Chapter 7 Intimate Power
Intergenerational Cooperation and Conflicts in Childrearing among Urban Families
In: Chinese Families Upside Down: Intergenerational Dynamics and Neo-Familism in the Early 21st CenturySearch for other papers by Suowei Xiao in
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Abstract
This chapter examines the cooperation and conflicts in the new pattern of intergenerational coalition of child-rearing among contemporary urban Chinese families. To raise the perfect child in the third generation, the mother acts as the powerful manager of the project, husband is responsible for fund raising, and grandparents provide most of the childcare service and are often are marginalized in family power relations. Differing from the institutionalized power structure in traditional Chinese families, this new pattern features a set of fluid, deinstitutionalized power relations that are conditioned by negotiations among family members and mediated by intergenerational intimacy.