The Link Between the Marital Bond and Future Triadic Family Interactions

This study examined how the marital bond, as indexed through the Oral History Interview (OHI), is related to future triadic family interactions. Families (N = 108), with a 7–9‐year‐old child, participated in a longitudinal study (the Family Health Project) examining children's emotional development throughout the transition to adolescence. Parental cohesion and family cohesion, warmth, structure, and problem solving were assessed via behavioral observation during family problem‐solving discussions and parent‐child teaching interactions 18–24 months after the OHI. Results indicated that the marital bond was predictive of parental cohesion, family cohesion, warmth, and structure during teaching interactions. The marital bond was not significantly predictive of family problem solving or parental cohesion in problem‐solving interactions.     

Parental Housing Assistance and Parent‐Child Proximity in Italy

Many studies of intergenerational exchanges include parent‐child proximity as an exogenous explanatory variable. Proximity may itself be a consequence of intergenerational resource flows, however. We analyze patterns of economic transfers between generations and their relationship to parent‐child proximity in Italy. Parental support for a child's home purchase may influence the child's choice of location, whether to facilitate parent‐child contacts, grandchild care, or parent care. We examine the situation of married couples, focusing on housing help received and the association of that help with proximity to each spouse's parents. Using 1998 survey data and multinomial logistic regression models, we find that past housing assistance has a significant effect on current proximity to each spouse's parents, controlling for parents' survival, family composition, and other factors.     

Families With Young Children: A Review of Research in the 1990s

Research conducted in the past decade on families with young children concentrated on 5 broad topics: (a) the transition to parenthood; (b) the importance of maternal sensitivity for children's attachment security and subsequent adjustment and social competence; (c) the effectiveness of particular parenting styles and practices; (d) interparental, familial, and broader societal factors influencing parenting behaviors and child adjustment; and (e) the impact of family structure and household composition on children's well‐being. Our review documents substantial diversity in family structures, parenting arrangements, and childrearing values and practices both within and across ethnic and racial groups. Collectively, the evidence suggests that in most families with young children, parents and children seem to be doing well. We conclude that substantial work is required to expand the study of families with young children beyond mother‐child dyads in White, middle‐class, two‐parent, first‐marriage families.     

No Fun Anymore: Leisure and Marital Quality Across the Transition to Parenthood

This study examines changes in leisure patterns across the transition to parenthood for dual‐earner, working‐class couples, as well as the relationship between leisure and marital quality. To this end, 147 heterosexual couples were interviewed across the transition to parenthood. Findings indicate that during the transition to parenthood, husbands and wives experience an initial decline in leisure, followed by a gradual incline after the wife’s return to work. Overall, wives who reported more shared leisure prenatally also reported more marital love and less conflict 1 year later. Husbands with more independent leisure prenatally reported less love and more conflict 1 year later. Conclusions suggest leisure time is integral to well‐functioning marriages, with effects lasting throughout the first year of parenthood.     

Gender,Anticipated Family Formation,and Graduate School Expectations Among Undergraduates

From a life course perspective, young adults' anticipations of future family formation transitions may shape their present‐day educational trajectories. Given gender unequal divisions of paid caretaking and domestic labor in heterosexual families, anticipations of family formation may affect women's educational expectations more or differently than men's. We analyze Online College Social Life Survey (OCSLS ) data from undergraduates at 22 U.S. colleges and universities (N= 16,152) to examine how existing and anticipated family formation shapes expectations to earn a graduate or professional degree. Family formation is more consistently related to women's educational expectations than to men's, with existing and anticipated parenthood affecting only women's expectations. While existing parenthood lowers women's expectations to advanced degrees, anticipated future parenthood elevates them. Anticipated age at parenthood is positively associated with all students' expectations to graduate or professional degrees.     

