Contemporary Parenting

Contemporary Parenting and Parenthood From News Headlines to New ·Research Michelle Y. Janning, Editor

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CHAPTER ELEVEN .e American Mothzmily Issues 39 (3): l Socialization as a ducational Success velopment 83 (5):

What Do Visas Have to Do with Parenting? Middle-Class Dependent Visa Holders and Transcultural Parenting Pallavi Banerjee

A Google search of "H-4 visa, dependent spouses, H-lB" yields approximately 12,700 news reports and op-eds published since 2009. Most of these pieces, a few of which I authored, feature the travails of women who come to the United States on a visa granted to the dependents of temporary skilled workers who work and live in the country on an Hl-B visa. The "highskilled" workers migrate for employment on skilled workers' temporary visas (H l-B), and their spouses migrate on dependent visas, otherwise known as H-4s. These prevent the spouses of skilled workers from finding legal employment in the United States unless the family has a permanent residency application in process- which itself can take anywhere between 6 and 10 years. Those on H-4 visas are also not allowed to obtain any kind of U.S. government-issued identification in the United States. This visa law creates what I call "state-imposed dependence" whereby the state creates a household structure that is highly gendered, with a sole breadwinner and a stay-at-home spouse/parent (Banerjee 2012). Of the many news articles published on the plight of dependent spouses of H-lB visa holders, one in The Guardian entitled "Silicon Valley's Reluctant

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Housewife: Immigration Law Bars Women from Working" (Long 2016) caught my attention because it focused on the conflicting emotions of these highly educated wives. On one hand, they recognized their middle-class privilege; on the other, they felt resentful and deeply distressed by their forced dependence. I had also found this in my research with the same population. But what stood out to me in this article.was the picture that went with the article- it was of a woman hold.ing a child. If they have children, dependent spouses spend an inordinate amount of time with them because they are forced to stay home (Banerjee 2012). Given that most of these families are transnational in nature, belong to middle- and upper-middle-class families in India, and are ensconced in middle-class lifestyles in the United States with a stay-at-home parent, how do these families parent? What are their parenting styles? My research, in which I examine how U.S. visa policies affect Indian transnational "high-skilled" migrants and their families in the United States, can provide some answers to these questions. I focus on two family forms: a) male-led migrant families (families of Indian high-tech workers) and b) female-led migrant families (families of Indian nurses). Using extensive qualitative methods- in-depth interviews with 45 couples and 15 immigration experts, observations in the migrant Indian communities, and archival data- I argue that the visa regimes govern more than just the mobility of the transnational subject. Visa policies reconfigure gender identities and notions of the self for visa holders and impose constraints on relationships, family, belonging, and migration. They shape parenting styles, parenting expectations, and parenting practices. In this chapter, I examine if and to what extent Annette Lareau's theory of middle-class parenting- "concerted cultivation"- might work in the context of Indian immigrant families where one parent holds a professional job in the United States and the other spouse is highly qualified but stays at home due to visa restrictions. Annette Lareau, in her groundbreaking work Unequal Childhoods (2003; 2011), made the class backgrounds of both white and black parents the central analytical category in defining their parenting styles and what might be the outcomes of such parenting for their children's life chances. She proposed two distinct parenting styles- "concerted cultivation" as the kind of parenting done by black and white middle-class parents, and the "accomplishment of natural growth" as the path of working-class parents. . In working-class households, the middle-school children she studied in the 1990s participated in very few organized activities and spent leisure time hanging out with kin and neighborhood friends. Their parents' work and economic lives did not afford them as much involvement in their children's lives. As a result, they parented by issuing directives to their children. Parents in these households were authoritarian, using directives when speaking

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( (Long 2016) 10tions of these ir middle-class ~essed by their the same poputhat went with 1ildren, depenn because they ese families are ~-class families ! United States What are their s affect Indian : United States, ) family forms: workers) and Tsing extensive .d 15 imrnigras, and archival mobility of the .es and notions nships, family, nting expecta·eau's theory of . in the context !Ssional job in stays at home ~ work Unequal fote and black ting styles and children's life ed cultivation" s parents, and working-class :;he studied in nt leisure time nts' work and heir children's children. Parrhen speaking

