AI Article Synopsis
- The study explored what influences maternal gatekeeping (how mothers manage fathers' involvement) during the transition to parenthood among 182 couples.
- Key findings indicate that mothers are more likely to limit fathers' involvement when they have high perfectionistic expectations, experience psychological distress, view their relationship as unstable, and possess high parenting self-efficacy.
- In contrast, mothers who are more religious tend to be more open to fathers' participation, while fathers' self-efficacy levels have less impact on maternal gatekeeping behaviors.
Article Abstract
Objective: The goal of this study was to identify determinants of maternal gatekeeping at the transition to parenthood.
Design: Participants included 182 different-gender dual-earner couples. During pregnancy, expectant parents completed questionnaires regarding their psychological functioning, attitudes, and expectations, and at 3 months postpartum questionnaires regarding maternal gatekeeping behavior and gate closing attitudes.
Results: SEM analyses revealed that mothers were more likely to close the gate to fathers when mothers held greater perfectionistic expectations for fathers' parenting, had poorer psychological functioning, perceived their romantic relationship as less stable, and had higher levels of parenting self-efficacy. In contrast, fathers with lower parenting self-efficacy appeared to elicit greater maternal gate closing behavior. Mothers who engaged in greater gate opening behavior were more religious.
Conclusions: Maternal gatekeeping may be more strongly associated with maternal expectations and psychological functioning than with maternal traditional gender attitudes. Fathers' characteristics are less predictive of maternal gatekeeping than mothers' characteristics.
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Source |
|---|---|
| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4922533 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15295192.2015.1053321 | DOI Listing |
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