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Storm and Stress? Variation in Adolescent-mother Conflict by Maternal Education and Marital Status

Sat, August 11, 10:30 to 11:30am, Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, Floor: Level 5, Salon G

Abstract

A warm, less conflictual parent-child relationship is central to the well-being of parents and children. A child’s early adolescence is considered as a period of “storm-and-stress” for the parent-child relationship. Yet, recent sociological research on parenting has found that some mothers call their early adolescent children as “best friends”, suggesting the need for reexamination of the storm-and-stress view of the mother-child relationship during the child’s transition to adolescence and its possible variations across social and life contexts. Using longitudinal data of the NICHD Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 900), this paper examines change in child-mother conflict across three years when children are third, sixth, and ninth graders with a specific focus on variations by maternal education and marital status. Results suggest that overall child-mother conflict increases from third grade through ninth grade, supporting the storm-and-stress view. Yet, patterns of changes vary by maternal education and marital status. Whereas mothers without a college degree report an increase in child-mother conflict, mothers with a college degree report little change. These differences by maternal education remain even after controlling for children’s externalizing problems, mothers’ concerns regarding negative peer influences, and background characteristics. Single and cohabiting mothers report a greater increase in child-mother conflict than married mothers, but these differences disappear when background characteristics are controlled for. These findings suggest more stressfulness in the mother-child relationship during the child’s early adolescence for working-class families than middle-class families, another piece of evidence for unequal parenthood by social class.

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