Not all Parenting Contexts are the Same

Recently, there was some concern by my grandson’s pediatrician that he was not growing properly, sending his parents and grandparents into a panic.  The dreaded term, failure to thrive, was cautiously tossed about.

I remember when I first heard that term.  It was used to label a 5-year-old immigrant child (we’ll call him Isaac) with Spina Bifida.  A school nurse noted the boy’s small size and unwillingness to dive excitedly into his school lunches, and she reported his family to the city’s Child Protective Services department.  An investigation was quickly begun, citing potential abuse and neglect, a traumatic process that kept the family in a panic for the next year or more.

In Isaac’s case, he’s an only child with parents who doted on him as he grew up; they were attentive to his every need.  If he so much as sneezed, his mom was checking his temperature and monitoring him for any sign of illness.  She’d keep him home from school if some type of virus was being passed around. And despite the lack of health insurance, she never hesitated to rush him to the hospital if he was sick.  A far cry from neglect.

But he wasn’t kept isolated.  Isaac’s family couldn’t afford a wheelchair, but he had a skateboard that he’d sit on and scoot around the neighborhood to play with his friends.  His room was on the second floor of the family’s townhouse, and he’d go up and down the stairs in no time flat!  He was a very active little guy.  And he WAS little.  But so were his parents.  Isaac’s mom is barely 4’9” tall, and his dad, maybe 5’8”.

According to the CPS report, the main problem was Isaac’s eating habits.  The school nurse felt he was undernourished and not being fed properly at home. 

It was true, he didn’t like school food, but each afternoon when he arrived home on the bus, Isaac’s mom would have a “real” meal waiting for him. Hamburgers and hotdogs and pizza -- things most kids love -- wasn’t “real” food to her (or Isaac, for that matter). He ate Mexican-style rice, homemade tamales and tortillas, meat and fresh veggies.  Snacks were fruits, carrot and celery sticks, yogurt, etc.  No cookies, chips, and carbs.

So here we had a highly active kid who really didn’t like American food too much, and a mom with very strong opinions about what constituted a “healthy” diet for her child, based on her southern Mexican roots (and excellent skills in the kitchen). Not to mention an overly zealous school nurse with little demonstration of cultural competence.

If we take out the references to “American” and “Mexican”, this is a very similar situation to that of my grandson.  Small parents, active child not interested in food, and a very informed mom, especially in aspects of child nutrition, consistent with cultural norms.

Both children were initially labeled with failure to thrive. My grandchild is white, middle- to upper-middle class, with college-educated parents.  Isaac’s family was poor, non-white, lacking in English skills and formal education.  And he had a disability.  While I don’t fault those involved with children for being cautious about their wellbeing, I wonder if Isaac’s family would have been treated the same way if he had been white.

Many families like Isaac’s are unfairly labeled by community systems as deficient or “bad.”  Parents are said to be uninvolved or uninterested in their children because they interact with systems in different ways, often because parents develop their parenting skills from a different worldview. But that does not make them “bad” parents.  They simply experience a different parenting journey, based on environment, context and cultural values.

This awareness has led me to a new assignment and initiative through CBF’s Global Missions as Project Manager for Faithful Resilience: Strengthening Families on the Move. I’m leading Field Personnel throughout the US in research with families whose starting point or worldview may be different from “the norm,” with the goal of creating a trauma-informed curriculum that can be used by churches, nonprofits, etc. to enhance relationships in families and improve parenting skills. This is part of a five-year initiative funded by the Lilly Endowment Fund.

We’ll soon wrap up a year of talking with refugee and immigrant families, asylum seekers, parents who struggle with substance misuse or mental health issues, and families who live in violent or impoverished neighborhoods.  We’re starting with their specific situations, what they identify as their own struggles and challenges, not with what someone else believes these parents need to know.

Global Missions Field Personnel are truly experts in the field when it comes to working with diverse families, understanding trauma and families in crisis, and practicing cultural humility.  Their expertise is helping guide the research and shape the project.

I’m not worried about my grandson.  Other than being small, he’s a healthy, happy little guy whose face lights up with his ear-to-ear smile, who waves to you with both hands, and who scoots all over the house in a half-crawl on one knee and using one foot to propel himself.  He’s thriving in a strong, supportive family who loves him.

Isaac has grown into a responsible young man, incorporating the best of both his Mexican heritage and US upbringing into his life.

The ability to thrive doesn’t depend on race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, language, or educational attainment of parents.  Through our Strengthening Families Initiative, I hope that we as CBF Field Personnel can empower parents and help children from ALL backgrounds to thrive amid loving, supportive families.