Growing Up in One-Parent Families in Asia

This article provides the socioeconomic contexts in Asia and summarizes findings of the nine articles in this special issue that examine the trend and patterns of one-parent families in Asia and the consequences of such family structure for children's well-being. In Asia, out-of-wedlock births remain uncommon to date. Divorce and migration are the major causes of one parenthood. The articles present diverse forms of one-parent families in Asia and show how culture and policies shape the experience of growing up with one parent. Although children living with one parent often face challenges, depending on gender and socioeconomic status of the lone parent, and the causes living with one parent has varying consequences. Public assistance for lone parents are typically limited in Asia, and extended families may play a bigger role in the lives of lone parents and their children in some countries than in Western societies. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

The ‘Go‐Between’: Low‐Income Children Negotiating Relationships of Money and Care with Their Separated Parents

The UK is moving from a centralised administrative child support system to one of private ordering where the state will only intervene under limited circumstances. This requires parents to agree and set up suitable, sustainable arrangements. This has particular implications for children, although the child perspective is often overlooked. This article situates children as active social agents exploring their interactions and negotiations with their separated‐parents with regard to money, time and parenting. It argues that policies that do not take into account the agentic child's experiences and perspectives may fail to address the impact of policy on children's lives.     

Parental Predivorce Relations and Offspring Postdivorce Well‐Being

This 2‐part study uses national longitudinal interview data from parents and their adult children to examine the way in which predivorce marital conflict influences the impact of divorce on children. In the 1st study, we find that the dissolution of low‐conflict marriages appears to have negative effects on offspring's lives, whereas the dissolution of high‐conflict marriages appears to have beneficial effects. The dissolution of low‐conflict marriages is associated with the quality of children's intimate relationships, social support from friends and relatives, and general psychological well‐being. The 2nd study considers how parents in low‐conflict marriages that end in divorce differ from other parents before divorce. We find that low‐conflict parents who divorce are less integrated into the community, have fewer impediments to divorce, have more favorable attitudes toward divorce, are more predisposed to engage in risky behavior, and are less likely to have experienced a parental divorce.     

The Burden of Deportation on Children in Mexican Immigrant Families

In 2011, a record number of foreign‐born individuals were detained and removed from the United States. This article looks at the impact enforcement policies have had on Mexican families more broadly and children specifically. Drawing on interviews with 91 parents and 110 children in 80 households, the author suggests that, similar to the injury pyramid used by public health professionals, a deportation pyramid best depicts the burden of deportation on children. At the top of the pyramid are instances that have had the most severe consequences on children's daily lives: families in which a deportation has led to permanent family dissolution. But enforcement policies have had the greatest impact on children at the bottom of the pyramid. Regardless of legal status or their family members' involvement with immigration authorities, children in Mexican immigrant households describe fear about their family stability and confusion over the impact legality has on their lives.     

Family Environment and Adolescents' Well‐Being Before and After Parents' Marital Disruption: A Longitudinal Analysis

Although previous research has noted that children of divorce tend to fare less well than peers raised in families with two biological parents, much less is known about how parents' marital disruption affects children as a continuous process in its different phases. Based on two waves of a large, nationally representative panel, this study demonstrates that even before the disruption, both male and female adolescents from families that subsequently dissolve exhibit more academic, psychological, and behavioral problems than peers whose parents remain married. Families on the verge of breakup are also characterized by less intimate parent‐parent and parent‐child relationships, less parental commitment to children's education, and fewer economic and human resources. These differences in family environment account for most well‐being deficits among adolescents in predisrupted families. Furthermore, the deterioration in different domains of the family environment appears to be associated with maladjustment in different aspects of children's lives. The postdisruption effects on adolescents can either be totally or largely predicted by predisruption factors and by changes in family circumstances during the period coinciding with the disruption. Finally, the analyses indicate that female adolescents are as likely to be affected by the parental divorce process as male adolescents.     

