Women who have unresolved conflict with their own parents are more likely to struggle with the transition to motherhood, a new study shows.
The research, conducted at the University of Haifa in Israel, examined 160 women’s expectations about motherhood while they were still in the last trimester of their first pregnancy.
The study suggested that women who felt their childhood relationships with their parents were characterized by “rejection and unresolved conflicts” were likely to view children as more demanding compared to women with happier childhoods. Women with childhood conflict also may become stricter parents. Women who clashed with their parents were also more likely to indicate they would set a lot boundaries for their children than other women in the study.
Women with happy childhoods were the most optimistic about parenthood, according to the research, which was the result of a dissertation and is likely to be published in the near future. They expected to feel a low level of separation anxiety from their child and thought childrearing would be easy and that their relationship would be characterized by warmth, say the study researchers.
The research is based on a relatively small sample and select group of women, so the results may not apply to every woman. However, it does suggest that paying attention to a pregnant woman’s thoughts and perceptions about parenting may help identify women at highest risk for adjustment problems once the baby arrives. “Such an evaluation will enable early identification of women who are concerned they will have difficulty contending with parental roles and offer them tools that will help them adapt better to the transition to motherhood,” the researchers noted.
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A couple of questions - is the same true for men? Is it possible that the rocky childhood was caused by a personality trait in the mom-to-be that also leads to strict parenting (in other words, is there a claim of causality or just correlation)?
I think everyone’s parenting is influenced by their own childhood, either because they learned how to make the relationship work or because they are trying to avoid making the same mistakes. Those of us trying to avoid our parents’ mistakes have a disadvantage because there are many ways not to copy a mistake, but many of those ways lead to other mistakes.
— JesseFrom TPP — Interesting question. This study only looked at pregnant women but i agree a study looking at men’s views of their own childhood and their ideas about raising children would be useful.
I am a mother of two young children and I fall into the category of “crummy” unresolved childhood and I don’t agree with this at all. If anything, my goals have always been to strive to do better for my children and look forwarded and still enjoy being a Mother - and the best Mother I can be. And I don’t mean by being strict either - I love my children. I find this to be true for sister as well who has 3 children and is a really good Mom. There is no question if you asked anybody who knows us or even better knows our parents - they would confirm - childhood for us…not so good. Yet, we made it out okay it seems.
— TessMy mother clearly did not enjoy raising me and told me if she’d had it to do over again, she wouldn’t have married and had children. Maybe if she’d had more help from my father or from family and friends, she might have felt differently — who knows.
— anneI waited until my mid-30s to have children after having spent time as a nanny, babysitter, camp counselor etc. So what’s has been a big surprise to me is not that raising children is easy but how much you can love someone and how much joy parenting can bring as a result. I have great kids; I enjoy their company immensely; watching them grow is amazing! I’m stunned at how much I enjoy being a parent.
This study is basically meaningless as what makes for good mothering involves a vast number of other variables like marital stability, the health of the mother and infant, birth order, family socioeconomic status, extended family and community support, the infant’s disposition, good old luck, and so on.
— MARK KLEIN, M.D.I agree with Tess, the second poster. For me, having and raising children in a loving and supportive environment redeemed a childhood of emotional neglect by a cold and miserable mother.
— EllenI think the key word is “unresolved.” It seems that many of us who grew up with difficult relationships with our parents make an effort to foster good relationships with our children, and attempt to avoid the mistakes our parents made. I suspect that we have in common that we have confronted our upbringing and have resolved the issues in some way, whether through therapy or just plain old soul searching. I can believe that having never dealt with the reality of a horrible childhood, some people would have anxiety and even resentment left that would affect their view of becoming a parent. And I think this would apply to men as well. I became a mother later in life, and I believe wholeheartedly that I was not ready in my 20s and 30s because I had yet to face the facts of my childhood. Intersting study.
— Lisa B.I also had a pretty crummy childhood characterized by neglect and abuse. But I was determined to do it better. I worked with emotionally disturbed children, I became a therapist, and when I finally had my own kids–the first pregnancy was the most stressful time because of my fear about the difficulty of becoming a mom. My parents obviously struggled so hard to love me and my siblings and be present for us–and mostly failed. However, despite a rocky first few years with my two kids, I now feel like all the thought and time I spent preparing for motherhood is really paying off. In fact, being a good parent doesn’t feel difficult at all–so easy, so much fun, so enriching and healing, I love every second of being a mom. Every single one.
I think my traumatic past and my determination to overcome it has, in some ways, made me a more thoughtful and better mother than many around me who launched into motherhood with much optimism and few actual tools.
My issue now is often sadness for myself and confusion–its so easy to love your children well–why did my parents fail me so often?
