"Yan Mu Ci Zu": The intergenerational collaboration and conflicts in childrearingamong urban families in contemporary China

本文通过考察城市家庭中广泛存在的代际育儿合作现象,深入分析了代际间的分工合作与权力关系。研究发现,在代际合作育儿过程中,家庭内部形成了“严母慈祖”的分工和权力格局,母亲成为育儿“总管”,以“科学育儿”为指导,对儿童发展进行总体规划,同时掌握主导孩子成长的话语权和决策权,并承担社会性抚育的教育职责；祖辈以“帮忙者”的角色进入子女家庭,承担大量的儿童生理性抚育和家庭照料的工作,但在家庭事务决策和话语权上处于边缘位置。不同于传统制度化的家庭权力结构,“严母慈祖”是一种非制度化的弹性权力关系,受制于成员间的协调与博弈,并高度依赖于代际间特定亲密关系的建立与维系。 

This article examines the collaboration and conflicts in "intergenerational parenting coalitions" which are prevalent among contemporary urban Chinese families. The author argues that a pattern of “yan mu ci mu” (mother-as-disciplinarian-and-grandparent-as-caretaker) has emerged in intergenerational parenting coalitions. Specifically, young mothers act as powerful "managers "of the childrearing project, while grandparents serve primarily as caretakers who are marginalized in the family power relations. Differing from an institutionalized power structure in traditional Chinese families, “yan mu ci zu” is a set of fluid, uninstitutionalized power relations, constrained by the negotiations and bargains between family members as well as the construction and maintenance of satisfying intimate relations between the parents and grandparents.

肖索未

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