Hmong American Adolescents' Perceptions of Mothers ... - APA PsycNET

Asian American Journal of Psychology 2013, Vol. 4, No. 1, 50 – 60

© 2012 American Psychological Association 1948-1985/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0031045

Hmong American Adolescents’ Perceptions of Mothers’ Parenting Practices: Support, Authority, and Intergenerational Agreement Susie D. Lamborn, Jacqueline Nguyen, and Joel O. Bocanegra

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Twenty-four Hmong American adolescents participated in individual interviews regarding their perceptions of mothers’ parenting practices. A content analysis revealed a set of nine parenting practices that were represented in the responses. The adolescents talked about supportive parenting practices that included caretaking, positive communication, acceptance, and involvement. The adolescents also talked about parental assertions of authority that included high expectations for achievement, family obligations, and supervision. Less commonly discussed were the categories of psychological autonomy and intergenerational support. This study captured youth perceptions of family interactions, which revealed a range of parenting practices that represent Hmong American mothers. Keywords: parenting practices, Southeast Asian, adolescents

(and their equivalent models in other Asian cultures; for a review, see Chao & Tseng, 2002). These cultural models pervade research on Asian and Asian American parents. However, there has been limited attention to other Asian populations within the diaspora, as these characterizations of Asian parents are drawn largely from studies of Chinese families living in the United States, China, or Taiwan. The models of parenting presented by both Chua and Chao argue that different meanings and manifestations of parental control exist in Chinese and other Asian families, compared with Western families. Chao explains that these conceptualizations differ from parenting practices that have characterized European American families, and to accurately understand the relationship between parenting and child outcomes in Asian American families, it is important to understand the perceptions of parental control and warmth that are driven by culture (Chao, 2000a; 2000b; Cheung & Pomerantz, 2011). However, the bulk of research on Asian American parenting has focused on East Asian ethnic groups, despite some evidence of variation within the diaspora (Chao & Tseng, 2002). Limited research has examined parenting practices by Hmong American parents, a Southeast Asian ethnic group with a history as refugees (e.g., Supple & Small, 2006; Lamborn & Moua, 2008). The current study examined perceptions of mothers’ parenting practices for a group of Hmong American adolescents with parents who originate from Southeast Asia. Consideration will be given to how these perceptions compare with previous research on Hmong American adolescent perceptions of parents, and whether these findings support mainstream and Asian models of parenting practices.

The Asian American population experienced the largest growth of any other ethnic group in the past decade (46%; United States Census Bureau, 2010). With nearly a quarter of the population comprised of children under the age of 18, the nature of Asian American parenting and child development is an important topic of research. Mainstream interest in the topic was piqued by Amy Chua’s (2011) memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, in which she describes a strict approach to parenting that she claims is rooted in traditional Chinese cultural approaches to parenting. The notion that there is a Chinese, or more broadly, Asian approach to parenting is supported by Chao’s (1994) model of Asian parenting that emphasizes the concepts of guan (caring and governing) and chiao shun (training). In this model, Chinese immigrant parents are represented as having high control but without the negative emotional climate that is often thought to characterize strict families. In particular, families are described as using a style in which parents have high expectations for educational outcomes and emphasize hard work, self-discipline, and obedience. Warmth and responsivity are shown through investing time and having high expectations rather than verbal or physical expressions of closeness and intimacy in the parent– child relationship. These interactions occur within a hierarchical family structure in which respect for parents is highly valued. Children largely experience positive psychosocial and academic outcomes in the context of the guan or training style

This article was published Online First December 31, 2012. Susie D. Lamborn, Jacqueline Nguyen, and Joel O. Bocanegra, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. This study was supported by a research grant from the University of Wisconsin System Institute of Race and Ethnicity. Transcription support was provided by the Consulting Office of Research and Evaluation (Director, Cindy Walker) in the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Susie D. Lamborn, Department of Educational Psychology, Enderis Hall 7th Floor, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Hartford Avenue, Milwaukee, WI 53211. E-mail: [email protected]

Hmong Families History of the Hmong The Hmong are an important ethnic group to study due to their unique history of being a “hidden” ethnic minority, both in their homelands of Laos and Thailand and in the United States (often 50


HMONG PARENTING PRACTICES

being identified in research as Laotian or aggregated into a broader Asian American label). Due to the history of displacement and persecution experienced by this refugee group, research tends to focus on trauma, delinquency, adjustment problems, and other negative psychosocial outcomes. There is a great need to examine normative development in Hmong American adolescents. The Hmong are members of a clan-based ethnic minority group who have lived in the mountain regions of Laos and have been engaged in swidden (slash-and-burn) farming practices (Hein, 2006; Vang, 2010). During the Vietnam War, they allied with the United States military and engaged with the United States CIA in a “secret war” that took place in Laos, which was supposedly neutral territory during the Vietnam War. After the United States troops pulled out of the region, many Hmong were left to fend for themselves in Laos, where the new government viewed them as enemies. Due to conditions of war and ethnic persecution, many of the families fled to refugee camps in Thailand before immigrating to the United States. In the United States, a large number of families have settled in California and the Midwest as secondary migration patterns have brought extended family and clan members together. California has the largest population of Hmong in the United States, followed by Minnesota and Wisconsin (91,224, 66,181, and 49,240, respectively; United States Census Bureau, 2010).

