Summary_社会学家如何看待亲子关系?

亲子关系往往被视为心理学的经典研究问题,但从社会学角度看来并不如此,很多生理行为实际受社会因素影响。我们需要引入社会学角度去思考亲子权力,而不是简单的从心理学、生理学方面思考。

一、亲子关系案例:厌食是生理性疾病么?

(一)饮食失调案例:社会性因素的考量

在这方面,卓有成效的是Ma于2008年所写的论文,Ma的抽样方式是“family treatment center of a Shenzhen hospital from January 2004 to December 2006. Attended family treatment at least three times.”,样本的社会人口学特征是“Five youths were the only child in the family, two had two siblings each, two had three siblings each, and one had four siblings. Seven families were nuclear families, one was a single-parent family, one a three-generational family, and another was on the verge of breaking up.”(Ma, 2008)
Ma认为,持续性权力斗争恰是隐藏在饭桌上,且母女的关系紧张程度要胜过父女。具体表现在“Don’t force me to eat, even though I am starving to death. The parent–child interaction was entangled in a continual power struggle at the dinner table during mealtime. The power struggle was more severe and intense between mothers and the emaciated daughters. Don’t treat me like a child, though I dislike growing up”(Ma, 2008)
一方面子女渴望成长,另一方面却与此同时表现出了退化(绝食),这使父母困惑。但私以为此处的分析仍旧流于表面,这种心理-行为的模式,是独生子女、是中国文化、还是其他因素的结果,作者的讲述中没有厘清。“Although Patient Y had expressed her strong wish to be independent and autonomous, her regressive behaviors made her mother confused and bewildered. I dislike living up to my parents’ expectations.”(Ma, 2008)

(二)问题根源:父权制的产物

于此,Ma提及父权制(a patriarchal Chinese society)。费孝通在《生育制度》中曾论述,费孝通曾引述尼采“That will fly, flies at last.”认为父子之矛盾在于,父亲旧时标准与儿子新理想之间的冲突。而于今日社会变迁剧烈,文化并非固定绵延可以保存,亲子之情也终归抵挡不了变迁力量。这也是生理断代与文明延续之间的本质中存在的裂痕,这也即是代际冲突不可消除的根本原因。
由此,Ma最终提及,饮食失调绝不应该单纯看为是生理原因,而事实上,在很多情况下,尤其是青少年的饮食失调,其正是亲子权力斗争失衡的结果。 “Shenzhen youths and their parents could be helped to shift the focus of their conflicts from eating versus non-eating to developmental issues such as autonomy and independence.”(Ma, 2008)

(三)引申:研究进展要求引入社会学思考

因此,我们可以这样理解亲子互动,即它是这样一个过程,既与参与这一过程的父母的特征存在一定关系,如父母的教养方式,父母的人格特征,父母的受教育水平,也与儿童的特征,如儿童气质、性别存在一定关系;这一过程还处于父母的社会网络和社会支持系统这一更广阔的社会环境中,并受它们的影响。(侯静,2002;马德峰,2003)

二、中国的独生子女呢?赋权理论

Fong在2002年讨论了目前中国亲子关系的状态。论文抽样方法为“ong-term relationships with 31 of these families”。具体论述上,Fong讲了一个案例,丈夫工厂倒闭在家,妻子在外工作挣得多,女性因为经济地位提高而提高了在家庭中的话语权,从早期家务劳动更多,转变为丈夫家务劳动更多。

In my students’ parents’ generation, men are expected to earn more, have better jobs, and do less housework than their wives, who are expected to take primary responsibil- ity for domestic work, usually at the expense of their careers. Survey respondents’ mothers were far more likely than their fathers to do household chores. Still, my students’ fathers were far more likely to help with housework than my students’ grandfathers, most of whom told me that they did no housework at all. In the families of a few students I tutored, husbands did even more work than their wives. This was particularly likely when the mother worked or earned more than the father. The mother of the family I lived with cheerfully did all the housework while she and her husband both worked at nine-to-five jobs. Things changed when she rented a fruit stall, where she sold fruit from 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., seven days a week, while his factory increasingly sent him home with no work and no pay and eventually laid him off. Suddenly, she was making more money and doing more hours of paid work than he. Although she took pride in being a “good wife and virtuous mother,” she realized that her time had become a lot more valuable than her husband’s time and started pressuring him to do more housework. He reluctantly agreed, and from then on had dinner waiting for her when she got back home at 8 p.m.(Fong, 2002)

Boys and girls alike recognize that greater gender equality in the distribution of housework is expected for their generation than for previous generations. As a junior high school student replied when her mother, a retired factory worker, asked what she will do after marriage if she never learns to cook, “My husband will cook! Who says women have to be the ones to cook?”(Fong, 2002)

Fong认为,一个女儿事实上冲击了原有的男权制。但这也促使我思考一个问题,即二孩放开后会不会冲击、如何冲击当下的亲子关系,女性权力是否会因此被削弱?

