Title : Cultural approaches to parenting
Abstract:
Societies are in constant change and, consequently, the concept of family and the social role of its members. For this reason, the plurality vision of the parenthood concept is fundamental. Parenthood evolves on a personal level, but also on a collective level with the influence of the different cultures, having Angolan society-specific characteristics that need to be explored, with the finality of culturally competent practice in specialized pediatric nursing. This work intends to get to know the cultural influences in the process of being a mother in the Angolan context. For that, a study of quality approach was realized, transversal and using an ecomap, genogram, and half-structured interview, as data collection instruments. The study included 18 mothers with children aged up to 24 months who went to a private clinic in Angola for child health consultations. Of the 18 mothers interviewed, the average age was 32 years, mostly women with Angolan nationality (67%), married, with rebuilt families (37%), with children from other relationships (33%), with higher education (61%), with work activity (83%), having domestic support to take care of the children in 94% of the families, in which 44% of the nannies slept in the families rooms and with the verbalization of the father's participation in family tasks of 31%. The family support of these mothers is essentially the mothers, mothers-in-law, and domestic servants who perpetuate cultural beliefs and traditions, recognizing in the interviewees' statements a matriarchal and subordinate society in the care of children and family. Mothers who know the importance of conventional medicine are trapped between the knowledge transmitted by health professionals (conventional medicine) and the beliefs (traditional medicine), with cultural practices that interfere with family care. The participants recognize the need for parental involvement, but when they verbalize this participation, it appears that parental participation is limited to watching over the infant, while the woman takes care of domestic and family activities, such as working and sometimes away from home, she needs resorting to elements outside the family, to care for the children and be able to rest. Angolan culture is strongly rooted, not only in health care, but also in family care for children, as well as in the role of the father and the mother with parenting in transformation, but with fears of fragile bonds, overload, and vulnerabilities to the Angolan woman and working mother, in which the role of the nurse specialist in pediatrics may be fundamental, not only in providing support for these vulnerabilities but also in empowering the woman/mother in the family and in the society, with culturally competent practices.
Audience Take Away:
- Explain how the audience will be able to use what they learn? Health contexts present cultural diversities that need to be understood by pediatric nurses, in order to act with culturally competent practices, namely in Angolan families.
- How will this help the audience in their job? Nursing practices need to be contextualized in family cultures, recognizing the decisions of its members in childcare and in the different existing dynamics.
- Is this research that other faculty could use to expand their research or teaching? The replication of this research in other cultures could bring benefits to care in the child's and family's cultural practices.