Lone Mother‐led Families: Exemplifying the Structuring of Social Inequality

Almost 25% of Canadian families are headed by a lone parent (Jensen 2003) and over 90% of poor lone parents are women (National Council of Welfare 2002). In Canada lone mother‐led families have been significantly impacted by two major and interrelated changes in Canada; welfare reforms that resulted in the elimination of a separate family benefit and includes the imposition of a work requirement combined with dramatic changes to the labor market. The reduction of welfare benefits and the increase in precarious or non‐standard work have created a high level of social jeopardy for lone mothers and their children. This paper explores the different realms of life where lone‐mothers are particularly disadvantaged and argues that governments need to clearly identify areas of policy intersection before the inequalities that lone mother‐led families face can be ameliorated.     

Telling and Re‐telling Stories: The Use of Narrative and Drawing in a Group Intervention with Parents and Children in a Remote Aboriginal Community

The Let's Start Parent‐Child Program is a manualised parent‐child program which aims to improve educational, social and emotional outcomes for Aboriginal parents and their four‐ to seven‐year‐old children. It has been implemented in the Northern Territory, Australia on the Tiwi Islands and in Darwin since 2005. This paper outlines the adaptation of the program to include narrative approaches, the sharing of stories and the use of expressive arts as a way to build understanding between program leaders and participating families. An example from a recent program is used to illustrate how the sharing of stories and expressive use of art engages and binds group participants together. It supports parents to tell their own stories, to speak about their lived experience, to reconsider aspects of their own and their children's experiences and to achieve an increased awareness of their personal resources and a sense of self‐empowerment. The program is designed and delivered with sensitivity to individual parents, children and families, where cultural and interpersonal differences and different developmental and family situations can be taken into account.     

“Raised Eyebrows”: Working with Lesbian‐Parented Families — Experiences of Childcare Centre Directors in Australia

When reflecting on their experiences with children from lesbian‐parented families, 64 childcare centre directors in Victoria, Australia indicated that explicit programs, policies or resources of support were absent in their centres. Importantly, participants' pre‐ and post‐professional education either ignored or superficially addressed lesbian matters. This may explain the limited nature of inclusion of lesbian matters in early childhood education. Of note, is the pervasive nature of ‘truths’ upheld by educators. That is, in the Foucauldian sense these educators perceived lesbian families as being the ‘same’ as heterosexual families. Despite the considerable shifts in professional attitudes and ‘truths’ about sexuality, the Foucauldian silences were being reinforced in everyday practice as evidenced by the reference to ‘raised eyebrows’ by participants when this silence about sexuality was threatened.     

Family Policies and Children's School Achievement in Single‐ Versus Two‐Parent Families

We investigate the gap in math and science achievement of third‐ and fourth‐graders who live with a single parent versus those who live with two parents in 11 countries. The United States and New Zealand rank last among the countries we compare in terms of the equality of achievement between children from single‐parent families and those from two‐parent homes. Following a multilevel analysis, we find single parenthood to be less detrimental when family policies equalize resources between single‐ and two‐parent families. In addition, the single‐ and two‐parent achievement gap is greater in countries where single‐parent families are more prevalent. We conclude that national family policies can offset the negative academic outcomes of single parenthood.     

Educational Achievement of Children From Single‐Mother and Single‐Father Families: The Case of Japan

This article examines the relationships between single parenthood and student achievement in Japan. The study uses sixth‐grade data from the 2013 National Assessment of Academic Ability and the Detailed Survey, which was the first nationally representative parental survey collected through schools in Japan. The results indicate that children of single‐mother and single‐father families perform academically lower than children of two‐parent families. For children living in single‐mother families, more than 50% of the educational disadvantage was explained by a lack of economic resources. For children living in single‐father families, the educational disadvantage was explained more by a lack of parenting resources, measured by discussions at home, supervision at home, and involvement in school, than economic resources. These findings suggest that the gendered labor force and division of labor among spouses in Japanese society may deprive parents of the ability to buffer the negative relationship between single parenthood and children's educational achievement.     