Research A small but growing literature examines aspects of normative family functioning in Hmong American families as perceived by adolescents. In a culturally comparative study, Supple and Small (2006) administered surveys to assess Hmong and European American adolescent reports of various parenting practices and styles. Hmong American youth reported their parents to be supportive, knowledgeable about activities, and engaged in joint decision making, and these parenting practices were positively related to school performance and other aspects of positive adjustment. However, their perceptions of these parenting practices were lower than those of European American youth. Supple and Small’s study relied upon preexisting measures of parental authority and support to operationalize these constructs; however, there is the potential for cultural variability in the definitions of these very constructs. Rather than imposing definitions for parenting variables, Xiong, Eliason, Detzner, and Cleveland (2005) conducted open-ended focus-group interviews of Hmong adolescents and parents and asked respondents to describe the difference between “good” and “bad” parents. Adolescents reported that good parents give love and care, communicate in a positive fashion, protect youth through monitoring, and show understanding. Parent participants agreed with these perceptions, but also asserted that good parents provide for the child’s needs for food, clothing, and other material goods. Of note, parents felt that provision of basic needs was more central than emotional expressions of love and caring. The focus-group interviews analyzed in this study reveal generational differences in perceptions of “good parenting” and also shed light on additional aspects of parenting that are highly valued by some members of the Hmong community. Lamborn and Moua (2008) revealed similar reports of Hmong parenting practices and found, in addition, that parental involve-

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ment and family interdependence were emphasized as forms of closeness to parents. The study (interviews of a small sample of Hmong American adolescents) also uncovered themes that are unique to the immigrant experience—particularly that of firstgeneration immigrants from more impoverished backgrounds: hardworking but absent fathers and parents’ desires for children to achieve economic and educational mobility. These themes reflected the parents’ efforts to advance the family so that the children could experience a more economically stable lifestyle than the parents experienced as working-class immigrants with limited educational backgrounds and English language skills (Ngo & Lee, 2007). We found it striking that adolescents in these two studies did not emphasize intergenerational tension or conflict in the parent– child relationship, a common theme in studies of Asian American families, particularly over issues on which adolescents and parents have differential rates of acculturation (Lee, 2005). Lee examined the effects of acculturative orientations on educational outcomes in what she calls “traditional” and “American” United States Hmong adolescents. The traditional group was more successful in maintaining stronger ties to their traditional beliefs. This group also accepted parents’ desires for them to fulfill family obligations by sharing in household responsibilities, translating, and performing other support behaviors. Strong family ties and links to cultural practices served to support educational achievement, as many families viewed education as a way to advance economically. Parents supported selective acculturation in which they encourage young people to become biculturally competent (Ngo & Lee, 2007). In contrast, the Americanized group had more problems at school and at home. Relationships with parents tended to be more conflicted as intergeneration tensions mounted through dissonant acculturation. The teens adopted American practices more quickly than their parents, who viewed these behaviors as disrespectful and undermining parental authority. According to Ngo and Lee (2007), the research literature emphasizes educational struggles that Hmong youth may face as they learn to manage cultural practices, such as kinship responsibilities, early marriage for girls, and family obligations, all of which may interfere with educational success. This small body of literature on Hmong parents reveals two findings: (a) a similarity between Hmong and non-Hmong approaches to parenting, namely the presence of warmth and closeness, and (b) within-group heterogeneity, in which some Hmong families experience greater conflict regarding parental expectations and practices, whereas others have little intergenerational tension. It is also evident that there may be some difference between Hmong parenting approaches and the models of parenting presented by both Chao (1994) and Chua (2011). Missing from the current literature appears to be the notion of extremely high pressure for academic achievement and training with regard to hard work, obedience, and discipline. However, the parenting variables examined across these studies vary greatly, and there is a need to more closely examine these issues to explore some of the cultural factors that may inform adolescent perceptions of their parents’ behaviors and values, and inform our understanding of how Hmong families may differ from the largely Chinese families that comprise the predominant perspectives on Asian parenting practices.

LAMBORN, NGUYEN, AND BOCANEGRA

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Current Study The extensive research on the training, or guan model of parenting has dominated research on Asian families. However, this model has been evaluated primarily on Asian and Asian immigrant families from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Less information is available about how the training model addresses parenting practices in Southeast Asian families. Furthermore, a more recent parenting model for Asian families, the tiger-mother model, has also focused most directly on Chinese American families. Based on a memoir, little empirical research is available regarding this parenting model. Finally, each of these models has been presented in contrast to a well-known, mainstream parenting-practices model that examines warmth, behavioral control, and psychological autonomy granting (Steinberg, 2001). Controversy persists over whether this model is appropriate for Asian families, although the controversy is more limited when emphasis is placed on the individual parenting practices rather than on the parenting styles that can be constructed by combining across the parenting practices. Thus, an important goal of the current study will be to evaluate whether the perceptions of parenting practices provided by this group of Hmong American adolescents support previously developed mainstream and Asian (training, tiger-mother) models of parenting practices. In addition, the findings will be compared with previous research on Hmong American adolescents’ perceptions of parenting. The current study focused on understanding Hmong American adolescents’ perceptions of their mothers’ parenting practices. This was investigated through semistructured, individual interviews to explore how youths perceived their mothers’ parenting practices without directing them with preconceived questions.

