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

Abstract

This article examines the cooperation and conflicts in the “intergenerational parenting coalition,” the practice of joint caregiving by parents and grandparents that is prevalent among contemporary urban Chinese families. The author argues that a pattern of “yan mu ci zu” (grandparents feed, mothers teach) has emerged in the intergenerational parenting coalition. Specifically, young mothers act as powerful “managers” of the childrearing project, while grandparents serve primarily as caretakers who are marginalized in family power relations. Differing from the institutionalized power structure in traditional Chinese families, yan mu ci zu is a set of fluid, uninstitutionalized power relations constrained by negotiations and bargaining between family members and mediated by intergenerational intimate relations.