From Patriarchy to Egalitarianism: Parenting Roles in Democratizing Poland and Kyrgyzstan

Abstract

This paper offers an analysis of how parenting can be understood as an artifact that articulates and portrays the cultural, economic and political reality of transitional democratic vs. communist societies. In this framework, we specifically compare forms of family life and parental roles in the democratizing former Soviet countries: Poland and Kyrgyzstan. In these countries traditional culture, stemming in part from Moslem or Catholic traditions, operates as a noteworthy segment of societal structure that plays a significant role in holding societies together. Accordingly, two tendencies can be observed in these countries: (a) a move towards Western democratic values, including the idea of egalitarianism and small nuclear families, and (b) a revival of cultural traditions relating to family life and marital relationships. Although families have become solely responsible for how they choose to organize themselves, whether in the spirit of Western values and egalitarian roles, or in the spirit of traditional patriarchy, this paper posits that recent democratization and diffusion of Western, egalitarian models of family relationships have a stronger effect on parenting roles than religious traditionalism.