Extended Family Childcare Collaboration in China: Ambivalent Experience Among Middle‐Class Mothers
Wenting Liu, Haijing DaiABSTRACT
Objective
This research aims to explore the ambivalence experienced by Chinese middle‐class mothers who relied on their extended family for childcare.
Background
Extended family childcare collaboration prevails around the globe; however, related ambivalent experience, which highlights the contradictory co‐existence of solidarity and conflicts in family relations, has not been fully discussed.
Method
This research is based on 31 in‐depth interviews with Chinese middle‐class mothers who were purposefully sampled. Thematic analysis was utilized to identify theoretically meaningful themes that emerged in transcripts of interviews.
Results
Findings show that ambivalence experienced by Chinese middle‐class mothers derived not only from intergenerational conflicts in everyday childrearing practice but also contradictory ideas regarding the extent to which extended family childcare collaboration should be a normative arrangement. Furthermore, middle‐class mothers struggled with unequal conjugal childcare division, which was ultimately reinforced in the extended family, regardless of patrilineal or matrilineal.
Conclusion
This research concludes that China's middle‐class mothers were still constrained by a robust patriarchal extended family system to a large extent, and experienced family ambivalence that can hardly be addressed by individual efforts.
Implications
This research suggests that extended family childcare collaboration was full of conflicts and far from a panacea for childcare provision, thus calling for more state childcare support to mitigate family ambivalence.