Intimate power: the intergenerational cooperation and conflicts in childrearing among urban families in contemporary China

The intergenerational collaboration in childrearing in Meimei’s family

Meimei was a 4-year-old girl. Since her birth, her grandparents from both sides rotated to help care for her. Meimei’s maternal grandmother first came to help until she was 8 months of age, and then her paternal grandparents took over. After Meimei went to kindergarten at the age of two and a half, her maternal grandparents returned since the paternal grandparents were no longer able to provide childcare due to health conditions. Since they had another daughter who also needed childcare help the old couple had to separate, with each one staying with one daughter’s family and then rotating on a regular basis. They made it clear to their daughters that if they were needed, they would be happy to come, but if not, they would not insist.

At the time of the research, the grandfather was living with Meimei’s family. Every morning, he was the first one to get up. He prepared breakfast for the family and then took Meimei to kindergarten at 8:00 a.m. He then did the grocery shopping, cleaned the apartment, and washed the clothes. At noon, he fixed himself a quick lunch, took a nap, and then started preparing dinner and snacks for Meimei. At about 5:00 p.m. he picked up Meimei from kindergarten. When they got home, he watched her while she was playing and cooked dinner at the same time. On most days, the grandfather would wait for everyone to return home for the family dinner. However, sometimes he and Meimei ate alone because his daughter and son-in-law were home very late. After dinner, if his daughter was home, he would go out for a walk; if not, he would skip the daily exercise.

With the help of the grandparents, Meimei’s mother, Yang, earned her PhD and completed a 2-year postdoc appointment. She then took a teaching position in a small private college although she had other job offers. The couple made this decision collectively after deliberate discussion. Working in a small college did not earn much salary, but it allowed Yang to take care of the family because of its flexible schedule, two 1-month breaks and relatively low demands for research and publications compared to research universities. Yang read extensively on topics related to childrearing, such as Parenting Encyclopedia, A Good Mother Is More Important than a Good Teacher, Capturing Children’s Sensitive Periods, and Effective Parent Training. She also followed childrearing information and discussions on online forums and attended lectures given by education professionals. She stated that she was not very concerned about practical things such as her daughter’s future career; her principle was “learning how to be a good person is the top priority and other things such as learning knowledge comes later.”

At preschool age, Yang focused on nurturing Meimei’s emotional stability and cultivating her communication skills. For instance, when Meimei was fussy and began crying and screaming, Yang would neither cajole nor scold her; instead, she would hold her gently and reason with her when Meimei calmed down. Sometimes Meimei was fussy for quite a while, and Yang had to try very hard to stay patient. When Yang was disciplining Meimei, the grandparents normally kept silent and left them alone. However, Yang’s mother was short-tempered and would “help” discipline the child in ways that Yang did not agree with, such as using mandatory language or intimidating the child. Yang could not help complaining and often asked her to leave.

Most days, Yang got home before 6:00 p.m. and had dinner with Meimei. After that, the mother and daughter played games, sang songs, drew pictures, read books, or visited neighborhoods together. At 9:00 p.m., Yang helped Meimei get ready for bed by brushed her teeth, washed her face, and reading bedtime stories. After Meimei’s first birthday, Yang began to arrange outdoor activities for the family on weekends. The parents took Meimei to parks, museums, swimming pools, organic farms, and so on. The grandparent(s) sometimes joined them for weekend activities as well. Yang had to make considerable efforts to arrange these outings, checking the venue, getting directions, checking the weather and other details in advance, and informing the father about the arrangements.

Yang was concerned about finding a good kindergarten for her daughter from the time Meimei was born. Over the past few years, she had sought out information from Web sites and online forums, as well as from neighbors and friends. When Meimei was about 2 years old, Yang began contacting kindergartens that she was interested in. In 1 year, she became well informed about all the kindergartens in a 5-mi radius of their residence, attended more than ten related presentations organized by the kindergartens, and visited six kindergartens in person. Her top choice was a private school because the principal’s ideas on education resonated with her. She took her husband to the campus visit, and both were quite satisfied with the facilities and the teachers. However, the high expense of 3600 yuan (≈US $549) per month made her hesitate.³ Her husband helped her decide by saying, “You won’t be able to get a good education by choosing a cheap one.”