Method Sample Participants were 24 Hmong American adolescents between the ages of 14 and 18 years (M ⫽ 15.8) who attended an ethnically diverse high school in an urban area in the Midwest. Girls represented 67% of the sample. The majority of the students lived with both of their parents (83%), and the remaining 17% lived in another family arrangement. Half of the students (54%) were born in the United States; the others were born in Southeast Asia. This second group arrived in the United States as infants or young children and were raised and educated in the United States (1.5 generation; Portes & Rumbaut, 2001). The sample was predominantly working class, based on parents’ educational levels. Thirtysix percent of the fathers and 52% of the mothers had not attended school at any level. Twenty-four percent of the fathers and 22% of the mothers had some schooling up to high school graduation. Sixteen percent of the fathers and 12% of the mothers had some college or more. Finally, some of the students reported that they did not know the educational background of their fathers (24%) or mothers (14%). According to the adolescents, all parents except for one father were born in Southeast Asia and immigrated to the United States. All of the parents were Hmong from either Laos or Thailand. The students reported grades that ranged from mostly As and Bs to mostly Cs and Ds. The mean response of the sample indicated B-level performance at school. All of the students indi-

cated that they intended to attend college. The average response was to complete a 4-year college degree, although the responses ranged from completing a degree at a technical college to gaining an advanced degree beyond a bachelor’s degree.

Procedure The students were invited to participate through the Asian Club, an informal after-school club that allowed students to gather socially and support each other academically. The faculty sponsor of the Asian Club permitted the researchers to attend several meetings to explain the study and pass out consent forms. Students provided written parental consent and also assented to be a part of the study. Each student received $10 for participating in the study. About 60% (24) of the students who attended during the recruitment sessions participated in the study. The study sample distribution of girls and boys was similar to that in the Asian Club, which included more girls. The study was approved by the university’s institutional review board. The participants engaged in individual, semistructured interviews with trained interviewers. Participants were offered the option to complete the interview in English or Hmong (with a Hmong native interviewer) and all, including those fluently bilingual, elected to do so in English. Participants were asked to talk about their mothers’ or female guardians’ general parenting practices. We focused on the mothers, as they were primary socialization agents in most of the families, given that the children had more interactions with them on a daily basis. Ninety-two percent answered for their mother. One boy did not have a mother or female guardian and answered for his father. The lead question was, “Tell me what your mother (or female guardian) is like when she is with you.” Probing continued until adolescents identified six characteristics or qualities regarding their mothers. The interviews were audiotaped and the interviewer took notes regarding the adolescents’ statements during the interviews on data sheets. Information from the data sheets was typed into coding sheets. This reduced problems with legibility of the data sheets and resulted in clearer and more consistent coding results. The coding was completed from the typed coding-sheet summaries. Checks were made with the transcripts when needed.

Content Analysis Using content analysis, the data were coded to reveal parenting practices as described by Hmong American youth. In preliminary reviews of the data, it became apparent that many of the contents were consistent with a coding scheme used in an earlier study of Hmong American adolescents (Lamborn & Moua, 2008), which included 10 parenting-practices codes that were consistent with mainstream parenting practices (support, behavioral control) and a cultural– ecological model that emphasizes the role of culture in development (maternal caregiving, family obligations) (Chao & Otsuki-Clutter, 2011; Cheung & Pomerantz, 2011; Fuligni, Hughes, & Way, 2009; García Coll et al., 1996; Wu & Chao, 2011). Therefore, this scheme was adapted for the current study, but additional codes that emerged from the data were added in a dynamic process. Saturation was evident when categories repeated and new categories did not emerge. After coding all responses under the final coding scheme, percentages of responses were


them, and generally working hard inside and outside the house. As one youth stated succinctly, “She’s a normal mom, housewife, cook, clean, go to work.” Another teenager indicated that his mother “loves us, gives us what we want, cooks . . .” Some participants discussed mothers’ caretaking behaviors during illness, both in terms of nurturance and cultural knowledge of healing as the two following participants discuss: “She’s great, what a mom’s supposed to be. She’s a mom, taking care of me when I’m sick and feeling down; trying to cheer me up, buy me things sometimes.” and “[My mom] uses Hmong medicine to help us get better. When we cry, we go to her. She makes us feel better. When we’re sick, she finds us medicine.” The important recognition of parents’ time and employment sacrifices was clear in the interviews. One mother was described as someone who “works hard, sacrifices her time for us. Her work schedule is around us. [She] works third shift.” Acceptance. Acceptance included expressions of love and caring, accepting the teenager for who she or he was, and bringing a quality of friendship or fun to the relationship. One girl described her mother as her best friend, someone who was always there for her. She went on to say that she and her mother were really close and explained that there was “no distance between us.” Another teenager described her mother as fun to be with: She is “very, very goofy—tells us a lot of jokes. Makes fun of my boyfriend a lot. Makes fun a lot.” Similarly another youth commented that “I can joke with her . . . She’s fun . . . has a good sense of humor.” The emphasis on being able to joke with parents indicates a level of comfort and acceptance between the adolescent and parent. Emotional comfort was also emphasized. One young woman described her mother as “a nice person, forgiving. I get her mad, next day if I ask her to do something for me, she will, even still

calculated on the total sample. This information is presented in Figure 1. Reliability of the content analyses was evaluated using percent agreement between two coders. Training for coding took place in weekly meetings over a 2-month period. Responses from 10 of the participants or 40% of the sample were coded for reliability. This data included 60 responses, with percent agreement at 95%. After discussing the codes together, coding discrepancies were corrected and modest revisions in the codes were conducted.

