How’s Parenting Stress can Decrease Marital Satisfaction? Study on Teen Mom

Abstract

The challenges of the transition from childhood to adolescence raise various upheavals within the individual. Especially for teenagers who married young and pregnant. Having kids when individuals are teenagers can trigger stress due to parenting, especially for girls who become mothers for the first time, parenting stress felt by teen moms can decrease marital satisfaction, because there is a incompatibility between expectations of marriage with the existing reality. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of parenting stress on marital satisfaction. This study design for quantitative approach. A total of 90 teen mom were enrolled in this study. They were asked to finish several questionnaires, including the Parental Stress Scale and the ENRICH Marital Satisfaction Scale. The obtained data were analysed using simple regression test, to determine whether or not influence of parenting stress (PS) on marital satisfaction (MS). Results revealed that parenting stress influence negative effect on marital satisfaction. Furthermore, the high parenting stress felt by teen moms after the presence of children cause lower marital satisfaction.