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ERIC Number: EJ993484
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Nov
Pages: 5
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0012-1649
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Does Being an Older Parent Attenuate the Intergenerational Transmission of Parenting?
Belsky, Jay; Hancox, Robert J.; Sligo, Judith; Poulton, Richie
Developmental Psychology, v48 n6 p1570-1574 Nov 2012
Evidence that the transition to parenthood is occurring at older ages in the Western world, that older parents provide more growth-facilitating care than do younger ones, and that most prospective studies of the intergenerational transmission of parenting have focused on relatively young parents led us to evaluate whether parental age might moderate--and attenuate--the intergenerational transmission of parenting. On the basis of the seemingly commonsensical assumption that as individuals age they often become more psychologically mature and have more opportunity to reflect upon and free themselves from the legacy of childhood experiences, we hypothesized that deferring parenting would weaken links between rearing experiences in the family of origin and parenting in the family of procreation. To test this proposition we repeated analyses reported by Belsky, Jaffee, Sligo, Woodward, and Silva (2005) on 227 parents averaging 23 years of age linking rearing experiences repeatedly measured from 3 to 15 years of age with observed parenting in adulthood; we added 273 participants who became parents at older ages than did those in the original sample. Although previously reported findings showing that rearing history predicted mothering but not fathering reemerged, parental age generally failed to moderate the intergenerational transmission of parenting. Other investigators prospectively following children and adults into adulthood and studying the intergenerational transmission process should determine whether these null results vis-a-vis the attenuation of transmission with age obtain when parents with older children are studied or when other methods are used. (Contains 1 table.)
American Psychological Association. Journals Department, 750 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20002-4242. Tel: 800-374-2721; Tel: 202-336-5510; Fax: 202-336-5502; e-mail: order@apa.org; Web site: http://www.apa.org/publications
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A