Results This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

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There were nine primary categories within which adolescent descriptions of mothers’ parenting practices were coded. These categories represent four major themes which emerged from the data: (a) parental support, comprised of caretaking, acceptance, positive communication, and involvement; (b) parental authority (high expectations, family obligations, and supervision); (c) other (intergenerational agreement and psychological autonomy); and (d) opposite framing of responses. Interview excerpts exemplifying each type of parenting practice appear in Table 1.

Parental Support The first theme of support included four categories. Collectively, these four categories reflected mothers’ thinking about what the adolescent needs and wants, expressing acceptance, talking openly, and participating in activities with the adolescent. Caretaking. Caretaking was a central element of the parenting practices that were revealed by this group of Hmong American adolescents. The adolescents spoke warmly about their mothers’ caring and provision through managing the house, cooking for

20

Posive Opposite 15

10 15.3

14.6 11.8 5

11.8 9

9 6.3

2.8

2

0 0.7

2.1

4.9

0

2.8

1.4

0

3.5

2

Acceptance

Involved

Posive Communicaon

Caretaking

Supervision

High Expectaons

Family Obligaons

Psychological Autonomy

Intergeneraonal Agreement

-5

Support

Authority

Other

Figure 1. Percentage of responses for Hmong American adolescent perceptions of mothers’ parenting practices.


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Table 1 Content Analysis: Examples of Hmong American Adolescents’ Perceptions of Mothers’ Parenting Practices Category Acceptance Caretaking

Positive communication


Involved

High expectations

Supervision

Family obligations

Intergenerational agreement

Psychological autonomy

Sample Response We’re best friends. She wants me to know I’m loved. She’s a caring person. Still supports me [even though she’s] disappointed that I got pregnant and married. My mom is very caring. In my house, she will get up, like so early in the morning just to cook breakfast for me. And she will come and wake you up, tell you that the food is ready and stuff like that. She basically, she’s just like a very caring mom. Yeah, she listens to me. We, we often talk, we have a lot in common, me and my mom. We do everything together. She always encourages us, like, “Oh, yeah, you know, you can do better next time, you know, next time that you just do better, more. If you think that you’re failing or something.” [Interviewer: So, it’s kind of like in a positive way.] Yeah, just in a positive way, but not in a negative way. They want me to go to college, and, I mean, getting the good grades and doing all this extra stuff, helps get into college. I know they don’t want to pay for college, so they want me to stay in school . . . I guess when we moved to the U.S., that was their first, main thing for us to do. So since, and I was only five, so I guess I grew up like that; always focusing on school. She has a very strong work ethic. She wants me to be on time and considerate of others. She’s always concerned about us, if we’re like off to someplace, and you know, she always kinda like, call to make sure that we’re there and we’re safe, or at least like, supposed to call her back and tell her that like, “Yeah, we’re safe,” and you know, there’s nothing going on . . . [Interviewer: So, one of the things she does, is she definitely keeps track of you.] Yeah, she keeps track of us . . . I have a cell phone, so I either call her and tell her where I’m at, or I’m safe and stuff. Or either she’ll call me and ask me where am I, or what am I doing, am I safe and all this stuff. It’s sort of like a little training thing, or like, she tells us that we need to be good, you know. Only good people can have a good future, and stuff like that. We learn how to cook right away, and we, the girls always have to watch the mother do everything. I grew up like that, so then you know what’s expected. But when she’s there and how to act, you know, like you can’t be silly around her. But when she’s there you won’t act silly. Tells us to work around the house. When she’s tired, she wants us to help, washing dishes, help out. Well my parents were not born here. So they’re basically like in the old, Hmong way, which is my religion. So they’re more open minded about how we act, how this generation acts different from the older generation . . . In our religion, back then, the girls couldn’t play sports. Basically they were supposed to do in the house, just clean up the house. Basically, a typical housewife, I guess. That was your role as a woman. Now since we came to the United States, I mean it’s basically girls who have the same rights as any man, so you don’t have to do housework if you don’t want to. Basically you have a choice now, so . . . [Interviewer: And your mom kind of agrees with that?] Yeah, she agrees with that. She gives more freedom. She’ll let us go out with a boyfriend. She wants me to experience the world, lets me go out. Trust. She trusts me.

mad.” Another stated that her mother is a caring person, in that “she tries to be there for me in an emotional way. She understands when I’m sad or in a bad mood. She’s there when you need her.” Finally, one participant described the relationship with the mother as “best friends. She wants me to know I’m loved.” These responses illustrate emotional closeness between the mother and teenager. These responses emphasized friendship, humor/fun, and general acceptance, in contrast to the next category that specifically addressed open communication. Positive communication. Positive communication was discussed by participants as a form of closeness with their mothers. The adolescents talked openly with their mothers about their lives and problems, and viewed their mothers as good listeners. One girl

said that her mother is “easy to talk to. We’re close, we talk a lot. I spend time every night talking with her if I have problems.” Echoing this theme, another youth commented, “I tell her everything. If I have a problem at school, I tell her my feelings.” According to another adolescent: “She’s always there for us. If I’m feeling low, she will talk to me, gives advice, listens well. We talk often.” One girl explained the closeness between herself and her mother: “. . . I will just tell her stuff . . . like who’s giving me problems and stuff like that. Just basically tell her. Like she’s basically my journal entry, I guess, I tell her all my feelings and stuff to her.” These Hmong American teenagers had open and flexible channels of communication with their mothers. They viewed their mothers as people with whom they could share their



daily experiences and consult on problems. They also indicated that their mothers shared information with them. Involved. Involvement included spending time together and engaging in shared activities. One of the teenagers described her mother in the following terms: “She’s really nice. We don’t have a lot of life problems . . . We hang out and do a lot together.” Similarly, another teenager explained that “we do everything together . . . we enjoy time together, we’re close.” A third adolescent commented that she and her mother “go shopping together.” Another teenager explained, “Like I’m in soccer, she cheers me on and picks me up (from practice and games).” This category also included general descriptions of mothers providing support and encouragement.

