Parenting and social roles in Turkish traditional families: Issues and choices in parenting for Turkish expatriate families living in Bucharest

This article looks into the issues and challenges of parenting in Turkish families upholding traditional values that live in Bucharest, the capital of Romania. Based on theoretical mainstreams on parenting and the structure of Turkish families, a qualitative research was designed with two aims. The first was to describe the issues and choices in parenting for Turkish expatriate families living in a foreign country. The second was to find out to which of the three ideal-types of families according to Baumrind (permissive, authoritarian, authoritative) do they fit closest. According to the main findings, these Turkish expatriate families show traits somewhere between Baumrind’s authoritative and authoritarian types of family. The parents’ own values are taken as reference. However, the child’s obedience is not an end in itself, using realistic restrictions and giving importance to reasoning for the policies they apply concerning the child’s development. Within the family, the father has a dominant position, in charge with securing the economic resources, while the wife main roles are household management and child rearing.