When Mothers Have Favourites: Conditions under Which Mothers Differentiate among Their Adult Children

2007 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Jill Suitor ◽  
Jori Sechrist ◽  
Karl Pillemer
Keyword(s):  
Adult Children ◽  
Family Study ◽  
Multivariate Analyses ◽  
Black Mothers ◽  
Emotional Closeness ◽  
Value Similarity ◽  
Older Mothers ◽  
Family Level ◽  
White Mothers ◽  
Almost All

ABSTRACTResearch has shown that mothers often differentiate among their adult children in terms of closeness and support; however, studies have not addressed why some mothers report preferences among children and others do not. To distinguish between mothers who do and do not report favouring some of their adult children, we used data from a within-family study in which 553 older mothers were interviewed about each of their children. Almost all of the mothers reported differentiating among their children regarding emotional closeness, confiding, or preference among caregivers. Multivariate analyses revealed that mothers' values and mother-child value similarity predicted which mothers differentiated among their children regarding closeness and confiding, whereas mothers' and children's demographic characteristics predicted which mothers differentiated regarding preferred caregivers. Black mothers were less likely than white mothers to differentiate when seeking a confidant; however, race played no role in mothers' likelihood of differentiating regarding emotional closeness or help during illness. Taken together, these findings indicate that differentiating among adult children is common; further, family-level predictors of mothers' differentiating mirror the patterns shown in dyad-level analyses of mothers' favouritism.

scholarly journals RACE DIFFERENCES IN THE CONSEQUENCES OF ADULT CHILDREN’S PROBLEMS ON MOTHERS’ PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S673-S673
Author(s):  
Catherine Stepniak ◽  
J Jill Suitor ◽  
Megan Gilligan ◽  
Karl Pillemer ◽  
Marissa Rurka
Keyword(s):  
Adult Children ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Black Mothers ◽  
Psychological Well Being ◽  
Older Parents ◽  
White Families ◽  
Race Disparities ◽  
White Mothers ◽  
Life Circumstances ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Adult children’s problems have been found to be strong predictors of older parents’ psychological well-being, regardless of whether the sources of the problems are psychological or physical health, life circumstances outside of the children’s control, or children’s poor life decisions. Further, this pattern remains regardless of the number or proportion of offspring with problems, or whether children with problems were favored or disfavored by their parents. One important question that has not been addressed is whether the impact of children’s problems differs in Black and White families. Race disparities in health and other life circumstances lead Black adult children to be at greater risk of experiencing problems than are their White counterparts. Thus, Black mothers are at greater risk of having adult children with problems; however, increased exposure does not necessarily lead to a stronger impact of children’s problems on well-being. Alternatively, it can be argued that due to stronger kin networks and higher levels of religiosity, children’s problems may have a weaker impact on Black than White mothers’ well-being. In this paper, we use mixed-methods data collected from 101 Black mothers and 295 White mothers as part of the Within-Family Differences Study to explore differences in the impact of adult children’s problems on mothers’ depressive symptoms. Preliminary analyses of quantitative and qualitative data suggest that mothers’ interpretations of the circumstances surrounding their children’s problems, rather than support or type of problem, play a greater role in the impact of those problems on well-being in Black than White families.

Providing instrumental support to older parents of multi-child families in China: are there different within-family patterns?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Jia Chen ◽  
Xiaochen Zhou ◽  
Nan Lu
Keyword(s):  
Adult Children ◽  
Latent Profile Analysis ◽  
Profile Analysis ◽  
Multinomial Logistic Regression ◽  
Adult Child ◽  
Instrumental Support ◽  
Older Parents ◽  
Older Mothers ◽  
Family Patterns ◽  
Using Data

