Student Publications [Scholarly]

Do you Chicken your Children?: A Narrative Approach to Understanding Chinese Maternal Identity

Document Type

Article

Abstract

“Chicken parenting” has recently surged in popularity among Chinese parents, emphasizing rigorous academic achievement and potentially replacing the “tiger parent” approach introduced to Western audiences. Amid these evolving attitudes, Chinese mothers often bear heightened responsibility for their children’s academic success. Yet little research has explored how these mothers navigate their identities in relation to shifting parenting expectations and norms. What remains underexamined is how mothers make sense of their roles through everyday interactions, particularly within China’s changing educational and cultural landscapes. This study takes up this issue by examining how two Chinese mothers construct and negotiate their maternal identities through narrative. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and positioning analysis, we apply a process-relational lens to trace how identity is co-constructed through lived experience, relationships, and meaning-making. Our analysis reveals that one mother transitions from a strict, “chicken parent” approach to a more supportive stance, while the other consistently and proactively respects her child’s autonomy. These contrasting narratives illustrate that maternal identity is not fixed, but continuously shaped through the interplay of cultural expectations, personal values, and parenting practices. Our findings show how mothers actively negotiate their identities and reevaluate parenting practices, striving to balance their own expectations with their children’s educational needs. This study contributes to interdisciplinary research by illustrating how identity emerges through mothers’ ongoing, situated meaning-making within shifting cultural, relational, and developmental contexts. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.

Publication Title

Human Arenas

Publication Date

2025

ISSN

2522-5804

DOI

10.1007/s42087-025-00525-7

Keywords

culture, identity construction, maternal identity, narrative, positioning analysis

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