When Meimei tuned 2 years old, Yang signed her up for art, dance, and English classes. Meimei liked to paint, so Yang sent her to a painting class recommended by other mothers. Meimei attended dance classes because Yang liked dancing and found that Meimei had a good sense of rhythm. Yang also sent Meimei to English classes because most of her neighbors’ and friends’ children of Meimei’s age were learning English. Meimei’s father was also enthusiastic about his daughter learning English at an early age, but it was Yang who called English training centers for information and audited three different classes with Meimei. Yang did not expect her daughter to be an artist or a dancer in the future; rather, these classes made good use of her daughter’s time by learning useful skills and cultivating good taste. The total cost of these art and language classes as well as kindergarten added up to over 6000 yuan (≈US $915) per month, which exceeded Yang’s salary.

Fortunately, Meimei’s father made a good salary. After working for consulting companies for over 10 years, he earned more than 200,000 yuan (≈US $30,492) annually, which he attributed to his hard work, including regularly working overtime and taking business trips. During Meimei’s first year of life, he was working on a project in another city and only came back home about every 2 weeks. Yang commented, “At that time, I could not count on him [to take care of the baby]. He had changed the diaper only once or twice and recorded it because he thought it was interesting. But if I asked him to do it [change the diaper] every day, no way!” Meimei’s father later began to resent the fact that his job kept him away from home and found a new job that enabled him to work in Beijing for most of the time, taking only one or two short business trips each month. Although he was able to come back home every day, the father still had little time to spend with Meimei. On the few days that he finished work early, he arrived home at around 8:00 p.m. He would play with Meimei after dinner, doing somersaults or putting her on his neck. “They are just like friends,” Yang commented. The father and the daughter had about half an hour of fun before it was time for Meimei to go to sleep. However, for most of the nights, Meimei was already asleep when her father got home.

Although Yang had some complaints, she was generally satisfied with her husband for being the primary breadwinner of the family and making an effort to be a good father. He did not have much face-to-face interaction with Meimei, but his wife kept him informed about the child, and he would regularly talk to Meimei over the phone when he was away on business trips. When it came to important decisions such as choosing a kindergarten or leisure activities, the father would be involved, sharing his thoughts, providing suggestions, and even making the final decision when the mother was hesitating. In the past year, under the influence of the mother, the father had improved: he tried not to work on weekends and would join the family for outdoor activities or take Meimei to different classes. He even spent several weekends joining other parents to prepare a show that would be performed for all the children in the kindergarten on International Children’s Day.

The division of labor in childrearing

Meimei’s case reveals the common rules of the intergenerational division of labor in childrearing among most of the families in this study. As the managers of the childrearing project, young mothers engage in three main responsibilities.

First, differing from the traditional maternal role that concentrated on caretaking, the primary responsibility of the mother involves making plans and decisions for her child’s development, from selecting educational organizations to arranging daily activities. These decisions include choosing a kindergarten, early childhood education programs, and leisure activities; making arrangements for weekends and holidays; and shopping for food, clothes, and toys that are age appropriate for her child. To make better decisions, mothers have to invest enormous time and effort in collecting and analyzing relevant information, surfing the Internet, reading books, talking with other mothers, and consulting experts, as well as taking field trips.

The second role is educating and training the child, which includes two main parts. To better the intellectual development of the child, mothers engage in various activities such as reading to the child, assessing and cultivating the child’s talents, and developing and maintaining relationships with kindergartens and training centers. Furthermore, mothers are also concerned about building good character and habits in their children. Modern childrearing ideas emphasize self-discipline, emotional management, communication skills, and adaptive habits. Training for these characteristics is integrated into the process of daily caretaking. To achieve these goals, mothers not only discipline the child, setting rules and regulating the child’s behavior, but also monitor others who take part in childcare.

The third responsibility is taking care of the child’s daily life. The extent to which mothers are personally caring for the physical needs of the child varies from one family to another and is related to the intensity of the mother’s paid work, health condition of co-caretakers (grandparents in particular), and, most importantly, the mother’s perceptions of whether certain interactions are important to the child’s development. Like Yang, most mothers interviewed bathed their child and put them to bed themselves because they believed these were key activities in building intimate bonds between the mother and the child.

