“I’m Sure She Chose Me!” Accuracy of Children’s Reports of Mothers’ Favoritism in Later Life Families*

• Author: Jori Sechrist,Karl Pillemer,J. Jill Suitor,Michael Steinhour
• Date: 01 December 2006
• Published date: 01 December 2006
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2006.00423.x

’’I’m Sure She Chose Me!’’ Accuracy of Children’s

Reports of Mothers’ Favoritism in Later Life Families*

J. Jill Suitor Jori Sechrist Michael Steinhour Karl Pillemer**

Abstract: We used data from 769 mother-child dyads nested within 300 later life families to explore the accuracy of

adult children’s perceptions of mothers’ patterns of favoritism in terms of closeness and confiding. Adult children

were generally accurate regarding whether their mothers preferred a specific child, but often had difficulty identify-

ing whom mothers favored. Multivariate analyses indicated that overall accuracy of children’s reports was positively

related to similarity of religious participation and negatively related to parental status of the adult child and family

size. Because parental favoritism may affect adult children psychologically and have implications for later life care

for parents, family practitioners should be aware of mothers’ patterns of favoritism and the sometimes inaccurate

perceptions adult children have concerning this favoritism.

Key Words: within-family differences, parent child relations, parental favoritism, reporting congruence.

Discrepancies in parents’ and children’s reports of

intergenerational affect and interaction patterns have

long been recognized among family scholars (Aqui-

lino, 1999; Bengtson & Kuypers, 1971; Giarrusso,

Stallings, & Bengtson, 1995; Pruchno, Burant, &

Peters, 1994). With few exceptions (Aquilino; Rossi &

Rossi, 1990), studies of parents and adult children

have conceptualized these discrepancies as a general

tendency emanating from the differential genera-

tional stake of parents and children (Bengtson &

Kypers; Giarrusso et al., 1995). This line of research

has focused on differences in reports of intergenera-

tional affect and support between the generations—

for example, whether parents report greater inter-

generational closeness and support exchange than do

their adult children. Researchers have not, however,

thus far attempted to explain why some pairs of par-

ents and children report greater consistency than do

others regarding socioemotional dimensions of their

relationships. One question of particular interest not

addressed in the scholarly literature is whether adult

children are aware of the patterns of parents’ favorit-

ism that exist in many later life families (Suitor &

Pillemer, 2006).

Identifying and explaining within-family varia-

tions in parent-child agreement have both theo-

retical and practical implications. First, although

much is known about within-family differences in

parent-child relations in the early stages of the life

course, only recently has attention been directed

toward later life families. This work has shown that

most mothers favor some children over others in

terms of emotional closeness and exchange of both

instrumental and emotional support (Suitor &

Pillemer, 2006; Suitor, Pillemer, & Sechrist, 2006).

However, there has been no exploration of whether

*This project was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (RO1 AG18869-01), J. J. S. and K. P., Coprincipal Investigators. K. P. also acknowledges

support from an Edward R. Royal Center grant from the National Institute on Aging (1 P30 AG022845). We wish to thank Jane T. Pillemer, Rebecca Powers, and

Scott L. Feld for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of the article. We want to thank Michael Bisciglia, Rachel Brown, Ilana S. Feld, Alison Green, Kimberly

Gusman, Jennifer Jones, Dorothy Mecum, Michael Patterson, and Monica Shackelford for their assistance in preparing the data for analysis and participating in the

analysis of the qualitative data. We would also like to thank Paul Allison for his helpful suggestions regarding the data analysis. Finally, we thank Mary Ellen Colten

and her colleagues at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, for collecting the data for the project.

**J. Jill Suitor is a Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology, and Anthropology and Center on Aging and the Life Course at Purdue University, Stone

Hall, 700 W State Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907 (jsuitor@purdue.edu). Jori Sechrist is a Doctoral Student in the Department of Sociology, and Anthropology and

Center on Aging and the Life Course at Purdue University, 700 W State Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907 (sechristj@purdue.edu). Michael Steinhour is a Docto ral

Student in the Department of Sociology, and Anthropology and Center on Aging and the Life Course at Purdue University, 700 W State Street, West Lafayette, IN

47907 (msteinho@purdue.edu). Karl Pillemer is a Professor in Human Development, MVR Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850 (kap6@cornell.edu).

Family Relations, 55 (December 2006), 526–538. Blackwell Publishing.

Copyright 2006 by the National Council on Family Relations.