Economic Well‐Being in Salvadoran Transnational Families: How Gender Affects Remittance Practices

This article examines how migrant parents' gender affects transnational families' economic well‐being. Drawing on 130 in‐depth interviews with Salvadoran immigrants in the United States and adolescent and young adult children of migrants in El Salvador, I demonstrate that the gender of migrant parents centrally affects how well their families are faring. Gender structurally differentiates immigrant parents' experiences through labor market opportunities in the United States. Simultaneously, gendered social expectations inform immigrants' approaches to parental responsibilities and remitting behaviors. Remittances—the monies parents send—directly shape children's economic well‐being in El Salvador. I find that even though immigrant mothers are structurally more disadvantaged than immigrant fathers, mother‐away families are often thriving economically because of mothers' extreme sacrifices.     

Separation and Post‐Separation Parenting within Lesbian and Gay Co‐parenting (Guild Parented) Families

Gay men and lesbian women have a long history of jointly creating families and co‐parenting their children together. This qualitative study aims to explore the experiences of separation and post‐separation parenting within same‐sex parented families. This involved semi‐structured in‐depth interviews with 22 separated same‐sex parents in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and regional Victoria. An adaptive theory approach was used for the collection and analysis of the data. The paper explores data from a cohort of six participants who came from three different multi‐parent families who had experienced a separation – either their own, or that of other parents in their parenting group. The term ‘co‐parenting families’ was found to be confusing due to the different connotations within separation/divorce and same‐sex parent literature. Consequently, the term ‘guild parented families’ was created to describe these families. Participants from these multi‐parent families had very different experiences of family formation and separation compared to others within the wider separated same‐sex parent study. Separation of one or more of the parent couples within these families complicated their original plans and kinship ideals. Each of the families resolved this differently in their post‐separation arrangements. After separation, whole family narratives and/or the role of individual parents, were either questioned or revised as a way of resolving the complexity of their new kinship situation. Following separation, parents often relied on Western kinship norms that privilege biological kinship and the dual‐parent family to construct their post‐separation kinship arrangements. More awareness of families that begin with more than two parents is needed within separation research and amongst separation services and service providers.     

The daughter‐in‐law questions remittances: changes in the gender of remittances among Indian migrants to Australia

In this article, I present a cross‐generational analysis of the gendered meanings and politics surrounding monetary remittances. Indian female migrants to Australia, who contribute significantly to household incomes, have recently started to question the sources and directions of remittances. This happens when the woman's earnings are sent, without consultation, to the husband's parents for luxuries, while the family in Australia is struggling. Women in paid work also want to send their earnings to their own parents, particularly if there is financial need. Remittances have become a testing ground for the traditional belief that the husband and his family own the money in the patrilineal marital household. It is possible to interpret male control of remittances without consultation as a form of financial abuse of the wife in the sending household. The article draws on two qualitative studies on five decades of Indian migration to Australia covering 203 people from 112 families.     

I'm Not a Bad Mother — Stories of Mothering‐on‐the‐Edge

This article is located in the field of custody and day‐to‐day care, with a focus on experiences of mothering where mothers no longer have everyday care of their children. At the time of writing, tens of thousands of mothers live separately from their children in Aotearoa, New Zealand. However, there is a general perception of rarity associated with non‐resident mothers, partly due to their reluctance to speak of loss of custody. In this article, we develop a theoretical discussion around the inside/outside relationships between non‐resident mothers and their children that informs therapeutic practice. We argue that mothers who live apart from their children are situated at the edge or periphery of their children's day‐to‐day lives and experience this as outside the lives of their children. Nevertheless, mothers' stories speak of qualities of (m)othering that have been born of and nurtured by longstanding and long‐term commitment to their children.     