Sometimes when I am going through a difficult moment with my child–he is suffering from hurt feelings, anger, or longing for control–I relish being able to be with him in his time of difficulty, I am so happy that he doesn’t have to go through it alone. However, afterwards, I feel sad for myself and confused — it is so fulfilling to sit with my children in their times of greatest need, why couldn’t my parents do that with me?
That is the difficulty I encounter–over and over again– my loss compared to my child’s gain.
— JodiI find this mostly a silly study. What matters is not what prospective mothers *think* motherhood will be like, but what it *is* like when they arrive there. This study might tell us that women who had difficult relationships with their parents can perceive parenthood as challenging, but that doesn’t mean that it actually will be. Like tess, my past issues with my parents meant that when I actually became a parent, I was surprised and delighted by what a joyful experience it was. Maybe women with overly idealistic images of parenthood are generally the ones that have a harder time.
— L.Just when I thought they’d run out of ways for the world to mind pregnant women’s business and pathologize their every experience, they come up with a new one.
— diHow about parents-in-law? Can you be sufficiently traumatized by them to make motherhood rocky?
From TPP — Personally, i think the key to early motherhood is to tune everybody out. Listen to yourself.
— SHAnxious,proccupied or disorganised are predictably less confortable than securely-attached women.
— Jacques René GiguèreTotally in line with attachment-style litterature in psychology.
I’m a bit different from many of the women posting on here. My husband and I are childless, and shall remain so.
I’ve known I did not want to have children since I was a kid. I married a man who didn’t have strong feelings about becoming a father. When it came time to decide whether to change my mind, I took a long look at the family dysfunction on my mom’s side of the family, considered how that’s still affecting me after much soul-searching and therapy, and decided motherhood is not right for me. The fact that I have health problems that would make pregnancy a difficult proposition sealed the deal.
I applaud the women who’ve overcome difficult childhoods and have well-adjusted children. There is another, equally valid choice, though, and that’s deciding not to become a parent.
Jodi: I feel for you. Remember, you and your mother are probably very different people, and she may not have found it in herself to relate to you the way you do with your child. You sound like a very strong, compassionate person, and I hope you will find it in yourself to forgive your mother and make peace with your childhood.
— HeronAs usual, feathers are getting ruffled unnecessarily. The study was not about what makes a good mother. Rather, it was a study of women’s thoughts and attitudes as they prepared for motherhood. Some people may not find this especially important, but that’s no reason to make the study out to be something it’s not. To call the study “basically meaningless” because it didn’t attempt to correlate childhood experiences with later parenting outcomes is, at best, a result of poor reading comprehension. Perhaps the internal experiences of pregnant women just aren’t interesting enough - it’s easier to jump to conclusions and play armchair Ph.D./social commentator while entirely missing the point.
— AnnieIs it just me, or does conducting this study in one of the most violent, terrorist-dominated war-torn parts of the world make you just a little bit worried about controlling for environmental factors?
— Kazafter so many failed pregnancies (i lost count!), when we finally got a ‘keeper’ i spent most of my preparatory ‘emotional organising’ mourning the fact that i had neither a mother nor a grandmother (mom died when i was little and i was raised by my grandma) to talk with and share their historical experiences of pregnancy, birth and motherhood. i felt that knowing those family experiences would have placed me better into my own family’s history.
i believe in early boundary setting; i am probably stricter than my peers; i have high standards for myself and my daughter in behavior, kindness, emoting, education, learning and basically being part of the world. my in-laws spend a lot of time undermining my attempts to transmit my standards, history, culture and ideas of discipline; my husband was lax in the beginning but now sees that i am right and that his parents should respect our choices for our child. but the good news is that my mother-in-law praises me often for being a good mother and a good teacher to our child, even as i still constantly obsess that i am not doing a good job or enough to prepare her for her life’s journey.
oh, and to Kaz: mothering is a war zone is not like mothering on the upper east side: learning to dodge rockets or identify and/or avoid a potential terrorist is more difficult than learning to cross the street at the crosswalk and the memory of how one was taught to live in permanent, political conflict will affect that mother in ways you may not be able to imagine. what we (as members of ‘civil’ societies) often forget is that a mother’s first duty is to make sure her child SURVIVES, has whatever skills necessary to remain alive. personally, i find your remark about “controlling for environmental factors” offensive: would you make the same remark if the study had been done in harlem, south-central LA, some parts of brooklyn? living in a war zone does not diminish the value of an expectant mother’s natal family relationships or her hopes and/or fears for her soon to be born child.
