Marital Adjustment as Related to Personal and Marital Changes Accompanying Parenthood

Abstract

Using data on 90 middle class fathers and 115 middle class mothers who responded to a mailed questionaire in the US this paper examines the amount and quality of life changes accompanying parenthood as they relate to parents marital adjustment. Marital adjustment in this study was measured by using the Locke-Wallace marital adjustment short form. Findings show: 1) in the area of personal life wives with high marital adjustment scores perceived more overall change than those with low marital adjustment scores 2) husbands with low marital adjustment scores reported perceiving significantly more change than did husbands with high marital adjustment scores and 3) negative personal and marital changes accompanying parenthood appear to be more difficult for wives than for husbands. These findings suggest that the perceived amount of change accompanying the birth of a child is associated with the sex of the parent and with their level of marital adjustment. The birth of a child precipitates a higher degree of positive change in the lives of parents high on marital adjustment than those low on marital adjustment. It may be that marital adjustment is 1 of the more important variables in explaining the way parents experience personal and marital changes accompanying parenthood. Adding the parenting role when there is stress in ones marital life may compound the difficulties and the amount of stress experienced. Knowledge of the positive and negative personal and marital changes associated with parenthood are relevant to parenthood educators in providing realistic parenthood education to current and prospective parents.