‘Let's Talk About Children’: Investigating the Use of a Family‐focused Intervention in the Gambling Support Services Sector

The family‐focused mental health intervention, ‘Let's Talk About Children,’ has positively influenced the lives of families affected by parental mental illness. This paper outlines the use of this brief, strengths‐based intervention for parents with gambling and other co‐occurring issues from the gamblers’ support services sector. Over a six‐month period, a training manual and accompanying resources were adapted for the gamblers’ support services sector and a targeted training session developed. Nine problem gambling counsellors from three Victorian gambling support services trialled the Let's Talk About Children intervention over a four‐month period. Qualitative data were gathered through focus groups, interviews, and practice enquiry groups to determine the impact of the Let's Talk About Children model for gambling support services. The results are presented as ‘practice wisdoms and recommendations’ reporting on the impact of the trial and to provide some guidance to support others in the implementation of a specific family‐focused intervention. This paper reports on the first exploratory trial of Let's Talk About Children for the gambler's support services sector in Australia.     

‘Who is in Your Family?’ Italian Children with Non‐heterosexual Parents Talk about Growing Up in a Non‐conventional Household

The paper presents findings from explorative research conducted in Italy with seven 9‐ to 12‐year‐old children with non‐heterosexual parents. The aim was to find out how children describe their family structure, how they talk about their family with peers, and how they experience peers' attitudes towards non‐heterosexual families. Findings show that children have a flexible and inclusive representation of family and they disclose selectively with their peers who don't always consider homosexuality normal and homoparental families ‘real families’. The paper concludes by suggesting that institutional recognition for same‐sex parenting would support children in the everyday work of negotiating diversity.     

Family Structure and Child Well‐being: Integrating Family Complexity

Although children's family lives are diverse, the measurement of children's living arrangements has lagged, focusing on the relationships of children to parents while largely ignoring sibling composition. Using data from the 2008 Survey of Income and Program Participation (N = 23,985) the authors documented patterns of family complexity among a nationally representative sample of children ages 0–17 living in a range of family structures. They also examined the independent and joint associations of family structure and family complexity on child economic well‐being. Family complexity was independently related to economic disadvantage, namely, a lower income‐to‐needs ratio and a higher likelihood of public assistance receipt. The role of family complexity was partially contingent on family structure, with the positive association between family complexity and receipt of public assistance more pronounced for children in families with 2 married biological parents. This study demonstrates the utility of integrating family structure and family complexity in studies of children's well‐being.     

Life Course Changes of Children and Well‐being of Parents

How do children's life course transitions affect the well‐being of their parents? Using a large panel survey among parents with longitudinal information on 2 randomly chosen children, the authors analyzed the effects of children's union formation, parenthood, and union dissolution on changes in depressive symptoms of parents. Negative effects were found for children's divorce, and positive effects were found for children's marriage and parenthood. Mothers suffered more from a child's divorce or separation than fathers. Effects depended in part on the parent's traditional family norms, pointing to a normative explanation of life course effects. Little evidence was found for explanations in terms of altruism or selfish motivations. In a more general sense, this article supports the notion of linked lives suggested by the life course perspective. This research provides stronger support for this notion than the few previous studies that have examined it.     

Making something of the sacrifice: gender,migration and Mexican children's educational aspirations

Transnational families often use international migration as a strategy not only for survival, but also for social mobility. Migrant parents hope their sacrifices via migration will translate into educational benefits for non‐migrant children. In this article, we use mixed methods to explore the success of parents' efforts by considering the relationship between gender, family migration patterns and the educational aspirations of children in the Mixteca region of Mexico. Analysis of surveys collected from 1273 students show that mothers' migrations affect children's educational goals in different ways depending on whether they migrate alone or with their husbands. Fathers' lone migrations have no significant impact on children's educational aspirations. Interviews with 51 children of migrants suggest that children of unmarried migrant mothers are motivated academically because they invest in their mothers' migrations as a sacrifice, whereas the emotional consequences of parental absences lower the educational aspirations of children with both parents in the USA.