Parental Authority Parental authority included the coded categories of high expectations, supervision, and family obligations. The teenagers felt that the mothers conveyed high expectations for current and future school performance. The mothers made efforts to keep track of them by knowing their friends and whereabouts, and had strict rules and consequences. Finally, mothers expected them to complete household responsibilities as part of their obligations to the family. High expectations. High expectations included mothers’ emphasis on educational and behavioral outcomes. A primary emphasis was on educational success. The mothers were described as supporting strong achievement outcomes during high school, as well as aspirations for students to attend college in the future. Responses included, “She’s into school, asks about school, homework, reviews it” and “She wants me to get good grades.” Whereas some of the comments focused on current school performance and success, other mothers were focused on high school performance as a means to college admission and completion. For example one adolescent commented that her mother wanted her to “finish school. She wants me to have success in life, go to college, finish school and find a good paying job.” The expectations for doing well extended to behavior and moral character as well. One youth explained, “She doesn’t want me to do bad things like smoke and stuff.” Mothers were reported as having high expectations for both education and general behavior. Supervision. According to participants, mothers engaged in supervision through monitoring and managing activities and friends, strictness, and effective disciplinary practices. According to one teenager, “On school days, I can’t go out. On weekends I have to be home by 10 p.m. I go right home . . . She keeps track of who I’m with, where I’m going. She knows most of my friends and their parents, most are relatives.” One girl described her mother as “really protective in a good way, calls my friends and checks on me.” Similarly, another girl described her mother as “protective” in that she “asks a lot of questions, wants to know everything.” Another youth described the mother’s approach to enforcing family rules and expectations: “Instead of yelling, she words things nicely, explains as nicely as possible. Then, if I don’t listen she yells.” These responses indicated that the mothers were proactively involved in supporting positive youth outcomes by keeping track of youth, having strict rules, and engaging in positive forms of discipline.

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Family obligations. These Hmong American adolescents reported that they were obligated to help the family with household responsibilities, caring for siblings, and translating for parents with limited English language skills. One girl described her mother’s expectations for her at home: “There are lots of expectations for cooking for the family. As the oldest daughter, I’m supposed to stay at home doing chores.” She elaborated that she also has to teach her younger siblings to cook or her mother becomes upset. Another participant explained that the girls in her family “have to take turns, cook the whole meal for our family.” One adolescent conveyed that her mother was “very demanding around the house. She expects kids to take care of parents.” Another teenager explained, “She wants me to be a role model for my younger siblings.” The role model responsibility included completing household chores, doing well at school, and behaving correctly. Several adolescents were expected to translate for the mother outside of the home, for example when she went shopping. In some cases, the adolescents described expectations for completing everyday household chores, such as taking out the garbage or washing dishes that are similar to expectations in many United States homes. An element of this theme was obligation to the extended family. One youth described her mother as “. . . really nice. If my cousin comes over and needs money, she’ll give it and wants to help.” Similarly, another youth described her mother as someone who “helps everybody. She babysits for other people, relatives and friends, helps with problems.” The adolescents were also expected to support the extended family in various ways, such as through babysitting nephews and nieces. Sometimes these activities were presented as interfering with time spent together with the parents. One teenager felt that the parents focused on helping relatives rather than spending time with their own children. The mothers both modeled providing support to the extended family as well as expected the teenagers to participate in family obligations to the extended family.

Other Responses Two additional categories were placed in an “Other” category and included psychological autonomy and intergenerational agreement. These categories were not mentioned as often as some of the other categories, but seemed to reflect important elements of the youths’ perceptions. Psychological autonomy. Psychological autonomy was reflected when the mother was described as allowing freedom to experience life, was trusting of the youth, and invited the youth to express their opinions through shared decision making. One teenager described her mother in this way: “She wants me to experience the world.” Another teenager described his relationship with his mother in terms of trust: “My mom trusts me.” Another adolescent described the mother as follows, “She gives more freedom.” Mothers were rarely described as inviting shared decisions and engaging in discussions that allow for differences of opinion between parent and child. This type of parenting was more likely to be represented as a negative characteristic of mothers, as becomes evident in the section on opposite responses (below). Intergenerational agreement. In discussing intergenerational agreement, adolescents discussed the potential for conflict between Hmong and United States lifestyles or expectations but


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mentioned that mothers supported or even encouraged some acculturation toward United States norms. The mothers were sometimes described as accepting the more flexible roles for women regarding delaying marriage, going to college, and having a career that were part of the United States value system, as illustrated by one female participant: “My sister got married at 16. She tells me to go to college then get married.”

attempts to be involved in community activities outside the house. Some of the Hmong American adolescents in this study perceived that their mother’s expectations were traditional or old-fashioned. Parental expectations that conveyed Hmong values were viewed as discordant with the dominant United States lifestyle. The students described United States values as allowing more freedom to explore and date, focusing on education, and encouraging the English language at home.


