INFORME FINAL

The process of intergenerational transmission also implies the question of ‘who transmits what?’ or, in other words, whether parents had distinct roles about what elements of cultural capital to transfer to their children. In general, parents’ roles within the family were defined by a combination of cultural norms and personal circumstances such as migration histories, education, work status and fluency in English but also structural conditions such as their socio-economic background.

This section presents themes that bring together the views of mothers and fathers about their roles in the family as well as young people’s perspectives on the gendered division of labour in the home.

The complexity of the domestic division of labour and parenting roles

Even though most mothers and fathers in the study shared similar values and beliefs, sometimes their roles in the house differed on the basis of traditional models influenced by South Asian cultures which assigned them separate responsibilities. The accounts underlying the theme of fathering indicate a variety of aspects that the father’s role acquired across different families in the study. In Zahida’s middle class family, the father was highly qualified and the main breadwinner and his wife was also working full-time. However differences were present in the way they related to their children and conceived their role as parents. The mother spoke about being actively and constantly present and mostly concerned with transmitting moral values and ensuring that their two daughters grow up as ‘good persons’:

178 ‘For me I think my priority is for them to be good human beings. To be good, kind people. That is more important.’ (Zahida’s mother)

In contrast, accounts from Zahida’s father indicate that he was purposely withdrawing himself from some aspects of his daughters’ upbringing:

‘No and I don’t think we’ve ever told them they shouldn’t drink or should not wear a mini skirt. I think there was one occasion when one of them bought some fishnet stockings. I haven’t said anything. I don’t even officially know. It’s between the mother and them. She never wore them, she was too embarrassed after buying it.’ (Zahida’s father)

As he claimed in this account, he wasn’t there to decide what his daughter had to wear which was more of the mother’s duty. He also spoke about how his daughter knew already about the boundaries of moral behaviour which were implied and didn’t need to be explicitly discussed. In this case he referred particularly to the issue of wearing mini-skirts or fishnet tights. Zahida’s father explained that he was taking a ‘withdrawn’ role in relation to child-rearing mainly because he was less present due to his work schedule and commitments. However, there were other aspects such as education, where he felt his role was determinant in line with what his wife said:

‘Yes for him education is very important. He wants them to be career girls. That is his priority. He feels that’s all he can give them. He doesn’t like to take help from anyone. Whatever he does he likes to do on his own and that is why he feels that is all he can give them is education and he does feel bad that he doesn’t have the finances to put them through private education in very good universities’. (Zahida’s mother)

The accounts of Zahida’s father about his role in her upbringing related to what his daughter and wife said, and it implied that checking on educational performance and directing his daughters’ educational choices were part of his main duty as a father. His involvement in his daughters’ education was not just about checking performance but also on financially providing for it. He explained that the main reasons for working long hours was to be able to afford and send his daughters to the best university and, for this reason, he sent Zahida to have private tuitions in order to improve her grades in maths and science. He expressed concerns about taking on loans for religious and cultural reasons and was worried that he would have not been able to afford to pay for both daughters to go to university outside London where they lived:

179 ‘I think how am I going to pay for this? I mean you can say I only have two daughters. Pakistani families are much larger than this you know. I only have two and I don’t sleep at night. What think I owe them, my daughters is that they can go and do the best university wherever it is. Anywhere they want to go. But the reality is if the go outside London it will be very very difficult financially to pay for the living cost and the fees will be very very difficult (...). And you know because of our religion, I mean I’m not even the most religious but Islam discourages to take on debts unless it’s strictly necessary. In our culture we don’t do it’ (Zahida’s father)

Similarly to Zahida’s father, other fathers spoke about withdrawing themselves from some aspects of the everyday children upbringing to be mostly dedicated to provide for education. For instance, Omar’s father was often abroad because of his job as manager of a small company but when at home, he constantly checked on his son’s performance at school. Asif’s father was the only working parent and had to juggle two jobs: one in a takeaway shop and another as a cab driver in the evening in order to be able to provide for his family and, he said, ‘so Asif could go to university’. He explained he had really little time with his children and his main concern was that they did well at school. The accounts of these fathers, who spent little time at home, indicate that being withdrawn from the bulk of daily childrearing was the result of culturally segregated gendered roles in the family as well as their working patterns.

