Parental nurturance and identification with own father and mother: the reproduction of nurturant parenting

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the impact of parental identification and role-modeling on parenting in the next generation, with a special focus on fathers. Ninety-four fathers and 130 mothers of five-year-old children completed structured, standardized questionnaires that assessed the subject's child-rearing practices, quality of marriage and perceived parental care and control exerted by their father and mother. Analysis using structural equation modeling revealed that paternal nurturance was significantly affected by received paternal care, as well as by the quality of the subjects own marriage. Maternal nurturance was affected by received maternal care and quality of marriage. It was also found that for fathers, quality of marriage was negatively affected by received paternal control, while for mothers, quality of marriage was negatively affected by received maternal control. For both fathers and mothers, received maternal care affected the quality of marriage positively. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.