Work

Mothers' and Fathers' Well‐Being in Parenting Across the Arch of Child Development

Year: 2018

Type: article

Abstract: Limited research on parental well‐being by child age suggests that parents are better off with very young children despite intense time demands of caring for them. This study uses the American Time Use Survey Well‐Being Module (N = 18,124) to assess how parents feel in activities with children of different ages. Results show that parents are worse off with adolescent children relative to young children. Parents report the lowest levels of happiness with adolescents relative to younger children, and mothers report more stress and less meaning with adolescents. Controlling for contextual features of parenting including activity type, solo parenting, and restorative time does not fully account for the adolescent disadvantage in fathers' happiness or mothers' stress. This study highlights adolescence as a particularly difficult stage for parental well‐being and shows that mothers shoulder stress that fathers do not, even after accounting for differences in the context of their parenting activities.

Source: Journal of Marriage and the Family

DOI: 10.1111/jomf.12491

Authors: Ann Meier, Kelly Musick, Jocelyn Fischer, Sarah Flood

Institutions: University of Minnesota, Cornell University

Language: English

Topic: Family Dynamics and Relationships

Subfield: Demography

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funder: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development