— pushkinaI feel that I had an enjoyable childhood, have good relationships w/ my parents (esp mom), and use the positive lessons from my parents’ behavior every day to help me do the right thing w/ my kids. But I struggle sometimes, and am not sure that I have my priorities straight when dealing w/ my kids; sometimes I have to remind myself about how my mom was, how good that felt as a child, and I have to work to bring that out of me. Thank goodness for a good role model (who is still around to help and teach me). So this works both ways — parental relationships, good or bad, can be positive forces for parenting. There are also lots of internal and external forces which shape our parenting skills, aside from our childhood relationships.
I was touched by the comments of Tess, Anne, Ellen, Jodi (especially Jodi) , and others who used a not so good or frankly bad childhood as a positive force for their mothering. That takes alot of work and alot of courage. I commend you, and wish you much happiness and fulfillment with your children.
— ‘it works both ways’Another study that proves the old adage, “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”! There may be a grain of truth in this study, but it repeats the mistake of many such studies by generalizing and misreading the cause of certain behaviors. While I was close to my mother, who was the strict parent, and estranged from my father, who was the permissive one, I attribute my parenting approach to the fact that I had one child when I was 39. The age of the mother and number of children are major factors. And, as an older mother who grew up in a big city during the amazing ’60s and ’70s, I had more experience and a different background than the younger suburban-raised parents of my daughter’s friends and classmates; as a result, I set more limits and higher expectations, and certainly was more alert and protective than they. My daughter and I are close, and, despite the usual mother-daughter conflicts we have endured, should she decide to have children I suspect that in some respects she might be even stricter with them than I was with her.
— Jeanne“Know thyself.” If this discourages such women from becoming parents, good. No point in repeating the trauma generation after generation. Better to have no children at all, than to have children you’re going to make miserable.
— Anonymous TodayI was raised by parents who should never have had children and who made every mistake in the book, and then some. I found that the urge to be a better parent than they were was a very powerful postive force in my mothering. Also , perversely, their execrable example was a ready guide: in any given parenting dilemma, thinking back to how my parents would have handled the situation and then doing the exact opposite turned out to usually be the best, wisest, and most nurturing choice . My children are relaxed and happy. I am probably going to be in therapy for the rest of my life but I am comforted that I did not repeat a miserable legacy.
— KayWhat I think is so sad here is just how many people have had terrible childhoods, and what is really encouraging is how much love and thought many of these people have put into the parenting of their own children–maybe this is what we should take away from this study.
— catThis sounds right to me. I am 50, and while I feel very sad about not having had children, I remind myself that I likely would have been a very poor mother given the modeling I had available. While I think I would be a good mother now, it has taken me fully this long in life to face the truth about my childhood, as another commenter said.
— ElaineMy younger brother and I have recently had a series of discussions about which of us our parents liked better. We arrived at the conclusion that because I was the eldest, they “made a lot of mistakes” with me that they were determined not to repeat with my brother. In other words, it wasn’t that they liked one of us more than the other, it was just they tried one set of things with me and it didn’t work out. (We’re five years apart.) I grew up driven but depressed, sociable but with problems forming close emotional relationships. My brother, by contrast, suffers from some anxiety but has strong interpersonal relationships. He’s also very successful at his job, whereas I have struggled more to get where I am.
My brother says that someday he’s pretty sure he would like kids, so that he could ‘avoid the mistakes’ our parents made. By contrast, I will not have children. I have no desire to pass on the genetic load of mental illness I seem to carry, and I suspect that I would have a great deal of difficulty bonding appropriately to a child. I rather wish, however, that people would respect this choice a bit more.
— CrankyEaterFrom TPP — interesting points. I agree with your final statement that people need to show more respect for the decision not to have children. As a parent, I am glad for the choice I made and can’t imagine life without my child. However, I also see that there is more than one road to happiness and personal fulfillment.
Was age considered in this study?
Personally, I had some issues with my parents, and it took most of my 20s to work through them in my head.
I don’t have kids but think that had I had them in my early 20s, previous issues with my parents probably would have affected my parenting. But now and in the future (am 29) - not at all.
— JackieMy childhood was less happy than adulthood has been. I met a good man, and we married in our mid-thirties. Due to issues of health and age, we did not have children. Life is peaceful, happy, and fulfilling. There are many roads to happiness.
— PeacefulIt’s good to know that there are so many of us out there. I was also brought up by parents who were neglectful and abusive; I stumbled into adulthood wounded and very confused. It’s a mystery to me where I found the ability to become a loving mother, but it has been one of the most healing, fulfilling, and deeply satisfying experiences of my life. My kids are grown now and I can see so many ways that they are stronger and healthier than I was. I wasn’t a perfect mom and I definitely had my blind spots. But I really put a lot of time, effort and thought into parenthood; and my relationships with my kids have reflected that. People who do not want to have children shouldn’t be judged or penalized. They should be congratulated for their wisdom. No one should be a parent who doesn’t want to be. Every child deserves to be wanted and loved.
— loving mom