The theme about mothers’ roles in the family includes more specific accounts about different aspects of mothers’ roles inside and outside the domestic sphere and in relationship to fathers. Hania, for instance, exemplified how the status of the mother is looked up and valued within South Asian cultures and Islam by referring to an Islamic saying:

‘My religion says a lot about the status of a mother as well. Our prophet, he said that in our religion that paradise lies under the feet of your own mother and so can you imagine heaven and how much of a status that your mother has and that alone just makes me think that my mum is my main aspiration.’ (Hania)

Sakina also referred to the centrality of mothers according to Islam and spoke about her close relation with her mother:

‘Yeah because my mum obviously she had to grow up really quickly at such a young age obviously when she married my dad and she had my sister straight away as well and the things she has been through in life and the things, the stories she has told me about how hard it was growing up and the things that

180 have happened to her. We are more best friends than mother, daughter and sisters and it’s like we will do everything together at the same time and I just think wow.’ (Sakina)

The accounts from Sakina and her parents suggest that there the division of labour in the family was gendered and influenced by South Asian culture. The mother, who grew up in the UK and had a job in the council, preserved a traditional view about gender separated roles and the main function of women as mothers and mothers as the children’s main educators:

‘Women who have a role to play in society because you are going to be a mother and if you are not a good mother obviously you are going to fail society, if your children are not good, what society you create, we believe that mothers are the foundation of children’s education, upbringing everything and there is a saying “if you teach a woman then you teach the whole nation” because like I say the mother is the first teacher for the child and you know like in some communities they understand the value of having a mother who is educated and understands everything. Even in religious education because Islam plays a vital role in discipline and upbringing your child and ones behaviour and making ones character, this is very vital and if I don’t know in Islam how one should be as a person to one’s self, to one’s family, to society, if you don’t know how to do it then how are you going to be a good person?’ (Sakina’s mother).

Sakina spoke what she learnt from her father as the sense of ambition, discipline and a hard working ethic and she also recognised his effort in protecting his children. She looked up to his life as an example of determination and business acumen:

‘So then my dad is playing the whole breadwinner role, bringing the what do you call it, getting the income and making sure everything’s is there for us (…). He instilled his own boundaries and his beliefs within us as well, so there’s so many things like we questions too like oh why can’t we do this, like this is not something specific to Islam, but this is to my family as in, you know, why can’t I go out with my friends and so basically what he was telling me was about protection again and he told me that this time of your life is where you’re going to change as a person, with people you make friends with are going to have a huge impact on you, so you’ve got to be really really careful who you make friends with. (…) What he said was never ever, you know, rest on your laurels, don’t ever be lazy, be determined and that’s instilled in me the work hard ethic.’ (Sakina)

Sakina’s perspectives suggest how her habitus and identity were influenced by her family field. In this case, parental teachings reflected an approach to parenting which

181 combined encouraging high career aspirations and a hard working ethic, with quite strict moral standards and a confinement of women to quite traditional roles in the domestic sphere. Therefore, on one side, Sakina spoke about being about to start studying medicine in a prestigious London university and about how ambitious and determined to do well in her education she was. On the other hand, she held her mother’s views about the woman’s role in the house and her strong sense of religiosity implied also by the hijab.

In summary, qualitative evidence suggests that parenting roles were seen as both complementary and gendered. They were perceived different in their nature and segregated between the public (mostly fathers) and domestic spheres (mostly mothers). According to these accounts, women were not subordinated to men but rather they owned a different spectrum of power, which, de facto, was exercised through the control of the children.

However, interview accounts also suggest a different pattern: the socio-economic background and particularly the parents’ employment status were important factors in shaping the parental division of labour within the family unit. Therefore, in the families where both parents were in work a sense of partnership in bringing up the children prevailed and gender roles were less defined according to traditional models.

In the case of the families of Yasmeen, Haroon and Tania’s (siblings), traditional gender roles were challenged: the mothers held higher qualifications than the fathers and were, in both cases, the main earners. Haroon and Tania’s father helped with his wife’s business; while Yasmeen’s mother held a managerial position in a male dominated work environment. In Haroon and Tania’s family, gender roles were perceived as fundamentally equal as the father stated:

‘We may be very much an exception or a minority but we pretty much have brought the children up together we’re completely equal partnership in everything that we’ve done, other than when they were being breastfed, when they were bottled we both did it, when the nappies needed changing we both did it, when they needed to go to nursery we both did it, we divided if one parent was taking them...

