Child-rearing attitudes and the mother-child relationship in working and non-working mothers: identification of high-risk mothers.

Abstract

The present study looked at the area of child-rearing and parental attitudes of working and non-working (housewives) mothers and their potential for abuse. The most dominant theory in the literature relating to child abuse and neglect is that of inappropriate parenting and child-rearing attitudes. Abusing parents share common misunderstandings with regard to the nature of child-rearing and look to the child for satisfaction of their own parental emotional needs. It was expected that a study in this area would indicate that working mothers expected more from their children at an earl ier age, and that their parenting attitudes were unrealistic and non-accepting when compared to housewives. Women who work outside the home spend an average of 37.0 hours per week at their jobs. Those who have children go home and spend an additional forty hours a week taking care of their home and family (Harris 1981). In an effort to lessen her work load the mother may begin to expect more from her child. The study sample consisted of 25 abusive working mothers, 25 abusive housewives, 25 non-abusive working mothers, and 25 non-abusive housewives. Each subject completed the Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory; designed to assess parenting attitudes; and the Mother-Child Relationship Evaluation which establ ishes a frame of reference of attitudes by which mothers relate to their children. A two-way analysis of variance was used to compare the raw scores. It was shown that: 1) abusive working mothers had the greatest amount of inappropriate parenting and child-rearing attitudes of the four sample groups; 2) working mothers do not have more unreal istic child-rearing attitudes than non-working mothers; 3) non-abusive working mothers had slightly more inappropriate parenting attitudes than nonabusive non-working mothers, but these differences were not significant; 4) a statist ically significant correlation exists between abuse potential and work status of abusive mothers, with abusive working mothers having more inappropriate parenting and child-rearing attitudes than abusive housewives.