Grandparents are responsible for taking physical care of the child and performing the household chores, such as doing grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning the house, washing the clothes, taking the grandchildren to school, and bringing them back home. In some families, grandparents have extra tasks such as preparing special children’s meals and feeding them, giving them a bath, and putting them to sleep. For instance, before Yangyang turned three, his mother took business trips on a regular basis. Yangyang was thus cared for mainly by his maternal grandmother. Three-year-old Yuanyuan was allowed to choose to co-sleep with her grandparents or her parents each night; whoever Yuanyuan co-slept with was responsible for getting her cleaned up before going to bed and dressed when getting up.

Grandparents also serve as the safety nets in childrearing. The division of labor between the mother and the grandparents is usually defined but not strictly enforced. Most of the time, to accommodate the mother’s schedule, grandparents willingly undertake more tasks than were originally “assigned” to them to ensure that the grandchild is well cared for. For instance, in Meimei’s family, it was usually the mother who played with the child after dinner; however, if the mother got home late, the grandparents would automatically “work” overtime to take care of the child.

Departing from the traditional image of an authoritative figure in the family, the fathers in this study had shifted from rule enforcers to playmates with their children, spending quality time and having fun. Being a playmate indicates an important feature of the “new fathers,” a paternal ideal that has emerged in recent years. Unlike authoritative father figures, “new fathers” are more involved in childrearing and engage in face-to-face interactions and emotional communication with their children (Wang 2014; Lamb 2000). However, among the interviewed families, fathers had limited time to spend with their children. On workdays, only two of the 13 fathers spent more than an hour with their children; the father-child quality time took place mainly on weekends or holidays. Not all fathers were like Meimei’s father who reserved his weekends for the family; quite a few of them gave priority to their work and joined other family members on weekend activities only when they did not have to work overtime.

In addition to being playmates, fathers also act as backup or supplementary helpers in times of emergency. For example, fathers would attend parent-teacher meetings when mothers were unavailable, take a sick child to the hospital, or discipline the children for difficult issues (usually upon mothers’ persistent requests). These situations only occurred occasionally, in contrast to the everyday routine duties of childcare and discipline performed by mothers and grandparents. When it comes to important decisions regarding children’s education, such as choosing a kindergarten or talent-cultivating program, many fathers get involved by offering their thoughts. That said, mothers discuss the situation with fathers and solicit the father’s opinion. If they disagree with one another, however, it is usually the mother who has the final say.⁴

Largely absent from providing daily care for their children, the father’s main responsibility is to provide financial resources for the expensive child development plans that mothers make. Most of the families that participated in this study were dual wage-earners; both parents worked and made significant financial contributions to the family. However, many families tend to follow the traditional conceptions of gender division of labor in the family in which the man serves as the primary breadwinner. Driven by the high cost of modern childrearing, the role of the father is highlighted by their financial provision for children’s development, which to some extent rationalizes their absence from children’s daily life.⁵

Intergenerational power relations

The case of Meimei’s family also illuminates a particular power relation between the parents and grandparents in the intergenerational parenting coalition, i.e., young mothers dominate while the grandparents are marginalized in decision-making and handling of matters related to childrearing. As the manager of the childrearing project, young mothers are in charge of decision-making, from those related to children’s formal education to the arrangements of the child’s daily life. In addition, mothers enjoy more discursive power. On matters such as providing proper care and training and cultivating the child’s talents, the mother’s opinion shapes how things should be perceived and handled, which is largely attributed to their active learning of popular methods of scientific parenting. As a result, young mothers assume the role of supervising other family members and intervene when the latter handle the child in an inappropriate way. For instance, as illustrated in Meimei’s family, Yang asked her own mother to stay away when the latter was trying to help discipline the child. In other families, it was not unusual for mothers to monitor the behavior of other family members. In Daodao’s family, the mother made a no smoking rule at home for the sake of the child’s health. If the father wanted to smoke, he had to go outside. Two-year-old Jingjing insisted on someone holding him and rocking him to sleep. His mother believed this was a bad habit and felt she had to correct the grandmother who kept doing this. The child cried and screamed for hours when the mother was training him to lie down and go to sleep by himself. Out of sympathy, the grandmother interceded, but the mother criticized her, saying, “Letting him be [without proper training] is to spoil the child.”