Biosocial Perspectives on the Family

New theoretical models conceptualize families as systems affected by, and effecting change in, reciprocal influences among social, behavioral, and biological processes. Technological breakthroughs make noninvasive assessment of many biological processes available to family researchers. These theoretical and measurement advances have resulted in significant increases in research on family processes and relationships that integrate knowledge from the fields of behavioral endocrinology, behavior genetics, and, to a lesser degree, evolutionary psychology. This review covers a broad spectrum, including the topics of parenthood, early child development, adolescent and middle child development, parent‐child relations, courtship and mate selection, and the quality and stability of marital and intimate relations. Our intention is to introduce, by example, the relevance of the biosocial approach, encourage family researchers to consider the application of these ideas to their interests, and increase the participation of family researchers in the next generation of studies.     

Preconception Motivation and Pregnancy Wantedness: Pathways to Toddler Attachment Security

This research was designed to increase our understanding of how the motivational antecedents to childbearing and emotional responses to pregnancy affect the subsequent attachment bond of a toddler to his or her mother. Using a sample of 1,364 mothers and their newborns from the Study of Early Child Care, we tested a mother‐child influence framework hypothesized to mediate between the mother's preconception motivation and pregnancy wantedness and her child's security of attachment at 24 months. Almost all elements of the mediational sequence were confirmed in a structural equation model. We observed 2 unmediated pathways to attachment security, 1 from preconception motivation and 1 from parenting stress during infancy, and suggest interpretations of these unexpected pathways.     

Diet and Exercise in Parenthood: A Social Control Perspective

Previous work on social control—the direct and indirect regulation of an individual's health behaviors by others—suggests that parent–child relationships promote healthy diet and exercise. Yet parenthood is associated with less healthy diet and exercise patterns. The authors investigated this paradox by examining social control processes in 40 in‐depth interviews with mothers and fathers. They found that parenthood involves social control processes that both promote and compromise healthy behavior, contributing to contradictory perceived effects of parenthood on health behavior. Moreover, the dynamics of social control appear to unfold in different ways for mothers and fathers and depend on the child's gender and life stage, suggesting that gender and age dyads are central to understanding the seemingly contradictory consequences of parenthood at the population level. These articulations of gendered social control processes provide new insight into the consequences of the gendered organization of parenthood for diet and exercise.     

Family Structure and Parent–Child Contact: A Comparison of Native and Migrant Families

This article is an investigation of the frequency of contact between parents and adult children in Germany. It compares Turkish immigrants and native Germans and includes both biological and step‐relations. After the United States and Russia, Germany reports the third highest proportion of immigrants internationally, but the extent to which results regarding natives are applicable to immigrant families remains unknown. Data are from the first wave of the German Generations and Gender Surveys (2005) and the supplemental survey of Turkish citizens living in Germany (2006). A total of 7,035 parent–child relations are analyzed. The frequency of parent–adult child contact is significantly higher for biological parents living with the child's other biological parent than for parents without a partner, parents with a new partner, or stepparents. Contact is more frequent for all Turkish families, but the pattern of variation by family structure is similar for both Germans and Turks.     

Economic transition and new patterns of parent‐adult child coresidence in Urban China

This study uses national data from the 1996 Life History and Social Change in Contemporary China survey (N= 3,087) to gauge the effect of the economic transition on parent‐adult child coresidence in urban China. Previous studies find that, thanks to state actions, traditional patterns in coresidence persisted in post‐Mao urban China. This study still finds high levels of coresidence. China's aging population, coupled with an underdeveloped social security system, means that the traditional role of family will remain strong. It also uncovers three new patterns, however, best explained as caused by changes in the economic realm. First, the coresidence pattern changes over parents’ life course, shifting from child‐centered to parent‐centered as parents age. Second, class differentials begin to emerge, most notably seen in the unique patterns of the entrepreneurial class. Last, gender differentials remain significant, but the tilt toward sons has strengthened.     

The Consequences of Parental Underestimation and Overestimation of Youth Exposure to Violence

This study investigated differences in parent and child estimates of the child's exposure to violence. Using data (N = 1,517) from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, analyses related differences between parent and child reports of the child's exposure to violence to the child's psychosocial functioning. Most parents (66%) underestimated their children's exposure to violence. Further, parental underestimation was associated with the child's internalizing and externalizing problems and delinquent behaviors but parental overestimation was not. Family support partially mediated these associations. Parental underestimation of the child's exposure to violence, therefore, reflected lower levels of family support, which in turn led to more internalizing and externalizing problems and delinquency for the child.     