Do you mind?

No we are a partnership because although they speak to her she’ll discuss it with me, we will talk about it and so they will still get the same feedback, same

182 guidance, there are very few occasions when we will disagree (…). (Tania and Haroon father)

His wife’s accounts confirm how decisions were taken by both parents together and how possible disagreement was overcome by parents being open and flexible to the view of the other, as in the case below where they had to decide whether to allow Tania to go out to a club with friends:

‘(Husband) and me talked and I was saying no and (Husband) said yes, so very often this happens, but then when (Husband) said yes then I agree in the sense yes you can go, but I still say no, daddy’s saying yes, but fine we respect that and sometimes it happens the other way around, I say yes and (Husband) says no, then he’ll agree because I’ve said yes.’ (Tania and Haroon mother)

Yasmeen’s father, spoke about how he shared everything with his wife and how they had an equal role in the family:

‘No we do common things, we don’t have like this is your role and this is my role everything is everybody’s, we don’t have anything in the house which belongs to me or which belongs to my daughter, this TV is everybody’s, this remote is everybody’s, we’ve all got a mobile but all three mobiles belongs to everybody, I can use her mobile anytime and she can use my mobile anytime. That comes in the role as well. If something is wrong we both will say wrong, if something is right we both will say right. Equal role. (his wife) is here, I’m here 100% role is in my hand, I won’t say this role belongs to your mum so wait till your mum comes.’ (Yasmeen’s father)

However, the accounts of Yasmeen’s mother also indicate that she felt she had slightly different views on parental roles regarding their daughter’s upbringing. In this context the parents’ background and migration histories became relevant. Yasmeen’s mother moved to the UK as child whilst her husband grew up in India. This implied that the father was more exposed to cultural norms and traditions that see mothers as the ones in charge of the children’s upbringing. Therefore, the mother explained, she ultimately took a much more active role with Yasmeen’s upbringing compared to her husband in line with tradition:

‘The reason is because my husband was brought up old school. Because his parents were in India. He was in India for the first 20 years of his life. But yes, he’s, not strict, but in ours it’s probably a bit different. Rashid doesn’t hold the, I’m the main parent. I’m the one she’ll ring if she’s ill, not because I’m the mum, but because I’m the main parent. He’s taken a back seat on that. Because he’s old school and it’s the mum’s job to bring them up. It’s a different society. If you’re born here then both parents take an active role. But

183 in his, what he’s seen is that mums take the active role. So he has stepped back. But he does everything for her. He’ll jump through hoops for her. But it’s the mum who’s the active one.’ (Yasmeen’s mother).

In Hamid’s family, also from an Indian ethnic background and from middle class socio- economic background, parental division of labour followed more closely the traditional path which sees fathers as breadwinners and mothers in charge of the domestic sphere. In this case, the mother held higher qualifications than the father and completed a PhD, but she explained that she decided to give up that type of career and went into teaching to be able to have more time to dedicate to childcare.

In conclusion, parenting roles in the context of the South Asian Muslim families in the study, involved negotiating South Asian cultures, Islamic beliefs with British values and lifestyles. While some parents remained more attached to tradition, some others adapted to the career paths and the opportunities available. Working patterns influenced parental roles in the family: in some cases they led to a more gender balanced sharing of the responsibilities in the family, whilst in other instances they involved fathers withdrawing from the daily aspects of child-rearing.

Inter-cultural and inter-generational differences and parental roles

Most parents in the study (22 out of the 27) were fist generation migrants not born in the UK. Often the migration histories of mothers and fathers within the same family group were quite different and involved different cultural references and therefore cultural capital. Evidence indicate that these differences were quite strong in the 5 families where parents belong to different generations of migrants or where one of them had much longer experience of living and settling in the UK than the other. Even when parents were from the same migrant generational status, they often had different migration histories: wives arrived later in the UK and, in families from low socio-economic background they did not work and often had no qualifications. Unsurprisingly, parents who had quite different histories of migration, such as those of Sakina (hermother did not speak English while her father was fluent and grew up in the UK), or Davar (whose father moved to the UK as a child but mother could not speak