Abstract
This chapter draws on past and ongoing research from the Partners to Parents Project, a longitudinal study of 125 heterosexual couples undergoing the transition to first-time parenthood, to help identify prenatal predictors of couples’ ability to successfully navigate this transition. We examine how different patterns of observed prenatal couple interactions forecast family dynamics (including dyadic parent–child-, couple-, and triadic family interactions) in the first two postnatal years. We discuss how variations in postnatal family dynamics relate to later child outcomes, including toddler emotion regulation and emotional and behavioral problems at age seven. We also discuss the role of partners’ attachment representations, representations of their parents’ marriage, and perceptions of their spouse’s parenting, in forecasting prenatal couple interaction patterns and postnatal family dynamics. Finally, we present two illustrative case studies to provide a qualitative, holistic perspective on how couple, parent–child, and family subsystems interrelate and transform as partners become parents. Overall, our findings indicate that emotionally negative and hostile couple interaction patterns generally predict less sensitive and more emotionally disengaged parent–child interactions and more conflictual coparenting, whereas couple interactions characterized by blurred, enmeshed boundaries tend to forecast blurred boundaries in parent–child and triadic interactions and an increased likelihood of parent–child alliances.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Achenbach, T. M. (1991). Manual for the Child Behavior Checklist/4–18 and 1991 profile. Burlington: University of Vermont, Department of Psychiatry.
Aviles, A. I., Reisz, S., Jacobvitz, D., & Hazen, N. (2019, July). Antecedents and consequences of early parent-child role reversal and relations with toddler autonomy. Paper to be presented at the biennial meeting of the International Attachment Conference, Vancouver, CA.
Canary, D. J., & Stafford, L. (2001). Equity in the preservation of personal relationships. In J. Harvey & A. Wenzel (Eds.), Close romantic relationships: Maintenance and enhancement (pp. 133–151). London: Psychology Press.
Carneiro, C., Corboz-Warnery, A., & Fivaz-Depeursinge, E. (2006). The prenatal Lausanne Trilogue Play: A new observational assessment tool of the prenatal coparenting alliance. Infant Mental Health Journal, 27, 207–228.
Christopher, C., Umemura, T., Mann, T., Jacobvitz, D., & Hazen, N. (2015). Marital quality over the transition to parenthood as a predictor of coparenting. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24, 3636–3651.
Cowan, C. P., & Cowan, P. A. (2000). When partners become parents: The big life change for couples. Mahwah: Erlbaum.
Cox, M. J., Mills-Koonce, R., Propper, C., & Gariépy, J. L. (2010). Systems theory and cascades in developmental psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 22, 497–506.
Crawford, D. W., & Huston, T. L. (1993). The impact of the transition to parenthood on marital leisure. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 19, 39–46.
Creasey, G. (2002). Associations between working models of attachment and conflict management behavior in romantic couples. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 49, 365–375.
Curran, M. A., Hazen, N., Jacobvitz, D., & Sasaki, T. (2006). How representations of the parental marriage predict marital emotional attunement during the transition to parenthood. Journal of Family Psychology, 20, 477–484.
Erel, O., & Burman, B. (1995). Interrelatedness of marital relations and parent-child relations: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 118, 108–132.
Gallegos, M. I., Murphy, S. E., Benner, A. D., Jacobvitz, D. B., & Hazen, N. L. (2017). Marital, parental, and whole-family predictors of toddlers’ emotion regulation: The role of parental emotional withdrawal. Journal of Family Psychology, 31, 294–303.
Gallegos, M. I., Jacobvitz, D., & Hazen, N. (2020). Marital interaction quality over the transition to parenthood: The role of parents’ perceptions of spouses’ parenting. Journal of Family Psychology. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/fam0000656
Hazen, N., McFarland, L., Jacobvitz, D., & Boyd-Soisson, E. (2010). Fathers’ frightening behaviors and sensitivity with infants: Relations with fathers’ attachment representations, father-infant attachment, and children’s later outcomes. Early Child Development and Care, 180, 51–69.
Holmes, E. K., Sasaki, T., & Hazen, N. L. (2013). Smooth versus rocky transitions to parenthood: Family systems in developmental context. Family Relations, 62, 824–837.
Jacobvitz, D. (1992). The Grandparent Marriage Interview. Unpublished manuscript, University of Texas at Austin.
Jacobvitz, D. (2004). The triadic boundary disturbances coding system. Unpublished Manuscript, The University of Texas at Austin.
Jacobvitz, D., Hazen, N., Curran, M., & Hitchens, K. (2004). Observations of early triadic family interactions: Boundary disturbances in the family predict symptoms of depression, anxiety, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in middle childhood. Development and Psychopathology, 16, 577–592.
