Immigrant academic mothers negotiating ideal worker and mother norms during the COVID-19 pandemic: Duoethnography as a co-mentoring tool for transformative learning

How are immigrant academic mothers negotiating the confounding terrains of work and family during the pandemic? How can they support each other in learning how to resist the prevalent notions of ideal working and mothering amidst the demanding schedule of working remotely and parenting? This study addresses these questions through sharing a narrative of how two immigrant mothers in academia challenged and began the journey of transforming their gendered work and family identities. Building on personal essays and 6 weeks of extensive journaling that reflected our positionalities and experiences of motherhood, work-life, and intersections between work and home during the pandemic, we offer a fine-grained understanding of how we helped each other as co-mentors to identify moments of our lived experiences as triggers for transformative learning. In doing so, we realized how duoethnography could be more than just a research methodology in helping us co-construct a relational space to empathize and challenge each other’s perspectives about our roles as mothers and professors and the gendered nature of social forces shaping those roles.

Health promotion for immigrant mothers of children with developmental disabilities: Towards a transformative approach

Background: High societal expectations that involve idealized and labour-intensive mothering are a source of stress, anxiety, guilt and frustration for women. Immigrant mothers caring for children with developmental disabilities are disproportionately burdened with health inequities. Study goals: The overall goal of our study was to examine health promotion practices of immigrant mothers with children with developmental disabilities using the Health Promotion Activities Scale (HPAS). Methods: Twenty-eight mothers of children with developmental disabilities were interviewed using the HPAS. A grounded theory approach was utilized to analyze the qualitative data. Results: Immigrant mothers of children with developmental disabilities’ engagement in health promoting activities is influenced by their role as primary caregivers, the gendered nature of mothering, non-Western views on health promotion, mothers’ burden from inequities and structural barriers pertaining to funding, disability, and migration status. The responses on the HPAS also underscore motherhood as a social construct with embedded assumptions and social expectations related to role and responsibilities that requires them to be “good” mothers. Discussion and Conclusion: There is need to incorporate transformative health promotion approaches in research and practice that consider mothers’ multicultural contexts. The intersections of motherhood, disability, gendered role expectations and migration need to be taken into account.

Relationship between Marriage Immigrant Mothers’ Acculturative Stress and Their Adolescent Children’s Career Decidedness in South Korea: Mediating Roles of Parenting and School Adjustment

International marriages between Korean men and foreign women from other Asian countries have been increasing since the late 1990s in Korea. This study examines the mediating effects of parenting self-efficacy, career-specific parenting behaviors, and school adjustment on the relationship between immigrant mothers’ acculturative stress and their adolescent children’s career decidedness. Data were collected from 1181 third grade students (583 boys, 598 girls) in Korean middle schools and their foreign mothers who participated in the Multicultural Adolescents Panel Study. A structural equation modeling analysis revealed the following multiple mediation process: immigrant mothers’ acculturative stress is indirectly related to their adolescent children’s career decidedness through (1) the dual mediation of parenting self-efficacy and career-specific parenting behaviors; (2) the serial mediation of parenting self-efficacy, career-specific parenting behaviors, and adolescents’ school adjustment; (3) the dual mediation of parenting self-efficacy and adolescents’ school adjustment; and (4) the mediation of adolescents’ school adjustment. This study provides directions for parent education and career counseling to enhance immigrant mothers’ parenting competence and support the positive career development of adolescents from multicultural families. The study, therefore, helps them grow into well-adjusted adults in Korean society, which, in turn, contributes to the well-being of immigrant mothers and their adolescent children.

Cultural competence in multi-family psychoeducation groups: The experiences of Russian-speaking immigrant mothers of adults with severe mental illness

The successful integration of cultural competence with evidence-based practices in mental health services is still limited for particular cultural populations. The current study explored culturally adapted family psychoeducation intervention for immigrants from the former Soviet Union (FSU) in Israel who care for a family member with severe mental illness (SMI). Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 18 immigrant mothers about their experience of taking part in Russian-speaking multi-family psychoeducation groups (MFPGs). Qualitative content analysis revealed five salient processes and changes that participants attributed to their engagement in the intervention: 1) from a language barrier to utilization of and satisfaction with services; 2) from a lack of information to acquiring new mental health knowledge; 3) from harboring a family secret to exposure and sharing; 4) from social isolation to cultural belonging and support; 5) from families blurring boundaries to physical and emotional separation. The results showed that these changes—linguistic, cognitive, emotional, socio-cultural and relational—improved family coping and recovery. Implications for cultural adaptation of family psychoeducation for Russian-speaking immigrants are discussed.