Fathers partially participate in decision-making, especially concerning important matters of the child’s development. However, unlike the traditional authoritative paternal role, in the interviewed families, fathers were more of a participant and counselor in the process rather than the primary decision-maker. Fathers have the right to be informed and share their opinion. However, their opinions matter only if they successfully make an impact on their wives’ thoughts and/or feelings. For instance, Meimei was sent to a weekend English class partly because her mother was aware of and took into consideration her husband’s strong wish that their daughter master English at an early age. A few fathers who actively learn about scientific methods of childrearing, such as Xinxin’s father, have more say in the decision-making and are more influential on how the child is raised.

In contrast to young mothers, grandparents generally lack power and voice in the decision-making and discussions on childrearing issues. Most of the time, grandparents do not participate in decisions related to their grandchildren’s formal education. In Meimei’s family, for instance, the mother never consulted with the grandparents while selecting a kindergarten or talent-cultivating programs. In her view, the grandparents were neither interested in nor knowledgeable about these issues. In other families, grandparents may express their opinions, but they are rarely considered. For instance, Grandma Liu objected to her daughter’s idea of sending her granddaughter to talent-cultivating classes because she believed they were too expensive and not worthwhile. Her daughter offered a few reasons, and although she was not convinced, Grandma Liu stopped arguing.

Grandparents normally take full charge of the household chores that they perform, such as choosing what to cook for the family meals. In order to ensure that everyone eats well, many grandparents will attentively solicit suggestions from other family members. Zhizhi’s grandma usually asked her daughter and son-in-law what they wanted to eat the next day. She found it easier if they gave a clear answer.

However, providing proper care for the grandchildren is likely to lead to disagreements between the parents and grandparents. The “old” experiences of the grandparents are different from “new” methods supported by the young mothers. Taking clothing as an example, grandparents often worry that the child is not wearing enough while mothers believe wearing too much is a bigger problem. Young mothers are more likely to win these arguments since they are supported by scientific evidence. Some grandparents gradually learn to ask for opinions from the parents when they take care of the grandchildren. For example, Grandma Luo was thinking of putting fewer clothes on her granddaughter because it was getting warmer. She nevertheless first checked with her daughter, “Should I change to another coat for the child? If you think it’s fine, I will do that; if you believe it is still cold I will not.”

If the grandparents are able to prove their old experiences are more effective than new methods, they tend to obtain more authority and autonomy in taking care of the grandchildren. For instance, Xuanxuan’s paternal grandma had some training in traditional Chinese medicine. When Xuanxuan got a fever, she used indigenous methods, i.e., using a mixture of white spirit, spring onion, and Chinese medicines to wipe Xuanxuan’s skin that helped bring down the fever. Xuanxuan’s mother was initially suspicious; however, the grandmother’s method worked well and was more effective and economical than taking the child to the hospital. Xuanxuan’s grandmother was later given full charge of Xuanxuan’s care when he got a fever again. However, in general, grandparents have few opportunities to prove themselves since most of these childcare arrangements do not entail quick results.

A sociocultural explanation of the intergenerational power relations in childrearing

Some grandparents admitted that they were “out of date.” Grandma Wang, for example, dressed and prepared food for her grandson, but it was her daughter-in-law who decided what the child should wear and eat. Grandma Wang explained, “This [arrangement] is good, because it won’t bring conflicts [between me and my daughter-in-law]. Everything is better and modernized now. We are outdated, and cannot keep up with the new things. We need to take things easy, otherwise it does no good.”

The fact that older people lose their authority in how to raise the grandchildren illuminates the features of what Margaret Mead calls the “prefigurative culture” era. Furthermore, intergenerational social and spatial mobility inverted the relational position of the old people and their adult children in the family. Among the interviewed middle-class families, most of the young parents had achieved upward social mobility through education. Compared with their parents, they were better educated, had more income and higher social status, and were thus regarded as more knowledgeable and capable. They also had more financial, social, and cultural resources that enabled them to make better arrangements for their children. All these gave them more authority and power in childrearing. Among the families investigated, there was only one family in which the parents did not achieve upward mobility compared to the grandparents. The grandfather was a retired high-ranking military officer who received a high pension, and his son and daughter-in-law were university professors. However, the former division commander moved to Beijing in order to take care of his grandson, and the rich social and cultural resources he enjoyed in his hometown were largely compromised because of the move.