Opposite Responses Overall, the adolescents had positive descriptions of their mothers. However, in a minority of the responses (17.4%), the mother was described in what we label “opposite” framing of the parenting characteristics. In describing negative communication patterns with his mother, one teenager indicated that she “speaks to children only when she orders them around.” In another description of problematic communication patterns, a different teenager commented that his mother “doesn’t always listen. She doesn’t want to be bothered, wants to be alone.” This mother was reported as stressed and challenged by the dual responsibilities of home and work. Another instance of work disrupting the establishment of a close mother-child relationship was evident when one student responded that “She works, spends little time with me. She works 3 p.m. to 12 a.m. so we don’t see each other, just on weekends and summer.” This mother worked as a seamstress for a factory. Psychological autonomy included responses that were opposites, or some form of psychological control. One teenager described his mother as overprotective: “She doesn’t trust us. She thinks we’re out doing bad things.” He elaborated that this position was unfair because it was a general assessment of his behavior and indicated mistrust rather than directly relating to the participant’s behavior. According to one teenager, “She doesn’t want to hear options; doesn’t take into consideration my ideas.” These Hmong American adolescents expressed dissatisfaction with psychological control as a form of parenting. In summary, the opposite descriptions revealed strains in the mother–adolescent relationship that were evident through disrupted communication and restricted time together. Sometimes, the mothers were viewed as stifling the teenagers’ freedom and expression of ideas through overprotective parenting practices. In other instances, the overextended work lives of the mothers simply did not allow time for talking and spending time together. Opposite responses to intergenerational agreement addressed cultural tensions associated with generational separation in which the mothers aligned with the traditional Hmong values of their upbringing in Southeast Asia, whereas the teenagers felt more comfortable with the American point of view that they experienced growing up in the Midwest. According to one participant: She expects me to be like how she was when she was younger. Um, ‘cause back then they had to farm and everything, but now we don’t farm. She wants me to be able to cook, be polite when people come, and know how to serve them. And just like, be around the house and be like what a girl should be. And I should be able to speak in my own language when I’m at home.

Another participant explained that her mother’s mindset represented a “cultural barrier. I volunteer, she wants me at home. She doesn’t speak much English. She speaks mostly Hmong.” The mother’s traditional values were viewed as conflicting with her

Conclusions The interview responses allowed these Hmong American adolescents to voice their perceptions of the parenting practices they experience in daily interactions with mothers. These perceptions reflected a uniquely Hmong American parent– child experience that is consistent with the group’s Hmong American background and lifestyle of being raised and educated in the United States Midwest by mothers who were originally from Southeast Asia. The mothers were described as warm, caring, and loving when they engaged in caregiving, accepted the adolescents, listened and communicated effectively, and engaged in joint activities with them. Thus, support was defined as active participation in various elements of adolescents’ lives in addition to emotional warmth and basic caregiving. The youth also discussed mothers’ assertions of authority through supervision, high expectations for education, and family obligations. Finally, they occasionally talked about intergenerational agreement with parents over cultural differences in Hmong and mainstream American values, as well as opportunities for freedom and independence.

Parental Support Contrary to dominant lay and academic perceptions of Asian American mothers as overly strict and authoritarian, a perspective perpetuated by the recent Chua memoir, the mothers in this study were rarely described in negative terms. Notably, even when discussing parental authority, adolescents framed these discussions positively, with little discussion of the intergenerational tension over issues of authority that pervade research on Asian American parent– child relationships (e.g., Lee & Liu, 2001; Su & Vang, 2005). Despite the emphasis on conflict in the Asian American literature, the current findings in which parents were presented as supportive, are consistent with many results from the studies of Hmong American adolescent perceptions of parents previously reviewed in this manuscript. Moreover, the displays of support discussed by adolescents did not differ greatly from those of non-Hmong, European American youth: Mothers can be fun, have humor-filled relationships with their children, and are partners in communication. These demonstrations of warmth have not been documented in many studies of Asian families across the diaspora. Instead, it has been found that more often, parental support (and sometimes warmth) are demonstrated through caregiving behaviors, including sacrifice (Chao & Kaeochinda, 2010). Moreover, intergenerational tension can arise when parents and adolescents have incongruent beliefs about the adequacy of this expression of support (Wu & Chao, 2005). In contrast, this group of adolescents clearly recognized caregiving behaviors as a means for mothers to express support and love for them and were supportive of their mothers’



