Adaptação cultural: comparando as percepções da relação coparental em pais de casais brasileiros e de nacionalidade mista

Abstract

Currently, at the international level, there are millions of people leaving their home country in search of a better life. Constant geopolitical changes create demands to deal with cultural differences that are managed through a process of sociocultural adaptation that can lead to outcomes such as cultural integration, assimilation, separation, or marginalization. A context that has been overlooked for studying the negotiation of cultural differences is the coparenting relationship, which is important because it involves frequent interactions between people who need to collaborate to raise their child. Building and maintaining the coparenting relationship always requires skills to deal with differences, but this demand can be even greater in relationships between people who grew up in two different countries. Thus, the objective of the present study was to examine how parents manage their cultural differences in the context of the coparenting relationship, comparing parents in couples with two Brazilian partners and in couples that have one Brazilian partner and one partner of a different nationality. The 15 participants included 6 Brazilian mothers, 3 mothers who were of other nationalities, 3 Brazilian fathers and 3 fathers who were of other nationalities, all with at least one child between 0 and 9 years of age. An interview protocol with semi-structured questions was used to examine: (a) differences of opinion between the coparenting partners in nine dimensions of parenthood and (b) their perceptions regarding the influence of practices in their families of origin. The participants’ responses regarding their differences of opinion were categorized using qualitative methods of content analysis. All the participants reported differences of opinion with their coparenting partner about how to raise their children, but for the Brazilian couples, most of the difficulties were related to division of labor. For the mixed nationality couples, in addition to problems related to the division of labor, they were also negotiating cultural issues such as norms regarding childcare practices, expectations about the schooling of their children, and ways of expressing affection. However, in general, participants had worked out differences with their coparenting partner, resulting in alignment and support within the couple. In addition, there were some practices that the couples established that were different from the cultural norms in their families of origin. Considering the outcomes of the cultural adaptation process described in the theoretical literature, the couples were interacting in ways that lead to a process of cultural integration, with some examples of cultural assimilation and separation. However, none of the participants were members of divorced couples. Therefore, in future research, it will be important to follow couples longitudinally to identify individual and interpersonal repertoires that contribute to the quality of communication about culturally sensitive issues and the ability of each parent to collaborate with their coparenting partner. A better understanding of skills that contribute to working out cultural differences can help people expand their sociocultural repertoire, rather than being overwhelmed with feelings of insecurity, frustration, and dissatisfaction when they must deal with these differences.