In terms of family structure, most grandparents in the 13 families left their own homes and moved into their children’s homes in order to take better care of their grandchildren.⁶ The newly formed intergenerational family is an extension of the nuclear family of the young parents. The distinction between the parents as the masters and the grandparents as guests/helpers is clear. The fact that young mothers are positioned at the power center of the intergenerational parenting coalition is attributed to two factors associated with family dynamics. The young mother serves as the mistress of the family and assumes responsibility for all domestic affairs. In addition, handling the important affairs in child development renders them the de facto power and authority in making decisions and arrangements for their children.⁷

Tolerance and grandparents’ expectations regarding intergenerational relations

The reason young parents co-reside with their parents is because they need help in childcare; their main concern is the development of the children. For the grandparents, however, helping raise the grandchildren is a part of intergenerational cooperation. By doing so, they hope to maintain a continuing mutual assistance in family affairs and emotional closeness with their offspring. When addressing the reasons why they were willing to help with childcare, most grandparents interviewed emphasized the joy of “raising a child.” For instance, Grandma Zhang stated, “We, old people, enjoy staying with the little ones. This gives us something to occupy [our time]. My neighbors [an elderly couple] just live by themselves. Their son and other children all live separately. It’s been rather boring for them.”

Grandma Wang also viewed not arguing with the younger generation as a way of showing tolerance and understanding: “She [her daughter-in-law] is still young and immature. She gets anxious easily and makes a fuss. Sometimes we made some comments and then she realized that she made a mistake and that she would be more careful in the future. But other times, she would simply forget afterwards.” The reason why grandparents choose to concede when disagreements come up with their children is not because they conform to the authority of the latter, but because they want to keep a peaceful relationship with their children that benefits the whole family.

The grandparents also wish to be respected and cared about by their children. The desirable intergenerational relationship they expect includes a feeling of intimacy among family members who care about one another and a sense of dignity and status in the family. Grandma Li took greetings and expressions of care from her son and daughter-in-law seriously: “We, old people, do not want money from you. We want nice words. For instance, when you come back home, you say, ‘Oh mom, you are still up. What did you eat today?’⁸ As simple as that.” The grandparents often recalled the moments when their children expressed concern for them. Grandma Liu happily shared one such moment. One day her son-in-law noticed that the old couple planned to fix a simple lunch with noodles. He went out and bought porridge, Chinese pancakes, and two dishes for them. “I was feeling very content,” Grandma Liu commented.

However, as stated in the previous section, in many families, young mothers often judged and interfered with the grandparents when they took care of the child. This not only constituted a direct challenge to the face/dignity of the grandparents but also impaired an intergenerational relationship of mutual understanding and tolerance that the grandparents sought to establish. As a result, grandparents may stop being cooperative and instead build an emotional alliance with their grandchildren as a way of challenging the maternal power.

Apart from indulging the grandchildren by acquiescing to their demands, some grandparents also try to defend the grandchildren against the parents. When 4-year-old Doudou threw his toys everywhere, his mother asked him to put them back in the toy boxes. Doudou refused to do so and started crying and screaming. Seeing her child being unreasonable and acting up, the mother decided to discipline him. The paternal grandfather jumped in, cuddled his grandson, and said, “It’s OK! Grandpa will help you clear up!” As some mothers reported, many children have learned to seek protection from the grandparents, crying out for their help while being disciplined or punished in order to escape punishment from their parents.

In the contemporary intergenerational parenting coalition, mothers who are responsible for the social nurturing of the child tend to train their children in accordance with the demands of the society or the ideas from modern parenting theories. In contrast, grandparents are in charge of physiological nurturing, satisfying the physiological needs of the children. They are thus prone to take the children’s standpoint and empathize with them, offering emotional support when they suffer (Fei 1998). However, children are little agents who are good at catching the discrepancies between different nurturers and finding space for negotiation and manipulation (Goh and Kuczynski 2009). By acquiescing and providing defense and protection, grandparents form close alliances with their grandchildren, and together, they undermine young mothers’ power. Thus, their relationship with grandchildren mattered a great deal to the grandparents. In the interviews, grandparents often offered examples of their close relationship with their grandchildren or expressed their regret that “the child is still closer to his/her mom.”