demonstration of warmth through these means. This finding is similar to another study of Hmong Americans living in the Midwest (Lamborn & Moua, 2008), but differs from findings by Xiong et al. (2005), who found that the parents but not the adolescents viewed caretaking as an important aspect of good parenting. In a previous study (Lamborn & Moua, 2008), as with this one, the adolescents described patterns of open communication. Yet another finding that distinguishes this group of Hmong American families are the descriptions of parent– child communication through openly talking, sharing information, and listening to what adolescents had to say. Some of the Hmong Americans in this study described their mothers as friends with whom they could confide in almost any topic and with whom they talked regularly. When mothers were available to engage in positive communication exchanges, the teenagers valued this commitment and viewed it as expressing love and caring for them. These outward expressions of emotion are inconsistent with the training model and with a Chinese form of warmth or qin (Wu & Chao, 2011). Moreover, these findings are a departure from many studies of Asian and Southeast Asian parent–adolescent relationships, which find that acculturation gaps are contributing factors to internal and external intergenerational conflict and negative psychosocial outcomes in adolescents (e.g., Fuligni, 2012; Xiong et al., 2005). The narratives of participants in this study counter this dominant narrative of “cultural” modes of parenting that are argued to be endemic to Asian (and Southeast Asian) ethnic groups. Instead, the results yield insight into a potential cultural shift toward new forms of parent–adolescent communication in the Hmong community. Participants in this study largely belong to the 1.5 generation and second generation and have young or youthfully oriented parents who were themselves influenced by United States values and customs. It is likely these mothers have experienced some acculturation toward dominant United States norms and altered their behaviors after feeling disaffected with their own parents’ form of caregiving, particularly with regard to warmth. As members of the Hmong community acculturate and develop relationships with their children that vary from “traditional” modes of interacting, a cultural shift could rapidly occur, altering the face of parent–adolescent relationships within the Hmong community and perhaps Southeast Asian communities at large. However, it is important to note the geographic specificity of this study and acknowledge that this cultural change may occur within a localized community with a relatively small number of Hmong families.

Parental Authority and Training The Hmong American adolescents also emphasized expressions of parental authority through high expectations, supervision, and family obligations. The youths spoke extensively about the mothers’ strong expectations for helping to manage the house and for doing well in school. The mothers wanted their children, especially the girls, to be capable of running a household. These expectations are typically framed as family obligations, which are a common element of family life in many immigrant families (Fuligni et al., 2009). Hmong girls transfer from their family of birth to the husband’s family when they marry (Donnelly, 1994). The skills that they take with them achieve multiple goals. The girls are able to run their own homes independently if they have been trained well by their mothers. They may be valued more or treated better

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in their new extended family when their household management skills are strong. They also may represent their childhood family and bring respect as well as avoid shame to the family, particularly the mother, when they are viewed as good wives. If these activities are reframed as a form of training activity (marriage or household training), rather than solely socialization toward family obligations, it is indeed the case that Hmong mothers are engaged in a training model of parenting. The mothers’ expectations for household responsibilities and childcare duties, especially for girls, seemed aimed toward ensuring that daughters could run their future households on their own. The strategy used by these immigrant Hmong mothers seemed to focus on an apprenticeship model in which the teenagers are shown explicitly how to perform cooking, cleaning, and caretaking responsibilities. The teenagers, beginning in childhood, were expected to follow the modeling of the parents and eventually take over these responsibilities on their own. This might be described as an apprenticeship or scaffolding mechanism of direct transfer of skill performance from mother to child through observation, modeling, and direct training. This training is gendered, however, and the burden of this form of caregiving is placed largely upon girls. While this training model may persist in Hmong families, the impetus for such training may diverge from the models discussed by Chao (1994) or Chua (2011). Due to the extreme poverty in which Hmong families live in the United States compared with other East Asian populations (Hernandez, Denton, & Macartney, 2009), it may be a mandatory requirement that young women learn these roles simply for the household to function while parents work the third shift—a common occurrence in Hmong families in this study. In addition to socialization for cultural reasons, Hmong adolescent girls receive training out of necessity. This is an important contrast to Chua’s description of strict parenting and socialization toward “Asian” norms. As highly educated members of an elite social and economic class, Chua has had the luxury to pick and choose the cultural ideals to which she prefers to socialize her daughters. Socialization toward household responsibilities is not born out of necessity in the same way it is for low-income Hmong families. The outcomes for both child and parent under these different motivations for use of a training model of parenting merits further attention. Similarly, Hmong mothers in this study were perceived to have high academic aspirations for their children: to attend college and have good jobs. As reported in other studies of Hmong American families, it is possible that these forms of expectations reflect social class issues as much as cultural values (Brown, Bakken, Nguyen, & Von Bank, 2007; Lamborn & Moua, 2008). Often, parents’ educational expectations were perceived by adolescents as strategies to encourage teenagers to aim for careers that would protect them from factory work, which sometimes required working late or double shifts. Future research could help to further understand how social class and cultural values interact to influence parenting practices (García Coll, et al., 1996; Lau, 2010). In some families, high expectations for education could also be interpreted as a vehicle for career advancement to provide youths with more independence in their adult lives. However, as with other elements in these families, these goals may have been combined with expectations to support the family. As others have suggested (Ngo & Lee, 2007), the adoption of new cultural values is complex in that Hmong

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American parents and adolescents do not just adhere to American or Hmong values but construct their own mode of parenting as a result of the cultural values of their ethnic group and those of their economic class.


