Young mother–father dyads and maternal harsh parenting behavior

Abstract

Objective

This study examined whether the age of parents predicted maternal harsh parenting behavior, specifically whether younger mothers might be at higher risk than older mothers, and which paternal characteristics might be associated with maternal parenting behavior.

Methodology

This study used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing (FFCW) study. In the present study, the authors examined a subsample of families for which complete data were available on all variables that were used in the analyses (n = 1,597). Based on the parents’ age at the time of the child's birth, mother–father age-dyad types were classified, and selected paternal factors were used to examine their association with maternal harsh parenting behavior. Psychological aggression, physical aggression, and self-reports of spanking were used as proxies for maternal harsh parenting behavior.

Results

Multivariate analyses indicated that adolescent mothers, regardless of how old their partners were, were at higher risk for harsh parenting behavior than older adult mothers. Regarding paternal factors, paternal coercion against mother and the fathers’ use of spanking were significantly associated with all three proxies for maternal harsh parenting behavior. Fathers’ employment was a risk factor for maternal physical aggression.

Conclusion

This study supported findings from previous studies that younger mothers may indeed be at greater risk for harsh parenting behavior. It is critical, therefore, that they acquire appropriate parenting behavior and develop a healthy relationship with their children. Additional studies, both cross-sectional and longitudinal, are needed to involve their partners (i.e., their child's father) in order to shed light on ways of preventing harsh parenting behavior and examining the role of fathers in maternal parenting behavior.

Practice implications

The present study calls for more attention to sex education and intervention programs in school and health care settings as important components of prevention services. Practitioners need to better understand the concept of harsh parenting behavior in order to work with young parents and prevent future physical child abuse. Policy makers should support these efforts and research should be done that engages both mothers and fathers and seeks to enhance and modify existing programs for youths.

Introduction

The birth rate for teenagers (15–19 years old) is once again on the rise (Hamilton, Martin, & Ventura, 2009), and untimely childbearing continues to be a major societal issue. Adolescent childbearing can lead to a variety of significant long-term negative consequences for mothers and their children (McCullough and Scherman, 1998, Nath et al., 1991). For example, children born to adolescent parents are more likely to display negative developmental outcomes (Sommer et al., 2000), have poorer health than children of adult mothers (Wolfe & Peroze, 1997), show poor school performance, suffer from depression, become adolescent parents themselves, and demonstrate more delinquent behaviors (Committee on Adolescence & Committee on Early Childhood & Adoption, & Dependent Care, 2001). The consequences for adolescent mothers include single parenthood (Meyer, 1991), domestic violence (Harrykissoon, Rickert, & Wiemann, 2002), difficulty in achieving high school equivalency (Kinard, 2003, Mollborn, 2007), and poverty (Afifi, 2007, Courtney, 1998). It has also been found that adolescent mothers may be at increased risk of physically abusing their children (Dukewich et al., 1999, Flanagan et al., 1995, Stevens-Simon et al., 2001, Stier et al., 1993).

Given this, continued efforts are necessary to better understand the relationship between adolescent parenthood and parenting behavior. At present, however, the quality of research on adolescent mothers and their risk or protective factors for harsh parenting behavior requires strengthening. First, unlike most previous research, this study examined whether adolescent mothers and fathers, who may be going through developmental changes prematurely (e.g., transition to parenthood), are at higher risk for harsh parenting behavior than older parent groups while controlling for various covariates. Inconsistent findings have been reported concerning the perpetrator's age and the risk of child maltreatment (Black, Heyman, & Slep, 2001), despite the fact that the mothers’ age at the time of child's birth has been found to be a strong predictor of harsh parenting behavior (Lee, 2009, Lee and Goerge, 1999). Second, paternal factors related to maternal parenting behavior warrant greater attention from researchers. Little attention has been paid to the partners of teenage mothers (Coleman & Dennison, 1998). This is particularly concerning because a recent study found that adolescent mothers are more likely to be involved with “high risk” fathers than older adult mothers (Fagan, Lee, & Cabrera, under review). Hence, it is essential to examine if and how the age of the parents (i.e., mother–father dyads) may play a role in determining parenting behavior and what paternal factors may help shape maternal parenting behavior.