What Do Visas Have to Do with Parenting?

to children and creating clear boundaries between adult and children's lives. The children were discouraged from questioning authority within and outside of the family. In the 2011 edition of Unequal Childhoods, follow-up study shows that most of these working-class kids dropped out of college and had limited life chances, and their parents were still less involved in their lives than were the middle-class parents in their children's lives. In sharp contrast, the middle-class parents who engaged in concerted cultivation of their middle-school children invested a big portion of their daily lives in developing their children's talents, organizing both leisure and learning activities, talking with their children in more discursive language and allowing for development of negotiation skills in the children, and interacting actively with the institutions that their children were part of. Lareau shows the deep involvement of middle-class pa'rents in the lives of their children to motivate them as well as organize for them their various leisure and extracurricular activities. The parents often sacrificed their own leisure time to be involved in the lives of their children and the institutions their children were part of. All of this effort on the part of the parents was so that their children would be successful in the future. Lareau's 2011 edition reveals that almost all of these children ended up finishing college, and many went to Ivy League schools. The parents were still involved in their children's lives and education, and if a child did not perform according to their parents' expectations, the parents often blamed themselves for not investing enough in the child's interests when he or she was younger. For Lareau, these are distinct paths that don't overlap across class divisions; that is, working-class parents do not enact concerted cultivation, and middleclass parents do not parent according to the accomplishment of natural growth. When as a graduate student I first read Lareau's work, it revolutionized the way I thought about class and life chances. It allowed me to recognize that privilege and/or disadvantage begins with acts of parenting. And yet, later, when I assigned Unequal Childhoods to my classes, my white and black students emphatically nodded in agreement while my immigrant-identified students shook their heads. When asked, they would often tell me, "Parenting is not either /or." They alleged that they had experienced both kinds of parenting in their households as well as parental class mobility during their lifetimes. This persistent reaction from my students, along with the aforementioned Guardian article, pushed me to reanalyze my data on parents wh o are middleclass Indians on immigrant visas. In many ways, my analysis in this chapter affirms some of the doubts raised by my immigrant-identified students. This chapter is an exploration of how dependent visa laws for middle-class families influence parenting in those families. I further unpack the parenting styles in these middle-class immigrant homes using Lareau's lens. For the purposes of this research, I derive the definition of parenting styles from Baumrind's models of parenting combined with Lareau's

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description of middle-class and working-class parenting. Baumrind (1967) described parenting as: a) permissive, where parents are nonpunitive and affirmative toward their children's actions and desires; b) authoritarian, where parents expect obedience and absolute standards of behavior and practice punitive action i.f those rules are not followed; and c) authoritative, where parents attempt to direct a child's activities but in a rational, issueoriented manner. Iri my analysis, Lareau's middle-class parents combined permissive and authoritative parenting, while the working-class parents were mostly authoritarian but at times authoritative. The bottom line was that for Lareau, working-class parenting and middle-class parenting are two distinct types of parenting. What I find is t~at the parenting done by my participants lies squarely between the styles of concerted cultivation and accomplishment of natural growth due to their evocation of transnational and transcultural parenting norms. I call this form of parenting "transcultural cultivation." In the rest of the chapter, I build on concerted cultivation and natural growth by theorizing transcultural cultivation.

