Adolescent-Parent Relationships in Indian and Indian Immigrant Families in the US

The article discusses how adolescents interpret their relationships with their parents in two different cultural contexts. Interpersonal conflicts have been largely studied to understand adolescent-parent relationships across different cultural groups, including immigrant families who are often caught between bicultural values and expectations. The balancing act of reconciling values of the “culture of origin†with values of the “culture of destination†is likely to create discrepant views between parents and adolescents. What kind of everyday disagreements occur between parents and adolescents in two distinctly different cultures—India and the United States (US)? How are these disagreements resolved? To what extent are adolescents able to take parents’ perspectives in interpreting and resolving disagreements? How do the perspectives of Indian adolescents compare with those of the Indian immigrant adolescents? These research questions were addressed through individual interviews of 40 adolescents in Baroda, India and New York, US. The results indicate that adolescents in both societies experience everyday disagreements related to regulation of behaviour/activities and interpersonal relations, academics, chores and finance. Mutual accommodation and adolescent compromise were the commonly used strategies of resolving disagreements. More adolescents from the Indian group acknowledged their responsibility to accommodate to parents on account of faith in parents’ experience, respect for them and the belief that parents have children's welfare at heart. Although adolescents from both groups also endorsed the need for parent accommodation to adolescent views, parent compromise featured more in the Indian immigrant group.