Parenting After Divorce with an Immigrant Community: An Exploration of Hmong Parents’ Parenting Experiences

Abstract

Parents with shared children are faced with many challenges after a divorce or separation. One such challenge is to negotiate shared parenting responsibilities with their former spouses. This can be further exacerbated for immigrant parents as they may lack the know how or resources to traverse the legal system, in addition to seeking out a cultural divorce. Moreover, divorce may still be highly stigmatized which can serve as a barrier for communication between parents and between families. Yet little is known of how immigrant parents come to share their parenting responsibilities after divorce and the role of family in this process. This paper is comprised of two qualitative studies with immigrant community in the US: a study with Hmong key community informants to explore their perceptions of barriers to shared parenting and the role of family in the decision-making process; and a second study with divorced Hmong parents centered on their parenting experiences after divorce. The initial qualitative study broadly follows a community engaged approach with 17 key community informants selected to share their knowledge on the topic. A semi-structured interview guided by previous literature on divorce and parenting was designed. A thematic analysis of the transcripts found 6 themes. Themes revolved around perceived barriers to communication between former spouses and the role of specific family members in facilitating or impeding the shared parenting process. The second qualitative study was guided by an interpretative phenomenological approach with 10 divorced Hmong parents. Five Hmong fathers, and 5 Hmong mothers were part of this study. Through analysis, themes centered on how parents came to their current childcare arrangement, what were their experiences in sharing parenting responsibilities with their former spouses, and the role of family in the shared parenting process. Implications for findings across the two studies are also shared. Most importantly, findings seem to support a need for a cultural lens to better understand the experiences of divorcing parents. Many in this community do not come into contact with the legal system after a divorce and instead implement informal shared parenting arrangements. Findings raise concerns of how applicable the clan mediation system of divorce remains applicable for Hmong parents in the US today. As Hmong families acculturate and adopt more Western ideologies of parenting, this may clash with the culture and presents ambiguity for parents in how to share parenting after divorce. Moreover, it is unclear how clan leaders sanction childrearing arrangements if at all. For parents that use the legal system, they may be required to participate in mandated parenting education programs. Yet the applicability and effectiveness of such programs for Hmong parents needs further exploration as findings across the two studies here illustrate both structural and cultural barriers to maintaining contact between former spouses. Most importantly, family members seem to play an instrumental role during the decision-making process of shared parenting arrangements and after divorce as a caregiver role. Thus, further examination of how intervention programs and resources are adapted to include the extended family after divorce could be helpful for closing some of the gaps in this community. Moving forward, suggestions for future directions include continued exploration of how immigrant parents come to share parenting, the role of family during this process, and the impact of the various arrangements on child adjustment and well-being.