Structural and Supportive Changes in Couples' Family and Friendship Networks Across the Transition to Parenthood

This article prospectively examined the patterns of change in couples' family and friend networks and supports across the transition to parenthood as well as stability in individual differences over time. Additionally, parental adjustment and depression were examined with respect to changes in couples' social systems. Participants included a total of 137 couples recruited prior to the birth of their first child from prenatal clinics in rural North Carolina. Couples were interviewed about their social networks and supports at four different time periods: prenatally and when target children were 3, 12, and 24 months of age. Couples also completed measures of depression and adjustment at each of the time periods. Across‐time correlations computed for the social network, support, and parental functioning variables revealed that there was considerable stability in the rank ordering of husbands and wives from the prenatal period through 24 months postpartum documenting continuity in parental networks in the context of change. However, growth curve analyses revealed dynamic changes in mothers' and fathers' social systems during this transition and that many of these changes were related to parental adjustment and depression. The discussion highlights the contribution of these data to understanding continuities and discontinuities in mothers' and fathers' social networks over time.     

Maternal prenatal mood problems and lower maternal emotional availability associated with lower quality of child's emotional availability and higher negative affect during still-face procedure

Our aim was to study the effects of maternal perinatal mood and maternal emotional availability on child emotional availability and negative affect during the still-face procedure (SFP). The sample included 214 women who participated in a prospective study. We assessed maternal mood problems using the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview and PRAQ questionnaire during pregnancy and using STAI and EPDS questionnaires during pregnancy and at 6 months after delivery. Maternal and child emotional availability were studied using the Emotional Availability Scales during the SFP at 6 months. We observed and quantified child's negative affect during SFP episodes. We found that mothers with maternal mood problems (anxiety and/or depression) during pregnancy, but not postnatally, showed less optimal maternal structuring during the SFP, and the children showed lower involvement and responsiveness during interactions with their mothers. Furthermore, lower maternal emotional availability was related to the child's higher negative affect during the SFP. Our findings underline the independent roles of both prenatal stress exposure and maternal caregiving behavior in a child's socioemotional development.     

Three‐Generation Family Households: Differences by Family Structure at Birth

Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 4,898), this study investigated how the share, correlates, transition patterns, and duration of 3‐generation households vary by mother's relationship status at birth. Nine percent of married mothers, 17% of cohabiting mothers, and 45% of single mothers lived in a 3‐generation family household at the time of the child's birth. Incidence over time was much higher and most common among single‐mother households: Sixty percent lived in a 3‐generation family household at least 1 wave. Economic need, culture, and generational needs were associated with living in a 3‐generation household; correlates varied by mother's relationship status. Three‐generation family households were short lived, and transitions were frequent. Kin support through coresidence was an important source of support for families with young children and in particular families in which the parents were unwed at the time of their child's birth.     

Families Created by Donor Insemination: Father–Child Relationships at Age 7

This study examined the psychological well‐being of fathers and father–child relationships in families with a 7‐year‐old child conceived by donor insemination. Twenty‐four donor insemination families and comparison groups of 25 egg donation and 32 unassisted‐conception families were assessed using a standardized interview and questionnaires administered to the father, and father–child dyads participated in an observational assessment of father–child interaction. On the basis of perspectives from Parental Investment Theory and stress‐related models, it was expected that donor insemination fathers would show raised levels of psychological problems and a poorer quality of parenting and have more conflictual relationships with their children than genetically related fathers in egg donation and unassisted‐conception families. These hypotheses were not supported by the findings. Instead, it seems that commitment to parenthood may be more important than genetic relatedness for positive father–child relationships.     

