Trends in Adolescents' Attitudes About Parenting

• In Event: 50261 - Family Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 1: Childrearing & Parenthood

Abstract

Recent decades have seen changes in parenting-related beliefs and behaviors but little is known about adolescents’ attitudes regarding mothers’ and fathers’ time with children and how fulfilling the roles of mother and father are. We analyze separate attitudinal measures of fathers’ time and mothers’ time with children and about how fulfilling the roles of father and mother are using data from the twelfth-grade Monitoring the Future surveys for 2001 to 2021. The majority of twelfth-grade girls and boys agree that most fathers and mothers—but especially fathers—should spend more time with their children than they do, although agreement steadily declined throughout the time period we examine. While the majority of twelfth graders agree that being a father and raising children is one of the most fulfilling experiences that a man can have and being a mother and raising children is one of the most fulfilling experiences that a woman can have, levels of agreement for both of these declined over time among adolescent girls but were relatively stable among adolescent boys.

Authors

• Ann M. Beutel, University of Oklahoma

• Abby Young, West Virginia University