Other Parenting Practices It is important to note, providing opportunities for the expression of psychological autonomy was only represented in a limited fashion in the adolescents’ responses. In addition, the descriptions of psychological control were presented with a negative emotional tone, suggesting that these youths resented excessive emotional restrictions from mothers. This finding is consistent with earlier descriptions of Hmong American and other Asian American families, suggesting that Asian American parents differently value youth expressions of their own point of view or other aspects of independence training (Lamborn & Moua, 2008; Brown et al., 2007). Nevertheless, the mothers could be viewed as promoting self-sufficiency through behavioral management that occurred through high expectations for education and family obligations. The expressions of independence training may appear differently in different cultures. Some of the adolescents felt cultural dissonance between Hmong and American cultural values (Brown et al., 2007). Interestingly, in some cases this was expressed as intergenerational conflict, whereas in other cases, the mother shared those adolescents’ American-based values that emphasized education, careers, and gender equality. Cultural dissonance becomes interesting to consider in relation to the training and tiger-mother models: How do parents balance the high expectations for success in school and community with the traditions that describe the need to be a contributing member of the household? Acculturative discrepancies between parent and adolescents may contribute to how well cultural parenting models explain adolescent outcomes (Choi, He, & Harachi, 2008). Chao (1994) and Chua (2011) both may describe parenting practices that have a stronger fit with the adolescent’s current sociocultural environment. The Hmong American adolescents in this study sometimes were faced with parenting expectations that did not resonate with their day-to-day lives, due to mothers’ adherence to traditional values. For instance, Chua might encourage her children to be involved with the community because she knows that volunteering is an essential component for college admissions in the United States. When there is more alignment between parent and adolescent expectations, as some of these Hmong American youths expressed, there may be more adaptive child outcomes. This suggests that a “goodness of fit” between parent and child expectations may support more positive adjustment, as has been suggested by previous research (Juang, Lerner, McKinney, & von Eye, 1999).

Comparisons With Previous Family Models The findings of this study are only partially consistent with previous research on Hmong American adolescents and with mainstream and Asian models of parenting practices. These adolescents talked about parental support and authority that were consistent in some ways with each perspective. However, neither previous research on Hmong Americans nor mainstream or Asian parenting models seemed to adequately capture everything that the youths

discussed. For example, the findings related to the training model in that the adolescents discussed high expectations for education, family obligations, and strictness. They also discussed caretaking as a form of love. However, contrary to this model, they described mothers who expressed love and acceptance through positive communication and open emotional displays of affection. This type of support is more consistent with mainstream parenting models. On the surface, the findings seem to support the tiger-mother model as well. However, on closer inspection, these families differed noticeably on the dimension of social class. The expectations for achievement were focused on the adolescent doing as well as possible to get good grades, finishing high school, and graduating from college. However, the press for perfect grades and admission to elite, high-status universities was not conveyed by these mothers. The emphasis on household chores also reflects a different set of cultural values blended with practical concerns. Girls in particular were trained to manage a household so that they would be valued as future members of their husband’s extended family. Training was also a practical strategy for running the current household while both parents held blue-collar jobs that kept them away from home during evening and early morning hours. Supervision helped to keep adolescents safe in troubled neighborhoods. The tiger-mother model focuses on household chores and strict supervision to keep children from a higher social class environment grounded and focused on extreme achievement standards to prepare them for entry to elite schools.

Culturally Blended Parenting Representing the diversity that occurs within specific subgroups of Southeast Asian families is an important focus of this study. These Hmong American adolescents described parents who expressed support and love by taking care of them, accepting them, talking openly with them, and participating in their lives. They also portrayed parents who asserted their authority through high expectations for education, supervising teenage activities and friendships, and defining family obligations. Sometimes, parents and teenagers aligned together to achieve goals that were consistent with what American culture dictated was important. In other instances, intergenerational conflicts brought tensions to the parent–adolescent relationship. These Hmong American parents and teenagers together fashioned a new cultural portfolio that blended elements from both traditional Hmong culture and mainstream American culture. An important message from this study is the value of understanding the range of parenting practices that are apparent when listening to the voices of Hmong American adolescents. This within group variability in perceptions of parenting practices becomes lost in many quantitative descriptions of Asian American parents. The goal of recognizing the diversity in Asian American parenting can be supported by including qualitative and mixed methods approaches that allow adolescents to voice their perceptions of parent-youth interactions. The Hmong American adolescents in this study revealed a range of parenting practices that were characteristic of immigrant Hmong mothers.

Limitations Several limitations are evident in this study. The participants were a small sample of Hmong American students from one high



school who were also members of the school’s Asian Club. Various aspects of the recruitment process, including the requirement for written parental consent, may have biased the sample toward more well-functioning families. Therefore, these findings will not necessarily apply to all Hmong American adolescents. Further research on normative aspects of family functioning in Hmong American families is desirable to build a stronger normative research base for this Southeast Asian group. In addition, due to the overrepresentation of girls in this sample, better representation of Hmong American boys will be useful in future work. Traditional Hmong culture treats boys and girls differently, beginning in childhood (Vang, 2010; Yang, 2008). These gender-role expectations can be the source of cultural conflict between the generations and need to be understood better. These types of gender patterns in ethnic socialization have been emphasized in other immigrant groups as well. Of importance, the interview procedure of this study permitted access to adolescents’ perceptions of their mothers’ parenting practices. It may be important to differentiate parent perspectives from that of adolescents (Kakihara & Tilton-Weaver, 2009). These perspectives often diverge and can have different implications for the prediction of adolescent outcomes. For example, other research has shown that adolescents’ perspectives of intergenerational cultural dissonance and parent– child conflict predicted youth outcomes differently than when information was collected from the parents’ points of view (Choi et al., 2008). In a family such as Chua’s (2011), her perspective of how she parents may not be shared by her daughters. Ultimately, these differing perspectives can have serious implications for youth outcomes, as with Chua’s younger daughter. Although we were not able to examine these important linkages in the current study, past research attests to the importance of considering adolescents’ perceptions of family dynamics in relation to youth outcomes (Kakihara & Tilton-Weaver, 2009).

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Received May 1, 2012 Revision received October 16, 2012 Accepted October 18, 2012 䡲