Managing intergenerational intimacy and the maintenance of maternal power

The alliance between grandparents and the grandchildren obstructs the child development plans made by the young mother and impairs her managerial position in childrearing. To deal with this problem, some mothers work on their relationships with the grandparents. Specifically, they maintain their leadership in parenting by meeting the grandparents’ expectations of intimate relations in the family. Qing provides a good example.

Qing was a mother of a 3-year-old girl, Yuanyuan. She worked in a travel service company as an assistant director and her husband was a vice president in a communications company. When Yuanyuan was 8 months old, Qing’s in-laws, who had been living in a northern town, moved in to help with childcare. The grandmother attended to Yuanyuan’s daily needs, and the grandfather took care of the household chores, preparing food for the family and cleaning the apartment. With the help of the in-laws, Qing was able to occasionally watch a movie online or enjoy an afternoon tea with friends. For the sake of Yuanyuan’s development, Qing believed it was necessary to “educate” her in-laws to modernize their perceptions and behavior. Given the numerous disparities between her and her in-laws regarding how to raise a child, she prioritized her demands, stressing the most important ones. For instance, she turned a blind eye when grandparents insisted on feeding the child rather than have the child feed herself, as she preferred. When it came to issues associated with the child’s logical training, however, she was rather strict and persistent. For instance, when Yuanyuan fell down, the grandparents were not allowed to comfort the child by blaming the floor (such as saying “It was the fault of the floor that our baby got hurt”) since this was inaccurate. Most importantly, she did not want the grandparents to intervene when she was disciplining her daughter. She said, “I would keep reasoning with them and not give up. I won’t say ‘It is absolutely wrong to do this’ or ‘You can never do this.’ Quarreling with them and confronting them does no good to your family. After all, you are all living under the same roof.”

Qing paid close attention to the needs of her in-laws. Her mother-in-law had rather large feet and had difficulty finding comfortable shoes at affordable prices domestically. When she went to England on a business trip, Qing brought five pairs of Clarks, a footwear brand known for its comfort. Qing also joined the grandparents in their conversations about their relatives although she personally found it boring. She generously offered help when her husband’s relatives needed it; she helped arrange the wedding when one of his cousins got married and housed another cousin when he came to Beijing for his visa interview. She commented humorously: “We are the ‘reception office in Beijing’ [for his relatives].”

Taking advantage of her job, Qing arranged a few vacation trips for the whole family. She put her mother-in-law in business class to reduce her airsickness and made detailed schedules to ensure that everyone enjoyed themselves without getting exhausted. She was quite content with her arrangement, and said, “Last time when we were in Singapore, my father-in-law [a CCP member] literally said that he had never enjoyed such good things by following the party, but now he is able to do so by following his son. … My mother-in-law corrected him that it was not his son, but his daughter-in-law.”

Qing is strategic when dealing with her relationship with her in-laws. She made it clear that she did not want to be a housewife and wanted time and space of her own. For that, she needed help from her in-laws. Although she might not feel close to her in-laws spontaneously, Qing had interacted with them according to the principles of the family from the very beginning. In her words, “If you do take them [the grandparents] as your family, how uncomfortable you will be at home!” Thus “you do whatever you should do and say whatever you should say.” Her management of the intimate relations with her in-laws includes the following:

First, by buying clothing for her in-laws, taking them on family trips, and taking care of her husband’s relatives, Qing properly expressed her care and mindfulness toward her in-laws and made them feel proud in front of other relatives, which in turn won a good reputation as being filial. Second, she partially yielded to her in-laws, giving them some autonomy when they took care of the child. Third, in dealing with conflicts with her in-laws, she adopted certain strategies, such as making ritualized apologies and having family meetings. In doing so, she showed them respect and gave them the right to express their opinions on certain family affairs. Finally, by making good arrangements for the whole family that not only satisfied but also exceeded her in-laws’ expectations, she delicately managed to present herself as capable and sophisticated. With these efforts, Qing earned recognition and appreciation from her in-laws and enhanced her status in the family. Since a positive interaction was established and maintained across the generations, the grandparents received respect and care and, in turn, were more willing to be trustful and tolerant of their daughter-in-law.