Brotherless daughters have the power to make the best use of their glass floor and push the limits of their glass ceiling, thanks to the parental support that their mothers and grandmothers were denied. Daughters empowered by the support of parents with no sons to favor are able to defy detrimental norms while strategically using ones that give them advantages in the educational system and the job and marriage markets.(Fong, 2002)

三、中国亲子关系的其他角度?文化与权力

质性研究方面。Fong在2007年进一步从文化角度分析了亲子关系背后的权力,她抽取了五个中国家庭 “analyze longitudinal case(32 months ) studies of five Chinese families in Dalian.”
Fong认为,紧张关系是由于对卓越、独立、服从、合群等单一价值观的冲突,以及父母希望子女接受文化模式的冲突。同时Fong也分析了单身汉与父母亲子关系困境,不单单是因为其在中国话语下被认定为是失败的表现,同时也是由于快速变迁社会。

These tensions result from a mismatch between the simple values of excel- lence, independence, obedience, caring/sociableness that Chinese parents tell their children to abide by and the more complex, difficult-to-conceive, and difficult-to-articu- late cultural models Chinese parents actually want their children to develop.
Chinese singletons’ inability to meet their par- ents’ expectations should thus be seen not merely as a result of the singleton status popular Chinese discourses often blamed for the younger generation’s failings but also as a result of their status (shared with many other children worldwide) as rapidly devel- oping children in a rapidly changing world.(Fong, 2007)

Xu Qun: Not Caring/Sociable Enough, Not Obedient Enough, or Not Excellent and Independent Enough?
Chen Sheng: Not Independent and Excellent Enough or Not Caring/Sociable Enough?
Shen Ning: Not Obedient, Caring/Sociable, and Excellent Enough?
Wang Juan: Not Caring/Sociable Enough?
Liu Wei: Not Independent and Excellent Enough?(Fong, 2007)

The case studies I have described show how children construct their own models of the way things work by inference from their diverse, often contradictory experiences, not by simple replication of didactic instructions or role models.(Fong, 2007)

量化研究方面。Xu(2005)则抽取了“47 boys, 50 girls; aged 6 to 30 months; in Shanghai”;测量方法上(1)The CRPR measures attitudes in several domains. (2)Kochanska, Kuczynski, and Radke-Yarrow (1989) developed the authoritative and authoritarian dimensions from the original CRPR items. 分析框架上(1)权威性的理性引导、精神交流:The authoritative subscale contains 14 items, which include parents’ use of inductive reasoning and rational guidance, parent–child mutual communication, and encouragement of children’s independence;(2)专制性的监督、严厉:There are 13 items in the authoritarian subscale, which include parental control without democratic give-and-take, high supervision of the child, and restrictive discipline
Xu的回归分析结果展示,中国社会中,母亲对中国价值观的认同与权威、专制的父母模式极相关。“The regression analyses showed that mothers’ adherence to Chinese values was associated with both authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles.”
Xu继而讨论,传统中国价值观不仅强调子女服从与父母严厉,形成权威模式,也提高了父母的承受力与敏感度,形塑了专制模式。但欧洲不同,其父母缺乏这种表露出的控制模式,但也因此相较少些敏感性。

traditional Chinese values not only emphasize child obedience and parental strictness, which are attributes of an authoritarian parenting style, but also promote parental acceptance and responsiveness, which are characteristics of an authoritative parenting style.
In contrast, in studies where European American mothers have been compared to Chinese American mothers, European American mothers’ authoritarian parenting styles have been interpreted as a lack of sensitivity expressed as a dominating or controlling style.(Xu, 2005)

同时,Xu也援引Andresen等人,解释了为何双高模式支持网路发达,及由此影响了亲自互动,投入了更多的精力,减少了失衡。即“北美家庭的相关研究发现,来自配偶和朋友的大力支持可以缓解母亲在亲子互动中的压力和紧张,从而使她们对孩子的需求做出更敏感的反应。”(Andresen etc., 1992)

参考文献

Andresen, Pamela A., and Sharon L. Telleen. “The relationship between social support and maternal behaviors and attitudes: A meta-analytic review.” American Journal of Community Psychology 20.6 (1992): 753-774.
Fong, Vanessa L. “China’s one-child policy and the empowerment of urban daughters.” American Anthropologist (2002): 1098-1109.
Fong, Vanessa L. “Parent‐Child Communication Problems and the Perceived Inadequacies of Chinese Only Children.” Ethos 35.1 (2007): 85-127.
Ma, Joyce LC. “Eating disorders, parent–child conflicts, and family therapy in Shenzhen, China.” Qualitative Health Research 18.6 (2008): 803-810.
Xu, Yiyuan, et al. “Mainland Chinese parenting styles and parent–child interaction.” International Journal of Behavioral Development 29.6 (2005): 524-531.
侯静. 亲子互动研究及其进展. 心理科学进展,2002:185-191.
马德峰. 亲子互动的现状及问题. 社会,2003:45-46.