Perceived Experiences of Korean Immigrant Mothers Raising Children With Disabilities in the United States

Introduction: The challenges of acculturation that immigrant families experience could intensify if they have a child with a disability. This qualitative descriptive study aimed to describe the experiences of Korean mothers raising children with a disability in the United States. Methodology: Semi-structured interviews were conducted based on the Resilience Model of Family Stress, Adjustment, and Adaptation. Directed content analysis was used. Results: Six Korean mothers participated in the interview and 16 codes were identified in relation to the five concepts of the Resilience Model, namely family demands, family resources, family appraisal, family problem-solving and coping, and family adaptation. Overall, mothers thought their families were well-functioning and viewed their quality of life positively within the context of immigration despite experiencing various family demands. Discussion: Findings of this study showed the resilience of Korean immigrant mothers and revealed the importance of understanding and considering unique cultural differences when providing care to this population.

Maternal perceptions and concerns about children’s weight status and diet quality: a study among Black immigrant families

Objective: To identify factors influencing Black immigrant mothers’ perceptions and concerns about child weight, and to compare children’s diet quality according to these perceptions and concerns. Design: Mothers’ perceptions and concerns about child weight were assessed with sex-specific figure rating scales and the Child Feeding Questionnaire, respectively. Participants’ weights and heights were measured and characterized using World Health Organization references. Children’s dietary intakes were estimated using a 24-hour dietary recall. Children’s diet quality was evaluated using the relative proportion of their energy intake provided by ultra-processed products, which were identified with the NOVA classification. Chi-square tests, multivariate logistic regressions and t-tests were performed. Setting: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Participants: Black immigrant mothers of Sub-Saharan African and Caribbean origin (n=186) and their 6-12-year-old children. Results: Among mothers, 32.4% perceived their child as having overweight while 48.4% expressed concerns about child weight. Girls and children with overweight or obesity were significantly more likely to be perceived as having overweight by their mothers than boys and normal-weight children, respectively. Mothers of children living with obesity, but not overweight, were significantly more likely to be concerned about their child’s weight than mothers of normal-weight children. Children’s diet quality did not differ according to mothers’ perceptions and concerns. Conclusion: Children’s gender and weight status were major determinants of perceptions and concerns about child weight among Black immigrant mothers. Including knowledge about mothers’ perceptions and concerns about child weight will help nutrition professionals develop interventions tailored to specific family needs within the context of their cultural backgrounds.

A Comparative Prevalence of Birth Defects between Newborns of Immigrant and Native-Born Mothers in Taiwan: Ten Years of Population-Based Data

In recent years, newborns born to immigrant mothers have accounted for about 10% of the total births in Taiwan. However, little is known about whether there are differences between newborns of immigrant and native-born mothers regarding the prevalence and the possible causes of birth defects. By combining four nationwide databases and assessing all newborns between 2005 and 2014 in Taiwan as research subjects, this study determined the prevalence of birth defects stratified into nine categories (neuronal, facial, cleft, circulatory, respiratory, digestive, urogenital, musculoskeletal and chromosomal abnormalities) in the newborns of immigrant mothers and native-born mothers. We found that the prevalence of any birth defects in newborns of immigrant mothers (ranging from 0.98 to 1.24%) was lower than that of native-born mothers (2.86%). Skeletomuscular system defects are the most common among newborns of women from the main immigrant countries (0.24–0.42%), while circulatory system defects were the most common among newborns of Taiwanese women (0.92%). The risks of all defects remained lower for newborns of immigrant mothers (AORs ranged from 0.37 to 0.47) after controlling for possible confounding variables. The higher rates of birth defects among newborns of native-born mothers may be attributed to an older maternal age at childbirth and a higher prevalence of diabetes than that of immigrant mothers. The findings from this study imply that the prevalence of birth defects between newborns of immigrant and native-born mothers is not similar, as evidenced by a decade of population-based data.