Concerted Cultivation and Immigrant [Asian] Parenting i

Yale Law School professor Amy Chua's 2011 memoir,, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, in which she alleged that Chinese mothers and parents are superior to their Western counterparts, sparked controversy, with critics saying that Chua's memoir fed stereotypes about Asian parents. In 2014, Stanford psychologists Fu and Markus conducted an experimental study on middle-class European American (EA) .high school students and Asian American (AA) high school students to assess how the AA students perceived and processed their mothers' involvement in their lives. They concluded that while the two groups of students differed in their interdependence level on their mothers (AA students reporting more interdependence), both groups perceived their mothers' involvement as motivation toward academic achievement. AA students perceived academic achievement as a team effort with their mothers, whereas the EA students saw it as a personal project encouraged by their mothers. While the researchers did not allude to or cite Lareau, my reading of the Chua controversy and the Fu and Markus (2014) research connects deeply with Lareau's class-based parenting styles. Lareau (2003, 2011) argues that class-based parenting reproduces the cycle of class inequality because it sets working-class children up for failure in the competitive labor market without the life skills necessary to succeed while equipping middle-class children with skills to reproduce their class privileges. The wide range of social scientific research on intergenerational relationships between first- and second-generation immigrants has certified the prevalence of authoritarian parenting in immigrant households. Here I

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Baumrind (1967) nonpunitive and b) authoritarian, of behavior and d c) authoritative, a rational, issue)arents combined :ing-class parents : bottom line was parenting are two

borrow Baumrind's (1967) typology of authoritarian parenting described earlier. Psychological studies of parenting in first-generation immigrant families, including Caribbean, Chinese, East Indian and Mexican, have all concluded the enactment of authoritarian and directive parenting in these families, where independence and individualism were discouraged (Cheah et al. 2009; Driscoll, Russell, and Crockett 2008; Farver et al. 2007; Roopnarine et al. 2006). Research in sociology has shown that the key source of intergenerational conflict and resentment in immigrant households emerges from what children perceive as authoritarian and directive-oriented parenting. Pyke's (2000) study on second-generation Vietnamese and Korean college students spotlights the students' desire for a "normal American family" with more affective parent-child relationships that encouraged open communication, flexibility, forgiveness, independence, and respect for individualism. In contrast, they perceived their families and parents as authoritarian and valuing obedience, respect toward elders, and collective interest as opposed to individual interest. Foner and Dreby, in their 2011 review article on intergenerational relationships in immigrant families, also reaffirm the conflict highlighted by Pyke (2000) and several other researchers (Foner 2009; Foner and Kasinitz 2007; Manohar 2008; Portes and Fernandez-Kelly 2008; Suarez-Orozco and Suarez-Orozco 2009; Zhou 2009). Foner and Dreby assert that "immigrant parents often expect a level of respect, deference, and obedience that their second-generation children view as authoritarian and domineering. The children have been raised in a U.S. cultural setting in which early independence is encouraged and childrearing norms are generally more permissive than in the parents' home country" (527). If we were to reanalyze these parenting styles through Lareau's lens, we can assume that these first-generation immigrant parents were, at least in some respects, engaged in the accomplishment of natural growth. However, many studies that posit immigrant parenting as authoritarian also showcase its complexities. Emotional closeness, interdependence, and support for educational achievement are also presented as hallmarks of immigrant parent-child interactions (Lopez 2003; Manohar 2008; Smith 2006; Schwartz 2009; Zhou 2009). Farver et al. (2007) argue that Asian Indian parents become more permissive with time and generations of stay in host countries. Other researchers are of the opinion that what is interpreted as authoritarian is a warped view of parenting in other cultures through applying a Western lens (Mohanty 1988). Applying a Western lens automatically presents the modern European American kind of parenting as the gold standard against which all other parenting styles must be measured. For instance, Gorman (1998) contends that parenting by immigrant Chinese mothers in the United States is interpreted as authoritarian by researchers when they should instead be focusing on the social and cultural

ants lies squarely ;hment of natural :ultural parenting .on." In the rest of rowth by theoriz-

3attle Hymn of the ; and parents are ·ersy, with critics parents. In 2014, :imental study on dents and Asian tudents perceived e.y concluded that >endence level on 1ce), both groups icademic achieveteam effort with 3.l project encomto or cite Lareau, ts (2014) research >roduces the cycle 1 for failure in the to succeed while ir class privileges. :rational relationhas certified the .iseholds. Here I

