Father–Daughter Parentification and Young Adult Romantic Relationships Among College Women

Abstract

The present study examined the association between retrospective reports of paternal parentification and self-reports of romantic relationship satisfaction and insecurity among a sample of 542 college women (mean age = 19.29 years). Results indicated that paternal parentification is negatively associated with romantic relationship satisfaction and positively associated with romantic relationship insecurity among undergraduate women, after controlling for levels of maternal parentification. These direct relationships were mediated by insecure adult attachment styles, including attachment-related avoidance and anxiety. Finally, consistent with past research of contextual variables, paternal health moderated the indirect effect of avoidant attachment style; the relation between paternal parentification and avoidant attachment was not significant for women who reported their fathers were ill when they were growing up. These results extend the current literature on parentification by focusing on data regarding fathers, and further support the theory that parentification may have differential outcomes based on family context.