Weak intergenerational bonds and the intergenerational struggle for power

An intimate relationship based on mutual understanding and consideration is crucial in the intergenerational parenting coalition but it is difficult to establish, especially in families where the coalition is formed between young mothers and their in-laws who did not have strong emotional connection before living together. In the initial stage, conflicts often occur between the young mother and her in-laws due to differences in lifestyle, habits, and even the way of speaking. To avoid conflicts, some families adopted a distancing approach. With a lack of intimate bonds across generations, young mothers may encounter more challenges in the parenting process, as revealed in the case of Xuanxuan’s family.

When Xuanxuan was 1 month old, his paternal grandparents moved from their homes in southern China to help take care of the baby. This was more than 5 years ago at the time of the interview. Xuanxuan’s mother, Rong, described her relationship with her in-laws as being “polite but distant.” When she stayed at home during her maternity leave, she had some arguments with her mother-in-law on minor issues, which gave her the impression that “it does not work for the two of us to spend every moment together.” She thus decided to minimize interaction with the in-laws in order to avoid conflicts. She went to her office every day and stayed as long as possible, although her job offered the opportunity of working from home. In contrast, the grandparents were busy in the house, cooking, washing, cleaning, and so on. Rong was fully in charge of pursuing talent-cultivating classes and arranging extracurricular activities for Xuanxuan, which the grandparents seldom asked about. When it came to Xuanxuan’s birthday parties, weekend activities, and vacation trips that the parents planned for, the old couple rarely participated.

Although Rong was freed from any household chores, she often felt suppressed at home. She did not have much conversation with her in-laws at the dinner table and had little say in the affairs that her mother-in-law supervised. For instance, Rong thought that a big dinner with a lot of meat and fish was delicious but unhealthy. She suggested her in-laws to cook less but in vain. She also found herself under the surveillance of her mother-in-law in the house, which made her rather uncomfortable. Once she got some fruit for her son from the refrigerator. When she closed the refrigerator door, her mother-in-law called out, “The door is not tightly closed!” These encounters sometimes ended up in confrontations between the two women, which further cemented Rong’s strategy to minimize interaction with her in-laws.

With the help of the grandparents, Xuanxuan grew up well, quite tall and strong for his age. Rong appreciated her in-laws for their skills in childcare, but she found it hard to discipline Xuanxuan at home. If he was unwilling to follow her directions, he would simply “turn a deaf ear and refuse to listen.” Rong did not consider herself to be strict; she believed in the power of encouragement. However, once in a while when she attempted to discipline him when he misbehaved, Xuanxuan would easily find shelter with the grandparents. For example, one bedtime, Xuanxuan said he was hungry. Rong believed this was simply a ploy for not going to bed so she ignored him. However, the grandmother immediately went to the kitchen and cooked for him. Xuanxuan always asked for new toys, which Rong believed was a bad habit. She made an agreement with him that he would not buy new toys for a month since he had just received a few. However, Xuanxuan went out with his grandpa and returned with new toys.

Rong tried to communicate with the grandparents. Her typical way was to announce her agreement with Xuanxuan over the dining table: “I bought quite a few things for Xuanxuan today, and we agreed that he should not get new toys this month. Please do not buy new toys for him, grandpa and grandma.” It did not work at all. Rong thus had to change her strategies, taking Xuanxuan out of the house as long as possible since she was unable to give directions to her son at home. She sometimes felt helpless because her home had gradually become “just a place to sleep in.”

In Xuanxuan’s family, the mother and the grandparents maintained a relationship in which they were functionally cooperative but emotionally distant. This helped buffer open conflicts between the mother and the grandparents.⁹ However, it obstructed the possibility of establishing intimate relations in which the mother and the grandparents would be able to empathize and communicate with one another. In this “polite but distant” intergenerational relationship, the grandparents found it hard to receive care, empathy, and the emotional bond they expected from their intergenerational interactions; they were also reluctant to feel empathy and tolerance toward their daughter-in-law. Since the buffering effect of intergenerational intimacy was missing, the grandparents tended to apply the principle of unity of responsibility and power. They did not intervene in family affairs in which they were not involved, but by constantly contributing to their children’s families, they accumulated moral capital,¹⁰ which they converted into total control over the housework they performed. In addition, the grandparents turned to their grandson for an emotional alliance. By fulfilling the grandson’s demands, they consolidated the grandparents-grandson ties that served to maintain their status in the family.