Gendered Processes of Adaptation: Understanding Parent-Child Relations in Chinese Immigrant Families

Drawing on 5-year longitudinal interview data on 72 Chinese immigrant children and their parents in the U.S., this paper addresses the following research question: How does Chinese immigrant fathers' and mothers' adaptation after migration influence their relations with their children? Guided by grounded theory, data analyses show that parental adaptation difficulty, particularly among fathers, influences their physical and psychological presence in their children's lives. This, combined with parents' exceedingly high academic expectations, could result in estranged parent-child relations in families. This paper also illustrates how parental efforts to be good providers for their children and children's hope for parents as a source of emotional support can lead to parent-child alienation in immigrant families.