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nuances and adjustments that these mothers are making while parenting in host societies. In her interview study with mostly middle-class Chinese mothers in the New York City area, she found that Chinese mothers were rarely confrontational or controlling of their children. Much of the parenting happened through discussions and conversations, but what was emphasized as important for children was culturally specific. For example, the Chinese mothers stressed to their children the importance of respect for elders, caring for others beyond the singular concern for one's own self, being self-sufficient, not being' influenced by the perceived ills of American adolescence (like drugs and sex), and learning to be bilingual. While these mothers did harbor some preconceived notions about American societies, Gorman contends that their parenting should be seen as more nuanced than just authoritarian. While German's description /of Chinese-American mothering does not fit the concerted cultivation model, there is a small body of scholarship that contends that immigrant parents, particularly Asian immigrant parents. engage in concerted cultivation (Archer 2010, Cross-Barnet and McDonak 2015; Lee and Zhou 2015; Manohar 2013). For instance, Manohar (20U: shows that Indian Tamil immigrant mothers in the United States engagec heavily in concerted cultivation much like the middle-class parents in Lar eau's study. Archer (2010), in her interview-based study of 13 middle-clas immigrant parents mostly of Asian descent in Britain,1 contends that thes parents undoubtedly engage in concerted cultivation. They do so by expres~ ing the "desire for personalized education" for their children, engaging wit' schools and other institutions, climbing up the authority ladder in the~ institutions, and providing their children with various organized opportun ties for skill development (465). Archer puts much more emphasis on rac than Lareau did and argues that, due to the constancy of racism in Briti~ institutions, immigrant parents have to work extra hard so that their ch' dren can reach their full potential. Likewise, Lee and Zhou (2004), in th~ book investigating the achievement paradox of Asian Americans by focusi1 on 1.5-generation Chinese immigrants and Viemamese refugees in the L Angeles area, argue that Asian American immigrant children are saddl with a "success frame" in their lives. The success frame is really a culm frame that is handed to Asian American children by their parents and oft means doing well in school and preparing for white-collar, professional jo' The racialized "model minority" framework that creates expectations teachers and other institutional actors of Asian American success furtl feeds this success frame. The expectation leads to a pooling of resources i: support in the schools, in the communities, and within families to help As American children succeed and often also allows Asian American worki class children to be successful. This study shows that parenting in im · ' -· .) __ ·--....-~~..,.;,......,.,1 rnlmr::il resources along v

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1g while parenting in niddle-class Chinese hinese mothers were Much of the parent)Ut what was emphaic. For example, the rtance of respect for :i for one's own self, ived ills of American ilingual. While these : American societies, s more nuanced than

concerted cultivation that extends beyond just middle-class parenting and is worth exploring. This literature seems to suggest that immigrant parenting includes elements of both authoritarian parenting and concerted cultivation. While the literature also suggests that cultural frames are important in shaping immigrant parenting, the complexity of parenting for those who are immigrants and middle-class is somewhat underanalyzed. The complexity is heightened when the question changes to how visa policies, particularly ones that force highly educated, middle-class, newly immigrant parents (women and men) to stay home, might affect parenting. How might the cultural context of the immigrant family further complicate parenting? In this chapter, I answer these questions based on in-depth interviev.:s with Indian middle-class families and ethn ography conducted in the family setting.

tethering does not fit y of scholarship that immigrant parents, arnet and McDonald 1ce, Manohar (2013) nited States engaged -class parents in Lar.y of 13 middle-class · contends that these 1ey do so by expressldren, engaging with )rity ladder in these >rganized opportuni1re emphasis on race ' of racism in British rd so that their chil~hou (2004), in their nericans by focusing ! refugees in the Los :hildren are saddled .e is really a cultural eir parents and often .ar, professional jobs. ates expectations in ican success further ling of resources and ·amilies to help Asian t American working-· parenting in immisources along with