Abstract Older parents in China rely heavily on their adult children for instrumental assistance. In different multi-child families, multiple offspring may co-operate in providing instrumental support to older parents in distinct ways in terms of how much support they provide on average and how much differentiation exists between them when they provide such support within a family. We aimed to identify different within-family patterns in relation to multiple offspring's instrumental support to an older parent in Chinese multi-child families, and to investigate potential predictors for different within-family patterns. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies (2016), we had a working sample of 5,790 older adults aged 60+ (mean = 68.54, standard deviation = 6.60). We employed latent profile analysis (LPA) to classify within-family patterns and multinomial logistic regression to investigate predictors. Our findings identified three within-family patterns: dissociated (59.10%), highly differentiated (29.60%) and united-filial (11.30%). Older parents in the highly differentiated families tended to be older, mothers, divorced/widowed and to have poorer physical health compared to their counterparts in the dissociated families. In contrast, the composition characteristics of multiple adult children played more important roles in determining the united-filial within-family pattern. The united-filial families were more likely to have fewer adult children, at least one adult daughter and at least one co-residing adult child.

Annual Summary of Vital Statistics—1977

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-17
Author(s):  
Myron E. Wegman
Keyword(s):  
Vital Statistics ◽  
Black Mothers ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Vital Statistic ◽  
White Mothers

In the article " Annual Summary of Vital Statistic—1977" by M.E. Wegman (Pediatrics 62:947-954, December 1978) an incorrect figure was given (p 948, col 1) for the number of babies born to white mothers under 19 years of age. The sentence should read: " White mothers age 19 and under had 398,329 babies; black mothers in the same age group had 160,597."

Coping in the Aftermath of Youth's Suicidal Behaviors: A Comparison of Black Mothers and White Mothers

2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-89
Author(s):  
Otima Doyle ◽  
Bridget E. Weller ◽  
David B. Goldston ◽  
Alfiee M. Breland‐Noble ◽  
Sue E. Estroff ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Black Mothers ◽  
Suicidal Behaviors ◽  
White Mothers

scholarly journals Racial Disparities in Associations between Neighborhood Demographic Polarization and Birth Weight

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (9) ◽  
pp. 3076
Author(s):  
Kelvin C. Fong ◽  
Maayan Yitshak-Sade ◽  
Kevin J. Lane ◽  
M. Patricia Fabian ◽  
Itai Kloog ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Birth Weight ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Population Group ◽  
Effect Modification ◽  
Black Mothers ◽  
Lower Odds ◽  
Weight Outcomes ◽  
White Mothers ◽  
Demographic Indices ◽  
Birth Records

Neighborhood demographic polarization, or the extent to which a privileged population group outnumbers a deprived group, can affect health by influencing social dynamics. While using birth records from 2001 to 2013 in Massachusetts (n = 629,675), we estimated the effect of two demographic indices, racial residential polarization (RRP) and economic residential polarization (ERP), on birth weight outcomes, which are established predictors of the newborn’s future morbidity and mortality risk. Higher RRP and ERP was each associated with higher continuous birth weight and lower odds for low birth weight and small for gestational age, with evidence for effect modification by maternal race. On average, per interquartile range increase in RRP, the birth weight was 10.0 g (95% confidence interval: 8.0, 12.0) higher among babies born to white mothers versus 6.9 g (95% CI: 4.8, 9.0) higher among those born to black mothers. For ERP, it was 18.6 g (95% CI: 15.7, 21.5) higher among those that were born to white mothers versus 1.8 g (95% CI: −4.2, 7.8) higher among those born to black mothers. Racial and economic polarization towards more privileged groups was associated with healthier birth weight outcomes, with greater estimated effects in babies that were born to white mothers than those born to black mothers.

scholarly journals Accuracy of Adult Children’s Perceptions of Mothers’ Caregiver Preferences

2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 528-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Jill Suitor ◽  
Megan Gilligan ◽  
Marissa Rurka ◽  
Siyun Peng ◽  
Jordan Meyer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Adult Children ◽  
Filial Piety ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Psychological Consequences ◽  
Older Mothers ◽  
Health Events ◽  
Children's Perceptions ◽  
Children’S Perceptions ◽  
High Level ◽  
Design And Methods

