The mediating effect of maturity on anxiety and the motives for postponing parenthood

Abstract

Postponed parenthood is considered one of the most extensive changes in the process of family formation. Among the many reasons for deferred parenthood, those related to greater feelings of incompetence as a potential parent, self-focus, perceiving parenthood as a burden, fearing the changes that the birth of a child may bring to a person’s life, financial insecurity, and worrying about the child’s future seem particularly important. Since little is known about the motives for delayed parenthood in relation to anxiety and psychological maturity, the main goal of our study was to verify how these variables may be related to each other and whether maturity for parenthood mediates the direct association between anxiety and the motives for delayed parenthood. The sample consisted of 223 Polish adults (the age range of the participants was 18–44 years). The respondents completed the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), the Maturity to Parenthood Scale (MPS), and the Multidimensional Scale of Motives for Postponing Parenthood (MSMPP-18). The results showed positive correlations between anxiety and four (uncertainty, burden, change, and finance) of the six motives for postponing parenthood and postponed parenthood overall. Maturity for parenting and all its dimensions correlated negatively with anxiety and all factors of postponed parenthood, except worry about the child’s future. In all six of the seven models (except “worry”), at least one of the factors of maturity to parenthood mediated the relationship between trait anxiety and motives for postponing parenthood/total score. Based on the results it can be assumed that a tendency to direct attention to a threat related to the context of child-bearing and child-rearing may lead to lower maturity to parenthood, which in turn may result in various motives for postponing parenthood.