Methodology This study primarily involved conducting ethnography and in-depth interviews in communities of Indian professionals in the Chicago area. I studied two very distinct communities. The first were th e families of male Indian high-tech migrant workers who were the breadwinners and were liv-, ing in the United States with their spouses and children, who were on dependent visas. The second community was of Indian immigrant nurses, all of whom were women and were the main wage earners in their families and were accompanied by their dependent husbands and children. I conducted life course interviews with the couples, exploring their lives prior to migration, their experiences with the migration process, their understanding of their own visas, and their description of their everyday family lives-including parenting and caregiving after migration. Each of the spouses was interviewed separately, followed by joint interviews. A total of 45 couples (n=90) were interviewed: 20 high-tech workers and their wives, and 25 nurses and their husbands. All of the nurses and their husbands were from one state and region in India-the southern state of Kerala. All of the nurses' families identified with the Christian faith. The nurses and their families usually lived in suburban communities close to their ethnic churches . The high-tech workers, on the other hand, were mostly from northern parts of India. Most were Hindu by faith with a few exceptions, and almost half of these families lived in gentrified urban neighborhoods; the other half lived in suburban communities for access to better public schqols. I also conducted over 300 hours of ethnographic observation at various community and public events to observe family and gender dynamics. These events and spaces included religious services, social parties, religious and cultural festivals, potlucks, and children's birthday parties. I also attended gender-segregated events such as high-tech workers' amateur weekly cricket

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games, or church activities run solely by husbands of nurses as well as women-only gatherings and events attended by nurses and the wives of hightech workers. In these settings, I observed families' division of labor, discussions that men and women had about their work and family lives, and interactions among the spouses. All of the mothers in my sample in both types of family had at least a college degree, and most had 16-plus years of education. All the high-tech fathers had professional college degrees, and most of the husbands of the nurses had some college education. The mean income in the nurses' families was about $65,000 and in the high-tech families, about $75,000. Most hightech families self-identified as middle-class in the United States and as belonging to upper-middle-class families in India. The nurses identified as middle-class both in the United States and at their families' origins in India. For the purposes of this paper, I have included only families that had children- 36 families. The nurses' children ranged in age from 5 to 17. Most had children in middle school. Of the 20 families of high-tech workers I interviewed, 16 had children, and these ranged in age from two to eight years, averaging at five. Both the observational data as well as the interview data for this chapter zoom in on activities and narratives about parenting with particular attention to how parents talk with children, what kind of activities they engage in and organize for their children , and what affective discourse emerges from the parents about their children and about raising them in the United States. In what follows, I build on Lareau's concepts of concerted cultivation and accomplishment of natural growth through a thematic analysis of the parenting styles of these middle-class-identified immigrant Indian parents whose lives are majorly sh aped by the visa laws that govern them. Given wh at we know about Asian American families and parenting, I argue that we need a more nuanced understanding of parenting in immigrant families, because they do not neatly fit into the two distinct groundbreaking categories of class-based parenting that Lareau has provided us. I investigate how class, culture, visa laws, and transnational experiences also shape parenting in these families.

Cultural. Transnational Middle-Class Parenting: Transcultural Cultivation A different kind of concerted cultivation "All happy families look alike." "Was it Tolstoy who said it?" "Yes, Jaya," I responded to Jaya's (all names are pseudonyms) rhetorical question as we watched her seven-year-old daughter perform a combination of ballet, salsa, and bharatnatyam (Indian classical dance) to a peppy Hindi

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ids of nurses as well as ;es and the wives ofhighdivision of labor, discus·k and family lives, and

film song on Skype for her grandmother Qaya's mother) in India. It was about 11 a.m. on a Tuesday in Chicago and 10:30 p.m. in Chennai, India, wherejaya's mother lived.Jaya's daughter had missed school that day because she had to perform a bharatnatyam recital in a temple that afternoon, and she needed to get ready for it. Jaya continued as her daughter finished her short performance for her grandma and us:

: family had at least a col:ation. All the high-tech t of the husbands of the ne in the nurses' families Jout $75,000. Most high1e United States and as The nurses identified as families' origins in India. l only families that had in age from 5 to 17. Most s of high-tech workers I n age from two to eight a as well as the interview uratives about parenting 1 children, what kind of ldren, and what affective iildren and about raising :oncerted cultivation and itic analysis of the parentmt Indian parents whose !rn them. Given what we .g, I argue that we need a nigrant families, because ndbreaking categories of ;. I investigate how class, also shape parenting in

JI Cultivation

pseudonyms) rhetorical ::r perform a combination . dance) to a peppy Hindi !

