Parent–child gender interaction in the relation between retrospective self‐reports on parental love and current self‐esteem

Abstract

A retrospective questionnaire study investigated the relation between current self‐esteem in adult men (n=34) and women (n=99) and self‐reported experience of parental “unconditional positive regard” during childhood. For both men and women the perception of the father's unconditional regard was significantly related to self‐esteem. For women only a weak relation was found between the reported experience of maternal regard and self‐esteem in adulthood; a comparison of younger and older women showed that this relation was weaker for younger women. The results were interpreted in terms of a greater ambivalence in women towards the mother, possibly as a result of women's more complex separation and identification processes; the difference between younger and older women could indicate that this ambivalence decreases over the years. The implications of this interpretation for the validity of retrospective accounts is discussed, suggesting that the validity could increase over the years.