AbstractBackground and ObjectivesMost older mothers have strong preferences regarding which offspring will serve as their future caregivers, and violation of these preferences has been found to have consequences for mothers’ psychological well-being. However, no study has examined the accuracy of adult children’s perceptions of their mothers’ caregiver preferences. In this article, we compare mothers’ stated preferences for particular caregivers with their adult children’s perceptions of their mothers’ preferences.Research Design and MethodsData were collected from 675 adult children and their mothers nested within 285 families as part of the Within-Family Differences Study.ResultsOnly 44.6% of adult children accurately reported their mothers’ preferences for particular offspring as caregivers. Consistent with our hypotheses, accuracy was higher when mothers and children shared values regarding filial piety, and lower when children were parents, had poor health, and lived further away. Surprisingly, primary caregivers were substantially less likely to accurately report mothers’ caregiver preferences than were noncaregivers. This counterintuitive pattern can be explained by the finding that most mothers were cared for by children whom they did not prefer and may have therefore been reluctant to share their preferences with those caregivers.Discussion and ImplicationsGiven the negative psychological consequences for mothers whose caregiver preferences are violated, the high level of inaccuracy found among adult children has important implications when mothers face serious health events. These findings underscore the need for intervention efforts to encourage practitioners and clinicians to collect information directly from mothers regarding preferences for particular offspring as caregivers.

scholarly journals Competing effects on the average age of infant death

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica Alexander ◽  
Leslie Root
Keyword(s):  
Infant Mortality ◽  
Average Length ◽  
Preterm Births ◽  
The United States ◽  
Infant Mortality Rate ◽  
Approximation Formula ◽  
First Year ◽  
Black Mothers ◽  
White Mothers ◽  
First Year Of Life

In recent decades, the relationship between the average length of life for those who die in the first year of life — the lifetable quantity 1𝑎0 — and the level of infant mortality, on which its calculation is often based, has broken down. The very low levels of infant mortality in the developed world correspond to a range of 1𝑎0 quantities. We illustrate the competing effect of falling mortality and reduction in preterm births on 1𝑎0, through two populations with very different levels of premature birth — infants born to non-Hispanic white mothers and to non- Hispanic black mothers in the United States. Through simulation, we further demonstrate that falling mortality reduces 1𝑎0, while a reduction in premature births increases it. We use these observations to motivate the formulation of a new approximation formula for 1𝑎0 in low- mortality contexts, which is a function of both the infant mortality rate and the ratio of infant to under-five mortality. Model results and validation show that this model outperforms existing alternatives.

scholarly journals Costs of Raising Grandchildren on Grandmother-Adult Child Relations in Black and White Families

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 393-394
Author(s):  
Yifei Hou ◽  
J Jill Suitor ◽  
Megan Gilligan ◽  
Destiny Ogle ◽  
Catherine Stepniak ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Racial Differences ◽  
Adult Children ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Adult Child ◽  
Family Solidarity ◽  
White Families ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Child Relationship ◽  
White Mothers ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The cost of raising grandchildren on grandmothers’ mental and physical health has been well-documented; however, little is known about whether raising grandchildren also has a cost on grandmothers’ relationships with the adult children whose children the grandmothers have raised. Drawing from theories of exchange and affect, stress process model, and racial differences in intergenerational solidarity, we tested how raising grandchildren affects grandmother-adult child relations. Further, we explored the extent to which these patterns differed by race. To address this question, we used mixed-methods data collected from 553 older mothers regarding their relationships with their 2,016 adult children; approximately 10% of the mothers had raised one or more of their grandchildren “as their own.” Data were provided by the Within-Family Differences Study-I. Multilevel analyses showed that raising grandchildren was associated with greater closeness in grandmother-adult child relationship in Black families; however, in White families, raising grandchildren was associated with greater conflict in the grandmother-adult child relationship. Further, the differences by race in the effects of raising grandchildren on closeness and conflict were statistically significant. Qualitative analyses revealed that race differences in the association between raising grandchildren and relationship quality could be explained by mothers’ reports of greater family solidarity in Black than White families. Our findings highlight the ways in which race and family solidarity interact to produce differences in the impact of raising grandchildren on Black and White mothers’ assessment of the quality of their relationships with their adult children, consistent with broader patterns of racial differences in intergenerational cohesion.

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