Developmental theory recognizes adolescence as a period where an individual faces a variety of daily stressors caused by typical developmental challenges (Seiffge-Krenke, 1995, Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck, 2007). Emerging adulthood is a life course characterized by change and exploration (Arnett, 2000). Experiencing and exploring changes and opportunities, however, may cause stress. Adolescents may deal with stressful situations less effectively than adults because they are less likely to utilize coping methods successfully to decrease the negative consequences of stress (Garnefski, Legerstee, Kraaij, Van Den Kommer, & Teerds, 2002). For adolescent mothers, maternal adjustment may be difficult because they are less prepared for the challenges of parenthood (Holub et al., 2007). So, a lack of maternal adjustment may make the transition to adulthood difficult for adolescent mothers. A successful transition (or “resolution of developmental tasks”) would help the teenage parent have more appropriate interactions with her own child, which could reduce the potential for child abuse (McCullough & Scherman, 1998). When adolescent parents are not developmentally ready to deal with the transition, they may engage in harsh parenting behavior and inappropriate interactions with their children.

In research on adolescent pregnancy, an ecological framework can be useful in highlighting the interactions between individuals and the environment at the microsystem, mesosystem, and macrosystem levels (Corcoran, Franklin, & Bennett, 2000). Researchers have identified and examined microsystem factors such as the age of adolescents and depression in studies on adolescent pregnancy and parenting. Mesosystem factors include the educational level of adolescents and family structure (e.g., relationship status). Macrosystem factors include indicators such as socioeconomic status, employment status, and race/ethnicity. For example, Belsky, 1984, Belsky, 1993 identified marital relations, employment, mental health, and the child's characteristics as factors that shape parenting behavior. It is suggested that the risk factors of the parents, which are the child's most immediate context, may influence and shape parenting behavior (Azar, 2002, Belsky, 1984), contributing to the occurrence of maternal physical child abuse.

Previous research supports the existence of a relationship between ecological factors and parenting behavior. As mentioned earlier, adolescent mothers are more likely than other adolescents to drop out of high school and have lower educational attainment (Kinard, 2003, Mollborn, 2007). Low education, which is associated with low-wage employment or unemployment, has been linked to a risk of physical child abuse (Afifi, 2007). Lower levels of education and higher rates of unemployment may have lasting negative effects on the lives of adolescent mothers and their children (Kinard). Adolescent mothers, without proper education or training, may end up in poverty, and there is a strong association between poverty and child maltreatment (Afifi, 2007, Black et al., 2001, Courtney, 1998, Lee and Goerge, 1999) and physical punishment (Black et al., 2001, Wissow, 2001). Race/ethnicity may be linked to socioeconomic status and certain cultural values and beliefs. Cultural values and norms may influence attitudes and perceptions about raising children, which may affect parenting behavior (Belsky, 1980, Belsky, 1993).

Previous studies have documented that health, especially mental health (e.g., depression), is related to harsh parenting practices (Belsky, 1984, Belsky, 1993, Black et al., 2001). It was also found that adolescent mothers are at high risk for depression (Sarri & Phillips, 2004), and weakened mental health has been associated with impaired parent–child interactions, which can heighten the risk for abusive mother–child relationships (Kotch et al., 1999, Mammen et al., 2003, Windham et al., 2004, Wissow, 2001).

