Health Limitations Among Mothers and Fathers: Implications for Parenting

• Author: Kristin Turney,Jessica Halliday Hardie
• Published date: 01 February 2018
• Date: 01 February 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12425

K T University of California—Irvine

J H H Hunter College, City University of New York∗

Health Limitations Among Mothers and Fathers:

Implications for Parenting

Despite the good reasons in which poor health

could impede parenting, relativelylittle research

considers this possibility. This study uses data

from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing

Study (N=3,376) and propensity score match-

ing to examine the relationship between mater-

nal and paternal health limitations—health con-

ditions that limit the amount or type of work

one can do—and mother- and father-reported

parenting stress, cooperation in parenting, and

engagement with children. First,the authors nd

that mothers’ and fathers’ health limitations are

associated with greater parenting stress. Sec-

ond, they nd evidence of spillover associations;

when compared with their counterparts, parents

with health limitations report that their child’s

other parent exhibits less cooperation. Third,

they nd that the associations between health

and parenting are not moderated by parents’

coresidential status. Taken together, these nd-

ings inform the stress processperspective and its

implications for family life.

A large literature suggests that health has

implications for both individuals and families.

Individuals’ health may have consequences for

Department of Sociology, Universityof California—Irvine,

3151 Social Science Plaza, Irvine, CA 92697

(kristin.turney@uci.edu).

∗Department of Sociology, Hunter College, City University

of New York,695 Park Avenue, New York,NY 10065.

Key Words: family stress, fragile families, health, parenting.

their own well-being and for the well-being of

their family members (e.g., Thomeer, Umber-

son, & Pudrovska, 2013). In particular, a

growing literature demonstrates that moth-

ers’ and fathers’ health is related to children’s

well-being (e.g., Garbarski, 2014; Hardie

& Landale, 2013; Hardie & Turney, 2017;

Hogan, Shandra, & Msall, 2007; Turney 2011a,

2012). Despite recent interest in the relation-

ship between parental health and children’s

well-being, little research considers the conse-

quences of parental health for how individuals

engage in their roles as parents.

The stress process perspective highlights

the social patterning of stressors and how

stressors from one domain can proliferate

into stressors in other domains (Pearlin, 1989;

Pearlin, Menaghan, Lieberman, & Mullan,

1981). Recent applications of the stress process

perspective contend that stressors have implica-

tions for family life (Milkie, 2010). According

to the theory of stress proliferation, stressors to

one individual in a family unit can have conse-

quences for others because of their close emo-

tional and material bonds. By extension, mater-

nal and paternal health problems are stressors

that may be consequential for the family sys-

tem. Health problems may reduce the time and

energy parents have to devote to parenting and

may exacerbate parenting role strain, dened

as the stress associated with juggling multiple

responsibilities within the parental role. Mater-

nal and paternal health limitations may affect

one’s own parenting and the parenting of one’s

coparents (Milkie, 2010; Pearlin et al., 1981).

Journal of Marriage and Family 80 (February 2018): 219–238 219

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12425

220 Journal of Marriage and Family

In this article, we use data from the Fragile

Families and Child Wellbeing Study (https://

fragilefamilies.princeton.edu), a cohort of chil-

dren born to mostly unmarried parents in urban

areas, to examine the association between

parental health limitations and the following

three measures of mothers’ and fathers’ parent-

ing: (a) parenting stress, an indicator of how

mothers and fathers cope with the demands of

the parental role; (b) cooperation in parenting, an

indicator of how mothers and fathers collectively

parent their shared child; and (c) engagement,

an indicator of how may days per week moth-

ers and fathers do various activities with their

children. We use health limitations—dened as

having a serious health problem that limits the

amount or kind of work one can do—because

it encompasses a wide range of potential health

problems while being substantial enough to

interfere with one’s activities. We then examine

whether the association between parental health

limitations and parenting varies by parents’

coresidential status, shedding light on the role

of social support in minimizing the risk of stress

spillover within families.

P H L  

S P P

The stress process perspective offers a frame-

work for considering the relationship between

parental health limitations and parenting. This

perspective examines the social patterning of

stressors and their consequences (Pearlin et al.,

1981) and has been applied to stress emanat-

ing from family strain (Milkie, Bierman, &

Schieman, 2008; Pearlin, 1999; Pearlin et al.,

1981; Pearlin & Turner, 1987), work–family

role conict (Bolger, DeLongis, Kessler, &

Wethington, 1989), living with a mentally ill

family member (Thomeer et al., 2013), and

caring for a physically ill loved one (Pearlin,

Aneshensel, & LeBlanc, 1997). We extend

prior work on the stress process perspective

by examining how parental health limitations

are associated with three indicators of parent-

ing: parenting stress, cooperation in parenting,

and engagement. Importantly, although we

refer to health limitations as a source of stress

(i.e., “stressor”) within families, it is also true

that health problems can be manifestations of

stress (Chrousos, 2009). Indeed, the term stress

can refer to an event or situation that causes

stress (stressor) or the stress reaction (physical,

mental, or both) that occurs as a result. Health

limitations may therefore arise as a result of an

external injury or chance malady, or they may

arise as a part of a stress proliferation process

(Pearlin et al., 2005) in which stressors such as

material hardship proliferate into health, another

stressor, and then continue to proliferate into

stressors at the family level.

The stress process and stress proliferation

perspectives elucidate the ways that stressors

in one domain can cascade into other domains,

exacerbating preexisting role strain (Pearlin

et al., 1981). Thus, a stressor such as health

limitations can exacerbate the everyday strains

that accompany parenting, making it chal-

lenging for a parent to cope with parenting

demands. Relatedly, stress experienced by one

individual can proliferate to those connected

to that individual. For example, recent schol-

arship elaborates on the stress proliferation

perspective to specically consider how stress

may be transferred within a family unit (Milkie,

2010). This research suggests that stress pro-

liferation between family members may occur

by reconstituting family members’ roles, by

changing the quality of interpersonal relation-

ships, and by stirring the emotional reactions

of other family members to the individual’s

experience of stress. In what follows, we out-

line how one source of stress—parental health

limitations—may have consequences for one’s

own parenting and how both the individual

and spillover consequences of parental health

limitations may result from preexisting demo-

graphic and socioeconomic characteristics. We

also outline how parental health limitations may

have spillover consequences for the parenting of

one’s coparent.

Individual consequences of health limitations

Theoretically, health limitations may increase

parenting stress, decrease coparenting, and

decrease engagement. First, health limitations

may elevate an individual’s stress and worry,

which can have cascading consequences for

other sources of strain such as parenting and

relationships with coparents (Falconier, Nuss-

beck, Bodenmann, Schneider, & Bradbury,

2015). In addition, health limitations take

time and resources to manage. Doctor’s visits,

coordinating with health insurance providers,

and daily lifestyle changes take time and

attention (Jowsey, Yen, & Mathews, 2012).