namely improved self-esteem, positive life changes and changes in parenting styles it draws attention to the important role played by community-based parenting programs for low-income and underserved populations, both in South Africa and internationally.

The experiences of parenting are also linked with the relationships between spouses and partners. In “For Us or the Children? Exploring the Association Between Coparenting Trajectories and Parental Commitment,” Heidi M. Williams focuses upon coparenting relationships. Situated in commitment theory, the chapter estimates latent growth curve models to determine whether there is an association between coparenting trajectories and parental commitment five years after the birth of focal children. Data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a study focusing on families in the United States, showed that, net of covariates, coparenting relationships among unmarried parents are strong across the first five years of their children’s lives. Overall, results suggested that supportive coparenting among unmarried, cohabiting parents increases the strength of parental relationships over time – substantiating the argument that a “new package deal” exists.

“Mediating Effects of Maternal Gatekeeping on Nonresident Black Fathers’ Paternal Stressors” by Katrina A. R. Akande and Claudia J. Heath, introduces the topic of nonresident fathers, who have the task of negotiating childrearing responsibilities while residing away from their children. Parenting stress arises when nonresident fathers perceive childrearing power differentials as maternal gatekeeping behaviors. In this pilot study, a mediation model was tested with a sample of Black fathers from a US southeastern state, who reported coparenting a nonresident child or children with only one mother. Findings explore the power of cooperative coparenting in lessening parental stressors, namely the ones regarding concerns about role functions and concerns about their child’s behavior in the presence of controlling maternal gatekeeping behaviors.

Kishani Townshend and Nerina Caltabiano’s “A Conceptual and Methodological Exploration of the Cognitive Processes Associated with Mindful Parenting: Reflections on Translating Theory to Practice” brings together mindfulness and parenting. Mindful parenting is a parenting style which has grown in popularity in recent times to support parents during pregnancy, birth and beyond. The current study aims to clarify clinicians’ perceptions of cognitive change processes associated with mindful parenting, particularly how theory is translated to practice. In doing so, interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to analyze semi-structured interviews with female Australian clinicians using Mindful Programs. Kishani and Nerina explore both change and cognitive processes pointed out in the interviews, thus contributing to the development of a more comprehensive theoretical model of mindful parenting.

The interaction between parents and children will certainly be affected by their basic form of communication, language. “In Which Language(s) Do You Parent? How Language(s) Used by Migrant Parents Influence the Realization of Parenting Functions?” by Maria Siemushyna and Andrea S. Young analyzes how languages used in families with migrant backgrounds influence the realization of “parental functions,” such as everyday communication with their children, the transmission of knowledge, and the expression of emotions. In fact, in families with migrant backgrounds some parents use only the language of the country of origin with their children, while others use only the language of the host country, and some parents use both of these languages. Based on a thematic analysis of non-directive interviews of parents and children with the members of migrant families in Strasbourg (France) and Frankfurt-am-Main (Germany), the chapter discusses which of these language use situations enables parents to fuller realize their parental functions.

Elaine S. Barry’s “Co-sleeping as a Developmental Context and its Role in the Transition to Parenthood” reviews the literature on mother–child co-sleeping (bedsharing) and integrates it within a developmental theoretical approach. The author discusses how rates of co-sleeping in the West are increasing and evaluates the current Western controversy over co-sleeping as an important part of understanding how individuals and families make the transition to parenthood. Specifically, Dr Barry reviews research from anthropology, family studies, medicine, pediatrics, psychology, and public health through the lens of Evolutionary Developmental Theory to place co-sleeping within a developmental, theoretical context for understanding it. Viewing co-sleeping as a family choice and a normative, human developmental context changes how experts may provide advice and support to families choosing co-sleeping, especially in families making the transition to parenthood.

“Mother–Child Relationships and Depressive Symptoms in the Transition to Adulthood: An Examination of Racial and Ethnic Differences,” by Xing Zhang, focuses upon depressive symptoms in the transition to adulthood, which according to many studies are higher among racial and ethnic minorities. Given that adolescents spend most of their time at home when they are not at school, it is important to understand how parents may moderate negative experiences at school, and how mother–child relationships may serve as a protective buffer for depressive symptoms in emerging adulthood. The chapter analyses data from the US National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health and explores relations between school disconnectedness in adolescence, depressive symptoms in emerging adulthood, and maternal relationship quality as an important protective factor for mental health in the transition to adulthood.

Of course, parenting often extends across generations, as well as kin networks. In “Parenting in Three-generation Taiwanese Families: The Dynamics of Collaboration and Conflicts,” Yi-Ping Shih delineates how a mother in a three-generation family implements her ideal parenting values for her child while being encumbered by the constraints of her parents-in-law and how does this intergenerational dynamic vary with family socioeconomic status. Part of a major study, this chapter purposely focuses on two families in Taipei, Taiwan, to illustrate distinctive approaches toward childrearing. While the paper foregrounds the negotiations that these mothers undertake in defining ideal parenting, and how it varies by social classes it underlines how Asian mothers are moving towards a new parenting culture, given that the cultural ideal of concerted cultivation has become a popular ideology.

Overall, these studies provide a very comprehensive examination of childrearing and its numerous dimensions, providing considerable insight into the complex nature of parenthood. Beyond their empirical findings, the researchers also provide multiple suggestions for future research on parenting and child development, as well as numerous recommendations for both practitioners and policymakers. We offer them our most sincere appreciation for their efforts, and also express our thanks to the members of the editorial board, the external reviewers, and the wonderful staff at Emerald Publishing for their tremendous assistance.