Parenting & Gender

Pre-pandemic background

Historically, families have been expected to socialize their members into an appropriate set of "family values" that simultaneously reinforce the hierarchy within the family and lay the foundation for many social hierarchies. In particular, hierarchies of gender, wealth, age, and sexuality within actual family units correlate with comparable hierarchies in U.S. society. As a result, we learn our assigned place in hierarchies of race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, nation, and social class in their families of origin. At the same time, we also learn to view such hierarchies as natural social arrangements compared to socially constructed ones. Naturally, women assumed taking care of the home, and men assumed protecting the private space.

According to the family stress model, low socioeconomic status(SES) predicts less-than-optimal parenting through family stress. Minority families generally come from lower SES backgrounds than majority families, and may experience additional stressors associated with their minority status, such as acculturation stress.

As research on child development began to extend its focus beyond the factors most proximal to children (i.e., the family) to include social context variables, such as the neighborhood or community, Jay Belsky's Determinants of Parenting Model began to look through a wider lens. They found other predictors of parenting such as social class, community context, socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, and other “ecological” factors.

Clinician self‐assessment questions

Sensitivities

As future clinicians when working with families, we will not only be treating individuals at interpersonal system level (anxiety, trauma, depression, suicidal ideation, family problems, employment insecurities, alcohol and other substance abuse, aggression, and disruptions in the achievement and trajectory of identities and career as well as lifetime goals and roles) but also more broadly, addressing microsystems that affect an individual's resilience, such as interactions with schools, family, peers, place of worship, workplace, and community health clinics. In addition we may also need to engage more directly with ecosystems and macrosystems, addressing disparities and inequities in criminal justice, law enforcement, educational policy, health, and mental health care may have an adverse effect on the individual.

The Layered Ecological Model of the Multicultural Guidelines, which incorporates Bronfenbrenner's (1977, 1979) ecological model, can be a useful guide. It comprises five dynamic, nested systems that transact over time.

Immediate family, friends, teachers, and institutions
The interrelations of various social entities found in the microsystem affect a person's life (e.g., home, school, community)
The societal and cultural forces
Cultural values and norms and laws and governmental influences
Passage of time, historical trends and transitions, and the historical context that surrounds the individual experience.

Understanding these dynamics can inform psychologists of such transactions among individuals, microsystems, exosystems, and macrosystems.

As a reminder its always important to keep in mind that

1) Identity and self-definition are fluid and complex.

2) Beliefs influence our perceptions and clinicians/practitioners need to move past categorical assumptions/biases about parenting.

3) Language and communication vary across people and cultures.

4) Social and physical environments impact the lives of all clients.

5) Historical and current experiences with power, privilege, and oppression need to be addressed as part of our role to promote justice.

6) Culturally adaptive, flexible interventions, and advocacy within and across systems are necessary in our work.

7) There are varied ways of working with immigrant families and culturally sensitive adaptations need to be practiced.

8) Developmental stages and life transitions intersect with the larger bio-sociocultural context.

9) Culturally appropriate and informed psychological practices need to be conducted across all domains of the profession.

10) A strength-based approach is necessary to build resilience and minimize trauma within a sociocultural context.

The following questions are adapted from PettyJohn, M.E., Tseng, C.‐F. and Blow, A.J. (2020)

On what dimensions of identity do I differ from the client(s) family structure?
How might I unintentionally oppress the client(s) if I'm not careful?
What aspects of intersectionality exist within the family/couple system I am treating?
How might I unintentionally reinforce problematic power dynamics within the system if I'm not careful
How much knowledge/experience do I have with each aspect of the client's identity, which differs from my own?
What common stereotypes exist about the client's identity which could unconsciously influence my work with them?
How comfortable/uncomfortable am I with addressing these aspects of intersectionality I have identified?
What aspects of oppression are involved in the conceptualization of the presenting problem?
What contextual factors in society need to be addressed based on mine and the client's intersectionality?
Based on my clinical judgment and interactions with the client(s), how do I believe they will respond to having a conversation about intersectionality?

COVID Impact

Lack of community resources

With daycare centers and schools closed due to social distancing mandates enacted to control the spread of COVID-19, most children have been home for the pandemic. The closure of schools has tasked parents with the unenviable job of balancing work and childcare duties, a burden that inequitably fell on mothers, single parents, poorer families, and people of color. The intersectional theory describes how distinct yet interlocking systems of inequity (e.g., racism, classism, gender, etc.) work simultaneously to render people at the junction of multiple-marginalized identities disparately vulnerable to inequality. By applying intersectional theory as a critical lens, we can better understand how structural inequity shapes childcare. Pre-COVID research by Evans et al., found a lack of family and community resources like time, energy, money for childcare, access to affordable afterschool programs, and reliable transportation contributed to limited childcare support access. Now that we are squarely in a pandemic world, the structural inequities are far more pronounced and have taken on numerous forms due to unique configurations of social inequity leading to even less access to childcare multiple-marginalized identities.

Impact of Gender

Since the reliable social support systems have been threatened during the COVID, the families are turning towards mothers as potential caregivers. However, the mothers’ ability to provide childcare has been primarily structured by employment status. Research by Del Boca et al., shows that childcare responsibilities greatly diminish mothers’ productivity, lasting implications for job security and career advancement. Among women working outside of the home, childcare options are now riskier, less widely available, and inconsistent.

Impact of Race

Bereau of Labor Statistics report that between August and September 2020, 1,081,000 adults age 20 or older left the workforce; 80% were women. Departures varied by race and ethnicity 58,000 (6.7%) Black women and 556,000 (64.2%) White women exited the labor force, with women of other races making up an additional 251,000 (29.0%) of jobs departed. The ability to leave the workforce is indicative of other systems of financial or social support. These racial, ethnic, and gender differences in the workforce departures are essential in understanding the additional strain COVID has placed on already marginalized populations.

Questions for your patients

Helping Families Tell their Story after COVID:

It would help me to know more about your family to hear you tell me a little bit about how things have gone during the last year. Could you walk me through important events, starting when things were going really well for you?
What has your life been like in the past year? Have there been any big events or changes? If so, how have you and your child(ren) been dealing with these changes?
I’ve shared the reasons for our involvement in your lives: I know this process is very intrusive. What are some of the things you would like me to know as we move forward?
How would you describe what is happening in your family as a result of COVID?
How do you make sense of what is happening in your family right now?
When you think about your family going through tough times, what are some of the experiences you have had? What helped you get through those times? Is any
of that still in place or available to you now (personal strengths, family supports,
etc).
What do you want to see for yourself and your family six months from now? A
year from now?