Parenting Strain Among Mexican‐Origin Mothers: Differences by Parental Legal Status and Neighborhood

• Author: Aggie J. Noah,Nancy S. Landale
• Published date: 01 April 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12438
• Date: 01 April 2018

A J. N Arizona State University

N S. L Pennsylvania State University∗

Parenting Strain Among Mexican-Origin Mothers:

Differences by Parental Legal Status and

Neighborhood

Despite increasing recognition of the critical

importance of legal status for understanding

the well-being of immigrants and their families,

there has been scant research on this topic.

Using Wave 1 of the Los Angeles Family and

Neighborhood Survey (2000–2002) and the

2000 decennial census, the authors investigated

how parenting strain among Mexican-origin

mothers varies by legal status and neighbor-

hood context. They found signicant differences

in parenting strain by nativity and legal sta-

tus, with undocumented mothers reporting the

lowest level. Results from multilevel models

with cross-level interactions reveal that the

inuence of neighborhood immigrant concen-

tration differs by legal status. Percent foreign

born in the neighborhood is associated with

reduced parenting strain for documented

Mexican-origin mothers, whereas it is asso-

ciated with heightened parenting strain for

undocumented Mexican-origin mothers. The

ndings provide empirical support for the need

School of Social Transformation, Arizona State University,

Wilson Hall, P.O.Box 876403, Tempe, AZ 85287-6403

(aggie.noah@asu.edu).

∗Population Research Institute, Pennsylvania State

University,405 Oswald Tower, University Park, PA16802.

Key Words: family stress, Hispanic/Latino/a, immigrants,

neighborhoods, parenting.

to recognize legalstatus distinctions in studies of

the well-being of immigrants and their families.

Numbering 33.7 million in 2012, the Mexican-

origin population of the United States accounted

for nearly two thirds (64%) of U.S. Hispan-

ics and more than one tenth (11%) of the

total U.S. population (Gonzalez-Barrera &

Lopez, 2013). Both the size and rapid growth

of this population since 1970 have drawn

attention to immigration as a key driver of

demographic and social change. Recently a

family process—fertility—has surpassed immi-

gration as the major source of growth in the

Mexican-origin population (Pew Hispanic

Center, 2011). One consequence of this shift

is increased recognition of the importance of

families to the future incorporation of a large

and growing Mexican-origin child population

(Jasso, Massey, Rosenzweig, & Smith, 2004;

Landale & Oropesa, 2007).

The life chances of children are tightly linked

to the material and psychological resources

that their parents can provide. In particular, a

substantial body of research documents that

parental psychological well-being has enduring

implications for children because it is closely

related to parenting behaviors (Belsky, 1984;

White, Roosa, Weaver, Nair, & Murry, 2009).

Studies have begun to address the nature and

determinants of parenting among Hispanics

Journal of Marriage and Family 80 (April 2018): 317–333 317

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12438

318 Journal of Marriage and Family

(Fuller & García Coll, 2010; Jung, Fuller,

& Galindo, 2012; Livas-Dlott et al., 2010;

Rodriguez-JenKins, 2014), including variation

by parental nativity. However, few studies have

paid attention to a major axis of stratication

that has profound implications for Hispanic

immigrants, namely, legal status. Although

legal status has emerged as a key dimension of

diversity in the Hispanic population, it has been

regularly ignored because of the lack of data on

parental legal status in most representative data

sources.

Using one of the few representative data sets

with detailed questions on the legal status of

immigrants, the Los Angeles Family and Neigh-

borhood Survey (L.A. FANS, http://lasurvey

.rand.org/), this study focuses on the role of

multiple stressors on parenting strain among

Mexican-origin mothers. Some Mexican-origin

mothers are disproportionately exposed to

numerous individual-level stressors, such as

traumatic migration experiences, acculturation

stress, and poverty. There is also variation in

exposure to contextual-level stressors, such as

neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage,

that may contribute to relatively high parenting

stress (White et al., 2009). These stressors are

shaped by the structural positions of individuals,

including their nativity and legal status. Yet the

associations between particular statuses and

parenting strain may not be straightforward

because different ethnic or cultural groups may

internalize or interpret a common stressor in

different ways. Thus, drawing on theories of

family stress and parenting strain, studies of

immigrant adaptation, and a multilevel frame-

work, we investigate how parenting strain

among Mexican-origin mothers varies by their

nativity, legal status, and neighborhood context.

P S

Parenting strain or parenting stress refers to

parents’ perceptions of the difculty of fullling

their parenting role, often a result of every-

day parenting-related hassles or discrepancies

between parental expectations and realities

(Abidin, 1992; Deater-Deckard, 2004; Pearlin,

1989). Parenting strain is a key determinant of

parenting practices and is associated with lower

parenting skill levels (Carpiano & Kimbro,

2012), lower parental warmth (Belsky, 1984), a

higher likelihood of harsh parenting (McLoyd,

1990; Pinderhughes, Dodge, Bates, Pettit, &

Zelli, 2000; Webster-Stratton, 1990), and a

higher likelihood of severe physical discipline

(Pinderhughes et al., 2000). Parenting strain is

also a precursor to chronic parental depression

(Huang, Costeines, Kaufman, & Ayala, 2014;

Roxburgh, Stephens, Toltzis, & Adkins, 2001),

which in turn can further exacerbate difculties

in effective parenting (Lyons-Ruth, Wolfe, &

Lyubchik, 2000).

Although parenting strain has been iden-

tied as a key factor in parental and child

well-being, surprisingly little is known about

what inuences it. One important theory used

to understand parenting strain is family stress

theory (K. J. Conger, Rueter, & Conger, 2000;

R. D. Conger et al., 2002), which posits that

the principal mechanism through which con-

textual stressors negatively inuence parenting

is parental psychological stress (K. J. Conger

et al., 2000; R. D. Conger et al., 2002). In

other words, exposure to contextual stressors

contributes to increased parental psychological

stress, which then reduces positive parenting.

In groundbreaking research, K. J. Conger et al.

(2000) demonstrated that socioeconomic risk

(e.g., low-income status and economic distress)

is positively associated with parental psycholog-

ical distress. However, this project led to later

critiques of the literature’s almost exclusive

focus on economic disadvantage as a stressor,

its lack of attention to the neighborhood context,

and its limited generalizability to disadvan-

taged subgroups other than African Americans

(Kotchick, Dorsey, & Heller, 2005).

N, L S,  P

S

In response to the critique that studies based

on family stress theory have primarily empha-

sized African American mothers (e.g., Cain &

Combs-Orme, 2005; K. J. Conger et al., 2000;

R. D. Conger et al., 2002), recent studies have

started to focus on whether and how the theory

is applicable to other racial and ethnic minor-

ity groups (Rodriguez-JenKins & Marcenko,

2014; White et al., 2009). For example, White

et al. (2009) tested the applicability of fam-

ily stress theory to Mexican Americans, and

they extended the theory to include cultural

(i.e., English-language pressure) and contex-

tual (i.e., perceived neighborhood danger) risk

factors. They found that acculturative stress is

related to parental psychological stress, which