An “interpretive life course perspective” model (Forste, Bartkowski, & Jackson, 2009) underlines how the sequencing and timing of life events can influence the meaning of these events. As a result, the meaning of important life events (e.g., becoming a father at an early age) could affect a father's view of role and responsibility of a father. The timing of parenthood may also influence the practice of fathering and father involvement (Forste et al., 2009). Marsiglio and Cohan (1997) argue that adolescent and young fathers may not possess the maturity and/or capital to respond to paternal responsibilities in the same way as adult fathers. Fathers of children born to adolescent mothers may be a potentially significant source of support for adolescent mothers (Chen, Telleen, & Chen, 1995), lowering the risk of mother's physical child abuse and, at the same time, could also be a source of conflict for adolescent mothers, which could raise the risk of maternal child abuse (Nitz, Ketterlinus, & Brandit, 1995).

An ecological framework also highlights that father-related factors, including his mental health (micro) (e.g., depression), the quality of the relationship to the mother (meso) (e.g., the father's use of coercion against mother), employment (macro), father's own parenting behavior (e.g., use of spanking), and the reflection of culture (macro) (e.g., race and ethnicity) may reduce or heighten the risk of maternal harsh parenting behavior. Quinlivan and Condon (2005) found that fathers of adolescent pregnancies scored higher for psychiatric disorders (e.g., depression) than fathers of non-adolescent pregnancies. Fathers’ mental health may influence their interaction with the mothers or their ability to support the mothers; thus, it may be associated with maternal parenting behavior. Moreover, Harrykissoon et al. (2002) found that adolescent mothers are at elevated risk of experiencing intimate partner violence. Previous studies have reported considerable overlap between involvement in violent intimate partner relationships and child maltreatment (Edleson, 1999, Salzinger et al., 2002). This may suggest that for adolescent mothers, intimate partner violence likely spills over into the parent–child relationship and heightens the risk for physical child abuse (O’Keefe, 1995). A recent study also found that the relationship status with the baby's father may influence maternal harsh parenting behavior (Guterman, Lee, Lee, Waldfogel, & Rathouz, 2009).

It is reported that adolescent fathers are likely to drop out of school and face limited employment opportunities (Rhein et al., 1997, Samuels et al., 1994). Although previous studies linked fathers’ unemployment status to parenting behavior, a recent study reported no observable link between fathers’ economic factors and maternal risk for physical child abuse, after controlling for other fathering and demographic factors (Guterman et al., 2009). Therefore, it is necessary to continue examining fathers’ employment status and its relationship to maternal parenting behavior.

It should also be noted that parenting is a complex family process, reflecting family interactions between the parent and the child as well as between both parents and their child (Roskam & Meunier, 2009). Hence, it is important to consider fathers’ own parenting behavior (e.g., use of spanking) as an independent predictor of maternal harsh parenting behavior. The family systems theory informs that the family is interdependent and exerts an influence on each other (Cox & Paley, 2003). Consequently, the mother–father dyad, as one of the subsystems, may influence each other directly or indirectly (Bronte-Tinkew & Horowitz, 2010). Moreover, the father's own parenting behavior may shape the mother's parenting behavior through the learning of aggression (Bandura, 1973). Simons, Whitbeck, Conger, and Melby (1990) found that through social learning, the mother's beliefs and values may affect their husband's parenting; then, the opposite may also be applicable that the father's beliefs and values on parenting, or the use of corporal punishment, may influence the mother's parenting behavior. Even though the directionality of influence on parenting behavior between the couples may warrant further examination, in this study, fathers’ use of spanking at the first-year follow-up was used as one of the study variables to predict mothers’ parenting behavior at the third-year follow-up.

Given the likely influence of parents’ age and fathers’ influences on mothers’ physical maltreatment risk, we set out to examine whether younger mothers might be at higher risk than older mothers, and which paternal characteristics might be associated with maternal parenting behavior. In this study, the following variables were controlled to tease out the effects of parents’ age and paternal ecological factors on maternal harsh parenting behavior: mother's education, mother's employment status, poverty, whether the mother completed a training program or school since the birth of the child, mother's race/ethnicity, maternal depression, relationship status, and children's characteristics (e.g., gender and temperament).