Mexican‐Origin Parents’ Stress and Satisfaction: The Role of Emotional Support

• Author: Lorey A. Wheeler,Melissa Y. Delgado,Tierney K. Popp
• Published date: 01 March 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12342
• Date: 01 March 2019

Mexican-Origin Parents’ Stress and Satisfaction:

The Role of Emotional Support

TIERNEY K. POPP*

MELISSA Y. DELGADO

‡

LOREY A. WHEELER

§

Guided by a process model of parenting and the integrative model, this study examined

sources of emotional support (i.e., partner, maternal, paternal) as related to stress and sat-

isfaction resulting from the parenting role in a sample of Mexican-origin young adult par-

ents who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health

(Add Health) during Wave IV. Participants were male and female parents (26–35 years of

age; 59% female; N=737) who had children and a partner. Results from structural equa-

tion modeling revealed support from mothers as salient; high levels of maternal support

were associated with high levels of parenting satisfaction. Tests of indirect effects sug-

gested that parenting satisfaction played an intervening role in the link between maternal

support and parenting stress. The pattern of results held across levels of linguistic accul-

turation but varied by gender. Understanding the mechanisms that predict parenting

stress and satisfaction within the Mexican-origin population may help in the identification

of culturally sensitive intervention strategies.

Keywords: Mexi can-origin families; Parenting stress; Parenting satisfaction; Social

support

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Stress and satisfaction resulting from one’s parenting role varies greatly among individ-

uals. Extant literature suggests that high levels of parenting stress are associated

with reduced parental mental health and poor parenting behaviors including maltreat-

ment, less sensitive responsiveness, and child behavior problems (see Crnic & Low, 2002,

and Deater Deckard, 2004, for reviews). Similarly, lower parental satisfaction is linked to

increased child behavior problems and poor parental well-being (Crnic, Greenberg,

*Central Michigan University, Mt Pleasant, MI.

‡

University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.

§

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools, University of Nebraska-Lincoln,

Lincoln, NE.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Tierney K. Popp, EHS 412 O, Depart-

ment of Human Environmental Studies, Central Michigan University Mount Pleasant, MI 48859. E-mail:

popp1tk@cmich.edu

This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and

designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North

Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National

Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agen-

cies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assis-

tance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the

Add Health website (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant

P01-HD31921 for this analysis. All authors contributed equally to this work.

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Family Process, Vol. 58, No. 1, 2019 ©2018 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12342

Ragozin, Robinson, & Basham, 1983; Rogers & Matthews, 2004). Although the conse-

quences of parenting stress and satisfaction are relatively well understood, there is a pau-

city of research on precursors and individual differences among these outcomes of

parenting (Crnic & Low, 2002).

Scholars have identified social support as an important predictor of parental well-being.

Parents with high levels of social support report less stress (Cardoso, Padilla, & Samps on,

2010; Mulsow, Caldera, Pursley, Reifman, & Huston, 2002) and greater satisfaction (Schil-

moeller, Baranowski, & Higgins, 1991; Woody & Woody, 2007). However, these relations

are not straightforward, with variability based on the type of social support received (Dea-

ter Deckard, 2004), source of support (Contreras, L

opez, Rivera-Mosquera, Raymond-

Smith, & Rothstein, 1999), and cultural and individual considerations (Cardoso et al.,

2010); thus, the need to understand these dynamics is warranted. Furthermore, a major-

ity of research on parenting satisfaction and stress examines these two outcomes indepen-

dently in direct effects models (Contreras et al., 1999; Rogers & White, 1998), yet some

evidence suggests that they influence one another (Dunning & Giallo, 2012). The specific

mechanisms either linking emotional support to parenting stress through parenting satis-

faction or to parenting satisfaction through parenting stress have not been specifically

considered in prior literature. Examining the mechanisms linking support, parenting sat-

isfaction, and stress may provide key information for intervention strategies. Further-

more, beyond understanding general processes, there is a need to identify culturally

specific patterns so that practitioners can better accommodate their clients’ needs

(Dumka, Lopez, & Carter, 2002). In the past several decades, researchers and practition-

ers alike have called for knowledge that can inform culturally sensitive prevention and

intervention strategies, drawing on family strengths and competencies (Dumka et al.,

2002; Parra-Cardona et al., 2012). One of the important pieces of this study is the identifi-

cation of these processes in a unique sociocultural group (e.g., Mexican-origin families).

Advancing our understanding of parenting for Mexican-origin families is critical for two

reasons. First, despite the increase in the U.S.’s Latino population, with those of Mexican

origin representing the largest subgroup (64%; Gonzalez-Barrera & Lopez, 2013), mu ch of

the parenting research has focused on European American and African American popula-

tions (Budd, Holdsworth, & HoganBruen, 2006; Mulsow et al., 2002) . Given the evidence

indicating that parenting processes may differ for Latino parents (Cardoso et al., 2010),

findings from other ethnic groups may not generalize to parents from Mexican-origin socio-

cultural backgrounds; they must be studied directly. Second, despite the progress made in

including fathers in studies on Latino families (e.g., White, Zeiders, Gonzales, Tein, &

Roosa, 2013), it is important to respond to the recent call to continue to include fathers, in

particular, in within-group studies that include middle-class Latino families (see Cabre ra,

Aldoney, & Tamis- LeMonda, 2013, for a review); this study addressed these gaps by focus-

ing on Mexican-origin female and male parents’ stress and satisfaction. As informed by

Belsky’s (1984) process model of parenting and Garc

ıa Coll et al.’s (1996) integrative model

for the study of developmental competencies in minority children (hereafter “the integra-

tive model”), the goals of the study were as follows: (a) to examine sources of emotional sup-

port (i.e., maternal, paternal, partner) as directly associated with parenting stress and

satisfaction; (b) to examine the alternative intervening mechanisms (parenting stress or

satisfaction) linking support to parenting outcomes, and (c) to explore gender and linguistic

acculturation (i.e., language use as a proxy) as potential moderators of these relations.

Guiding Theoretical Perspectives

This study integrated essential components of two corresponding theoretical frame-

works, Belsky’s (1984) process model of parenting and Garc

ıa Coll et al.’s (1996)

Fam. Proc., Vol. 58, March, 2019

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