Nothing can be farther from truth. Not all happy families look alike. parents don't have to constantly worry about their kids losing their culture. But, we immigrant parents do. That makes our work so much harder. We are never sure if we are doing right by our kid. Are we putting too much pressure on our little one by having her learn three kinds of dance or are we just allowing her to learn more? Who knows! A~erican

Jaya's dilemma about how to balance cultural expectations while.providing all the developmental opportunities to her child was shared by all the parents I talked to. Like the middle-class parents in Lareau's study, the parents in my sample spent a lot of time thinking, researching, and organizing leisure and developmental activities for their children, but the difference was that the Indian parents in my study were also actively and creatively thinking how best to impart cultural knowledge to their children without alienating them from the host society. A poignant example of this delicate dance that parents have to do came through in my interview with Mira, who had been a copywriter of English commercials in a reputable international advertising firm in India before moving to the United States. She laid out her struggles of raising a sevenyear-old boy, who had been born in the States. She confessed to me that she was always afraid that her son, who spoke three Indian languages and was also learning Spanish in school, would be bullied and laughed at if he slipped into an Indian language because he was juggling so many linguistic complexities. Mira and her husband were from two different regions in India and spoke different languages. These did not include Hindi, the national language of India. Mira told me that when her son was younger, she and her husband had wanted to ensure that he learned b oth of their languages and spoke to him only in those. They figured that the child would learn English in kindergarten and so they didn't need to actively promote it at home. After h~ had been in daycare a year, they had sensed that their son was being laughed at and isolated there because of what one of the teachers had called "his wacky language skills." He had refused to speak any of the Indian langµages and said he only wanted to use what he had learned in school: English and Spanish. Devastated, Mira and her husband complained and had several conversations with the daycare teachers on how best to accommodate

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their son's cultural needs. This entailed Mira volunteering in the daycare for three days a week. And, in consultation with other immigrant parents and kindergarten teachers, Mira had begun a course in Hindi (which she did not know) with her son so that he would learn to value Indian languages as much as English and Spanish. Mira also spent a considerable amount of time talking with her child about how to speak to his friends and his teachers in school about his own languages and culture without getting intimidated by their reactions. This particular case reveals different aspects of immigrant parenting. The time and effort that Mira invested to ensure that her son learned the languages she felt were important for his bicultural existence do not exist in the lexicon of nonimmigrant middle-class parents. While Mira and her husband engage and interact with institutions and have negotiation-based conversations with their child much as the middle-class parents do in Lareau's study, in the case of Mira and other Indian parents, much of this effort was to protect their children from institutional and individual racism. The black parents in Lareau's study also dealt with everyday racism, but immigrant parents often are seen to balance both racism and cultural expectations as part of the class and ethnic reproduction effort. In the context of the immigrant families in my study, it was important for the parents to imbue cultural knowledge in the forms of language, food, art, and religion in their children. This was both part of the social expectation and a marker of class status for the immigrant parents in the transnational community. However, the children were subjected to everyday racism due to the performance of some of the cultural expectations; for instance, they were teased for having an accent or wearing certain clothing. The parents then had the additional task of strategizing how to counter the forms of everyday racism that their children faced while still emphasizing the importance of cultural learning. For immigrant parents of means, it mattered that their children grew up bi- or multilingual, that they were well-adjusted in the cultures of the home and the host countries, and that they received all the support they need.ed to develop their talents and skills in and outside of school. This made the weekly schedules of both the children and the parents, particularly the parent responsible for the lion's share of the work, tighter than perhaps even a corporate CEO's. I asked to look at the weekly schedules of most of the children in my study. On average, except for an hour or so per day and sleeping hours, every moment was scheduled for most children. I requested one of the parent couples-Mary and George-to allow me to shadow them for a day during the summer vacation of their 10-year-old daughter. Mary was a nurse, and George was her husband on dependent visa. On the day I shadowed them, Mary had a two-shift workday, so George was responsible for their daughter's --L.--l .. l T