Cohort Differences in Mothers' Perceptions of Neighborhood Quality, Child Well‐being, and Parental Strain, 1976–2002
| Author | Marshal Neal Fettro,Kei Nomaguchi |
| Date | 01 October 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12327 |
| Published date | 01 October 2018 |
K N M N F Bowling Green State University
Cohort Differences in Mothers’ Perceptions of
Neighborhood Quality, Child Well-being, and
Parental Strain, 1976–2002
Objective: To examine differences in mothers’
subjective experiences of child-rearing between
2 cohorts who lived in different eras of sociode-
mographic contexts and parenting norms.
Background: A resource perspective suggests
that child-rearing experiences should be easier
when mothers have a higher standard of liv-
ing, higher education, and fewer children, as
was the case for mothers in the 2000s compared
with mothers in the 1970s. However, a cultural
perspective indicates that the intensive mother-
ing ideology, emerged in the 1980s, increased
mothers’ anxiety and stress over their children’s
safety and proper development.
Method: Data from 2 national samples of moth-
ers with children between 6 and 12years of age
in the United States collected in 1976 and 2002
(N=2,465) were analyzed using ordinary least
squares regression models.
Results: Mothers in 2002 reported better
neighborhood quality and better health of
their children than mothers in 1976, even after
sociodemographic advantages of mothers in
2002 relative to 1976 were taken into account.
Despite these sociodemographic advantages
of mothers in 2002, there was little differ-
ence in mothers’ reports of their children’s
Department of Sociology, Bowling Green State University,
Bowling Green OH 43403 (knomagu@bgsu.edu).
Key Words: cohort differences, intensive mothering ideol-
ogy, parental strain, race and ethnicity, sociodemographic
changes, subjective perceptions of parenting.
behavioral adjustments between the 2 cohorts.
Furthermore, albeit among Whites only,mothers
in 2002 reported more parental strain than did
mothers in 1976. There was little variation in
mothers’ perceptions by socioeconomic status
(as measured by a college degree).
Conclusion: Our results support the idea of a
stressed-moms phenomenon in the contempo-
rary United States, particularly among Whites.
Implications: Experts who advise parent edu-
cation policy and programs should take into
account the psychological burden of the current
neoliberal emphasis on personal responsibility
for raising children on individual mothers.
Much research has shown that mothers’ par-
enting behavior in the United States changed
markedly during the last quarter of the 20th
century. Most notably, mothers’ investments in
children increased. Mothers spent more directed
time with their children (Bianchi, 2011) and
more money on child-related expenses (Korn-
rich & Furstenberg, 2013) in the 2000s than in
the 1970s. Scholars tend to argue that changes
in sociodemographic and cultural contexts
of motherhood, which took place during that
period, contributed to the increases in maternal
investment in child-rearing (Sayer, Bianchi, &
Robinson, 2004). For example, compared with
mothers in the 1970s, mothers in the 2000s were
on average more educated and older, had fewer
children, and stayed employed more consistently
throughout their children’s childhood (Grieco,
Family Relations 67 (October 2018): 449–466 449
DOI:10.1111/fare.12327
450 Family Relations
2010; Leibowitz & Klerman, 1995; Mathews &
Hamilton, 2009). Furthermore, in the mid-1980s
parenting norms began to emphasize the neces-
sity of mothers’ involvement throughout their
children’s development (Hays, 1996) and chil-
dren’s need to be constantly supervised to avoid
seemingly increased dangers and insecurities
(Rutherford, 2011; Stearns, 2003).
Scant quantitative research has examined how
these sociodemographic and cultural changes
might have been reected in mothers’ subjec-
tive perceptions of child-rearing between the
1970s and the 2000s. Qualitative studies have
suggested that mothers in the 2000s were more
likely than mothers in the 1970s to feel pres-
sured to protect their children from any poten-
tial harm as well as to prepare their children
for a competitive workplace (Nelson, 2010).
Using anecdotal evidence, social critics have
asserted that such cultural pressures affect moth-
ers negatively through greater anxiety and feel-
ings of being rushed (Anderegg, 2003; Warner,
2005). In the past 2 decades, major media out-
lets have published stories claiming that many
mothers in the current parenting culture feel
as if child-rearing is more difcult today than
in the past (e.g., Kantrowitz & Wingert, 2001;
Wallace, 2014). Yet this supposition has not
been examined quantitatively to identify dif-
ferences in mothers’ perceptions of their chil-
dren’s well-being, their neighborhood quality,or
parenting demands between the 1970s and the
2000s. This gap in the literature is in part due to
a lack of data; it is difcult to nd comparable
samples and questions to measure mothers’ sub-
jective experiences of parenting in the 1970s and
in more recent years.
Using two national samples of mothers with
children 6 to 12 years of age, the 1976 National
Survey of Children (NSC 1976) and the 2002
Child Development Supplement of the Panel
Study of Income Dynamics (PSID-CDS 2002),
the present study was designed to examine
differences in mothers’ subjective experiences
of parenting between the mid-1970s and the
early 2000s. We focus on mothers’ percep-
tions of (a) neighborhood quality specic to
raising children, (b) their children’s general
health, (c) their children’s behavioral adjust-
ments, and (d) parental strain, dened as
perceptions of difculty associated with rais-
ing children (Pearlin, 1989). Further, because
some prior research has suggested that changes
in sociodemographic contexts and parenting
norms during the period occurred unevenly by
socioeconomic status (SES) and race/ethnicity
(Dow, 2016; Lareau, 2003; Levy, 1998), we
examine whether patterns of differences in
mothers’ subjective experiences of parenting
between the two cohorts varied by SES and
race/ethnicity. Because subjective experiences
of parenting have implications for maternal
mental health (Pearlin, 1989), understand-
ing cohort differences in mothers’ subjective
experiences is important for practitioners and
policymakers.
L R
Between the mid-1970s and the early 2000s,
contexts surrounding child-rearing in the United
States changed in many ways. We approach
these changes from two perspectives. One is
what we call a resource perspective, which
focuses on changes in overall standards of liv-
ing and mothers’ sociodemographic character-
istics. We call the other perspective a cultural
perspective, which focuses on changes in parent-
ing norms. Although recent scholarly and public
debates tend to focus on the latter, the former
perspective is also important to consider. In this
section, we discuss how each perspective may
predict differences between the mid-1970s and
the early 2000s in mothers’ perceptions of neigh-
borhood quality to raise children, children’s
health, children’s behavior, and parental strain.
Changes in Sociodemographic Characteristics
Macrolevel changes in standards of living, fertil-
ity, women’s educational attainment, and mater-
nal labor force participation rates between the
1970s and the 2000s suggest that mothers in the
2000s had greater access to resources that would
help them deal with the demands of parenting,
and thus they should have reported better neigh-
borhood quality, better child health and behav-
ior, and less parental strain than mothers in the
1970s. Yet other changes such as the decline in
marriage rates and the increase in the propor-
tion of non-Whites during the same period might
have resulted in increases in mothers’ reports of
poor neighborhood quality,poor child health and
behavior, and higher parental strain from1976 to
2002.
Standards of living. Macrolevel standards of
living in the United States increased between
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