What Mother Does, Daughter Believes? The Relation of Maternal Childhood Experiences to Parenting Attitudes

• In Event: 61.087 - Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: 61.087-7 - Division E: Human Development Session 1

Abstract

We examined whether experiencing evolved parenting practices (positive touch, responsiveness, play, family togetherness) had any impact on a mother’s attitudes towards those aspects of parenting. Mothers (n=445) of 3-5 year-olds completed surveys online. We found significant relationships between some specific childhood experiences and their corresponding attitudes (e.g., experience with play to play attitudes) but also found that some experiences had an influence on other parenting practices (e.g., experience with play to family togetherness attitudes). As expected, maternal childhood experiences influenced parental attitudes in significant ways. Sequential mediation was used to explore the specific effects of maternal play experience on children’s social enjoyment. This supports animal studies that show that a daughter’s experience of parenting influences her own parenting practices.

Authors

• Dani Grover, University of Notre Dame

• Ryan Woodbury

• Darcia F. Narvaez, University of Notre Dame