‘Naturally, it's me taking care’: filial piety as anticipatory resilience in the temporal flow and stressors of Chinese only children caring for parents with cancer

Amid China's aging population and the increasing responsibilities of only-child caregivers, caring for aging parents has become a pressing social concern. This study applies the Communication Theory of Resilience (CTR) and the dual filial piety classification to analyze interviews with 22 only children in China caring for parents with cancer. Reflexive thematic analysis identified five themes of filial piety (FP) as anticipatory resilience across the illness trajectory: anticipating the caregiver role, providing intrinsic motivation and behavioral guidance, fostering support networks, framing meaning-making, and facilitating future planning. Both authoritarian FP and reciprocal FP manifested distinctively across themes. However, a sixth theme revealed that they may also act as cultural stressors. This study advances CTR by examining (a) how anticipatory resilience functions in specific ways, (b) its non-linear fluidity in temporality, and (c) inherent contradictions from a cultural perspective. Practical recommendations are provided to enhance the resilience of only-child caregivers.