Mothers' Partnerships, Men in the Home, and Adolescents' Secondary Exposure to Violence
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12493 |
| Author | Shannon E. Cavanagh,Robert Crosnoe,Chelsea Smith,Haley Stritzel |
| Published date | 01 August 2018 |
| Date | 01 August 2018 |
R C, H S , C S , S E. C
University of Texas at Austin
Mothers’ Partnerships, Men in the Home, and
Adolescents’ Secondary Exposure to Violence
Family instability means that many U.S. youth
spend time without biological fathers and with
other men. This study extends the literature on
the developmental implications of living with
fathers and father gures by investigating the
association between the presence of mothers’
male romantic partners in the home and sec-
ondary exposure to violence with a focus on
variability according to the identities of the men
and the communities of the family. Fixed effects
models of multilevel data from the Project
on Human Development in Chicago Neigh-
borhoods (N=2,201) revealed that living with
mothers’ partners did not have a general protec-
tive or risky association with youths’ secondary
exposure to violence. This exposure, however,
was lower when such men were youths’ biolog-
ical fathers (vs. social fathers) and when they
were married to (vs. cohabiting with) youths’
mothers. The link between men’s marital status
and exposure to violence appeared stronger in
higher crime neighborhoods.
In a 2008 speech in Chicago, President Obama
called on U.S. men to help mothers raise their
children, arguing that children having a father
or father gure present in the home to partner
with their mothers is “what keeps the foundation
Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin,
305 E. 23rd Street, G1800, Austin, TX 78712-1699
(crosnoe@austin.utexas.edu).
Key Words: adolescent development, crime, family instabil-
ity, fathers, neighborhoods, violence.
of our country strong.” Yet the value to young
people of having a man partnered with their
mothers depends on who that man is. For some
youth, having a man in the home is a resource;
for others, it is a risk (Crosnoe & Cavanagh,
2010; Jaffee, Moftt, Caspi, & Taylor, 2003).
The truth is that all men are not equal in terms
of what they bring to raising children, and the
presence of even similar men (e.g., two biologi-
cal fathers) may mean different things to young
people depending on the larger contexts in which
they live(Parke, 2013). How much such variabil-
ity in links between men in the home and chil-
dren’s well-being extends to the specic devel-
opmental risk of youths’ exposure to violence is
unclear but important to unpack. After all, family
instability and violent crime co-occur in many
U.S. communities, and “strengthening” families
is often highlighted by politicians and pundits
with a wide array of ideologies as a way of
helping hard-hit communities (Bosman, 2008;
Bump, 2015).
In this spirit, this study examines the link
between living with a mother’s male roman-
tic partner and secondary exposure to violence
from late childhood through adolescence. A key
focus is on how this link varies according to
who the man is (in terms of his relationships
with mother and children, economic status, and
criminal justice history) and where the family
lives (in terms of levelsof collective efcacy and
crime in the community), controlling for inti-
mate partner violence (IPV) within the home.
This examination will be conducted by apply-
ing xed effects regression techniques to data
934 Journal of Marriage and Family 80 (August 2018): 934–950
DOI:10.1111/jomf.12493
Men in the Home and Youths’ Exposure to Violence 935
on 2,201 young people, their parents, and their
communities from the 1990s through the early
2000s as part of the Project on Human Devel-
opment in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN).
Despite the growing time gap between the orig-
inal PHDCN data collection and today, these
data provide the only opportunity to track fam-
ily changes and patterns of exposure to vio-
lence during the critical transition from child-
hood into adolescence while incorporating data
on the social—versus only the socioeconomic or
demographic—environment of neighborhoods
within the same local policy and economic con-
texts. Moreover,the high levels of father absence
and violent crime in Chicago during the era
of data collection drew national attention and
inspired the president’s Father’s Day speech. At
the same time, the strong networks of social cap-
ital in Chicago neighborhoods point to potential
avenues for promoting positive youth develop-
ment (Sampson, 2012). Thus, the PHDCN is a
window into a past setting of youth development
characterized by complex dynamics of risk and
protection that can inform efforts to serve the
current and future youth growing up in similar
environments.
Understanding when and how the presence of
men in the home may help to protect young peo-
ple from exposure to violence in diverse com-
munities connects family science, criminology,
and urban studies. In the process, these analy-
ses extend the rich literature on family instability
into a new domain of well-being among youth,
leverage what is known about family structure
to elucidate the risks of violent crime, and situate
the intra- and extrafamilial lives of young people
within both the positive and negative processes
of community ecologies.
B
Is There a Man in the Home?
This study links two issues of concern to scien-
tists, policymakers, and the public. This link cap-
tures transactions among family systems internal
and external to the home.
First, the presence of men in the home here
refers to a family structure in which a young per-
son lives with a mother and either a biological
father or a social father (i.e., a mother’sromantic
partner not biologically related to the children).
The cycling of both fathers and social fathers
in and out of the home is a common experi-
ence for U.S. youth. Indeed, because of rising
divorce, cohabitation, and nonmarital and mul-
tipartner fertility, the majority of children expe-
rience a father transitioning out of the home or
a social father transitioning into the home at
some point during childhood (Brown, Stykes, &
Manning, 2016; Bzostek, 2008; Cherlin, 2009).
These transitions, regardless of type, are asso-
ciated with an array of negative developmen-
tal outcomes (Cavanagh, 2008; Gibson-Davis
& Gassman-Pines, 2010; McLanahan & Perch-
eski, 2008). Furthermore, the kinds of emotional
support, attachment, and economic investments
that men—biological or social fathers, husbands,
or cohabiting partners—can make to (and with-
draw from) mothers and children are not always
equivalent (Amato & Gilbreth, 1999; Cabrera,
Tamis-LeMonda, Bradley, Hofferth, & Lamb,
2000; Parke, 2013). Thus, providing a more
nuanced consideration of the men in children’s
lives can illuminate the implications of this ris-
ing source of instability.
Second, secondary exposure to violence
occurs when residents of a community witness
acts of violence in the broader neighborhood or
in or around their own homes. In many com-
munities, children and youth see others being
beaten up, attacked, shot, or subjected to other
forms of violence. The victims and perpetrators
they see can be nonfamily and family members
outside or in the home (Brennan, Molnar, &
Earls 2007; Finkelhor, Turner, Ormrod, Hamby,
& Kracke, 2009). Although some youth recover
from such experiences, others develop post-
traumatic stress disorder, experience biological
weathering, or cope in unhealthy ways, such
as through aggression, delinquency, and drug
use, all of which can undermine their futures
(Buka, Stichick, Birdthistle, & Earls, 2001;
Cerdá, Tracy, Sánchez, & Galea, 2011; Flan-
nery, Wester, & Singer, 2004; Kirk & Hardy,
2014; Margolin & Gordis, 2000). As such, sec-
ondary exposure to violence is an example of an
adverse experience early in life that can set the
stage for problematic functioning in adulthood.
Consequently, social processes and circum-
stances that increase young people’s secondary
exposure to violence can have a long-term
impact (Macmillan, 2001; Shalev et al., 2013).
Notably, youth from more marginalized popula-
tions (e.g., low-income families or historically
disadvantaged racial or ethnic minority groups)
are more likely to witness violence (Buka et al.,
2001; Cavanagh, Stritzel, Smith, & Crosnoe,
2017; Crouch, Hanson, Saunders, Kilpatrick,
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