Jacobvitz, D., Hazen, N., Loch, L., & Saunders, R. (2006, March). Boundary disturbances in marriage: Links with triadic family interactions. Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence. San Francisco, CA.
Jacobvitz, D., Reisz, S., Umemura, T., & Hazen, N. (2013, April). Spousal boundary disturbances pre-birth predict parent-child alliances, children: Emotion regulation and later adjustment. Paper presented at the biannual meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Seattle.
Katz, L., & Gottman, J. M. (1996). Spillover effects of marital conflict: In search of parenting and coparenting mechanisms. In J. P. McHale & P. A. Cowan (Eds.), Understanding how family level dynamics affect children’s development: Studies of two-parent families (pp. 57–76). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Katz-Wise, S., Priess, H., & Hyde, J. (2010). Gender-role attitudes and behavior across the transition to parenthood. Developmental Psychology, 46, 18–28.
Kuersten-Hogan, R. (2017). Bridging the gap across the transition to coparenthood: Triadic interactions and coparenting representations from pregnancy through 12 months postpartum. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1–17.
Lawrence, E., Rothman, A. D., Cobb, R. J., Rothman, M., & Bradbury, T. N. (2008). Marital satisfaction across the transition to parenthood. Journal of Family Psychology, 22, 41–50.
Macfie, J., Houts, R. M., Pressel, A. S., & Cox, M. J. (2008). Pathways from infant exposure to marital conflict to parent–toddler role reversal. Infant Mental Health Journal, 29, 297–319.
Main, M., Goldwyn, R., & Hesse, E. (1984/2003) Adult attachment scoring and classification system. Unpublished manuscript, University of California at Berkeley.
McHale, J. P. (1995). Coparenting and triadic interactions during infancy: The roles of marital distress and child gender. Developmental Psychology, 31, 985–996.
McHale, J. P., Kuersten-Hogan, R., & Lauretti, A. (2000). Evaluating coparenting and family-level dynamics during infancy and early childhood: The Coparenting and Family Rating System. In P. K. Kerig & K. M. Lindahl (Eds.), Family observational coding systems: Resources for systemic research (pp. 151–170). Florence: Taylor and Francis.
Medina, A. M., Lederhos, C. L., & Lillis, T. A. (2009). Sleep disruption and decline in marital satisfaction across the transition to parenthood. Families, Systems & Health, 27, 153–160.
Minuchin, P. (1988). Relationships within the family: A systems perspective on development. In R. A. Hinde & J. Stevenson-Hinde (Eds.), Relationships within families: Mutual influences (pp. 7–26). Oxford: Clarendon.
Pancer, S. M., Pratt, M., Hunsberger, B., & Gallant, M. (2000). Thinking ahead: Complexity of expectations and the transition to parenthood. Journal of Personality, 68, 253–279.
Paquette, D. (2004). Theorizing the father–child relationship: Mechanisms and developmental outcomes. Human Development, 47, 193–219.
Pinquart, M., & Teubert, D. (2010). A meta-analytic study of couple interventions during the transition to parenthood. Family Relations, 59, 221–231.
Poulsen, H., Hazen, N., & Jacobvitz, D. B. (2018). Parents’ prenatal joint attachment representations and early caregiving: the indirect role of prenatal marital affect. Attachment and Human Development, 21(6), 597-615. doi.org/10.1080/14616734.2018.1492003
Sasaki, T., Hazen, N. L., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (2010). The supermom trap: Do involved dads erode moms’ self-competence? Personal Relationships, 17, 71–79.
Schoppe-Sullivan, S. J., Brown, G. L., Cannon, E. A., Mangelsdorf, S. C., & Sokolowski, M. S. (2008). Maternal gatekeeping, coparenting quality, and fathering behavior with infants. Journal of Family Psychology, 22, 389–398. https://doi.org/10.1037/0893-3200.22.3.389.
Schuengel, C., & van Ijzendoorn, M. H. (2001). Attachment in mental health institutions: A critical review of assumptions, clinical implications, and research strategies. Attachment & Human Development, 3, 304–323.
Umemura, T., Christopher, C., Mann, T., Jacobvitz, D., & Hazen, N. (2015). Coparenting problems with toddlers predict children’s symptoms of psychological problems at age 7. Child Psychiatry & Human Development, 46, 981–996.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by Grant SBR-9212990 from the National Science Foundation and Grant 3332 from the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hazen, N.L., Aviles, A.I., Gallegos, M.I., Poulsen, H.B., Tian, Z., Jacobvitz, D.B. (2021). The Prenatal Couple Relationship: Relations with Postnatal Family Dynamics and Child Outcomes. In: Kuersten-Hogan, R., McHale, J.P. (eds) Prenatal Family Dynamics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51988-9_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51988-9_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-51987-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-51988-9
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)