An analysis of dyadic dominance in family decision‐making among older adults

Growth of the population aged sixty‐five and over is a significant trend in the sociodemographic structure of society. As a result, this age group is receiving increased attention from governmental and business decision‐makers. Little is known, however, about intra‐family decision‐making among members of this group. This paper presents an analysis of the determinants of husband and wife dominance in family decision‐making. The data indicate that dominance by the wife in decision‐making is related to the wife's positive self‐concept concerning the ability to make decisions as well as a “rub‐off” effect on the wife by the husband's self‐concept. Work history of the husband, in turn, contributes to his self‐concept. There were, however, no significant relationships between educational levels of either spouse and decision‐making dominance.     

A Longitudinal View of the Association Between Therapist Warmth and Couples' In‐Session Process: An Observational Pilot Study of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy

This longitudinal dyadic clinical process study used coded data from eleven couples to determine the influence of therapist warmth behaviors on couples' warmth behaviors over time in therapy. A mixed effects model was used to examine within‐ and between‐individual variability. Men and women were modeled separately. A series of two‐level multilevel models of change were examined, where Time is Level 1 and Individual is Level 2. Findings were mixed. There was no significant relationship between therapist warmth toward wife and wife warmth toward husband; however, there was a significant relationship between therapist warmth toward husband and husband warmth toward wife. Findings demonstrated that 62.9% of the variance in husband warmth toward wife was accounted for by therapist warmth to husband across time in therapy. Specifically, therapist warmth toward husband was significantly and positively related to husband warmth toward wife over time in therapy. Clinical implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Marital Conflict Trajectories and Associations With Children's Disruptive Behavior

We seek to identify heterogeneous trajectories of marital conflict during the early childhood period, identify predictors associated with these trajectories, and examine associations between trajectory group membership and children's disruptive behavior. Participants were 469 families examined 4 times when the children were 2 to 54 months of age. Maternal reports of marital conflict, adverse childhood experiences, depressive symptoms, and sociodemographic characteristics were collected, and averaged maternal and paternal reports of child disruptive problems were used. Using growth mixture modeling, 3 trajectories of marital conflict were identified: high increasing (21.8%), high decreasing (7%), and low stable (71.2%). Maternal adverse childhood experiences predicted increased risk of belonging in the high‐increasing group, whereas depressive symptoms predicted increased risk of belonging in the high‐decreasing group. Importantly, children of mothers in the high‐increasing group exhibited higher levels of disruptive behavior at 54 months when compared with children of mothers in the high‐decreasing and low‐stable groups.     

Long‐Term Influences of Intergenerational Ambivalence on Midlife Parents' Psychological Well‐being

We investigated changes in midlife parents' intergenerational ambivalence toward a focal child and its influence on their psychological well‐being over 14 years, as the focal child moved from adolescence into young adulthood. We estimated growth curve models using three waves of data from the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 1,510 parents aged 35–54 years at Time 1). Parental ambivalence declined over time, equally among mothers and fathers. The prediction from ambivalence theory that children's attainment of adult statuses reduces parental ambivalence received only modest support. Only the focal child's marriage reduced parental ambivalence. The focal child's lifestyle–behavioral problems during adolescence still elevated ambivalence 14 years later, albeit less so. For its part, intergenerational ambivalence counteracted trends toward declining depressive symptoms and greater happiness for mothers and fathers alike, and its effects remained constant over time.     

Spillover in the Home: The Effects of Family Conflict on Parents' Behavior

Conflict with a spouse or child may generate spillover, defined as short‐term affective changes in parents that affect their behavior with other family members. In a diverse sample of 86 parents, this 56‐day diary study examined daily bidirectional spillover between conflict in the marital or parent–child dyad and parents' irritable, frictional behavior with their child or spouse, respectively. Tests of daily associations between conflict and parent behavior revealed robust spillover effects according to parent as well as spouse and child reports. Parents' daily negative mood and child externalizing behavior contributed to several but not all of these associations. Daily spillover findings were largely unaffected by parents' neuroticism, suggesting that parents' day‐to‐day fluctuations in negative mood, not average levels of negative affectivity, promoted spillover. Significant direct effects of conflict on parent behavior even when controlling for negative mood, however, implicate additional cognitive or social processes as contributors to conflict spillover in families.