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Fathers’ involvement and mothers’ gender essentialist beliefs about parenthood: A longitudinal study

par Eira Nunes, Cindy ;Lamprianidou, Elli-Anastasia ;Venard, Gaëlle;Van Petegem, Stijn Julien
Référence International Association for Relationship Research (IARR) conference (Boston, US)
Publication Non publié, 2024-07-07

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Résumé :

In line with changing societal expectations towards fathers, research has increasingly focused on fathers’ involvement and the determinants of persistent disparities between mothers and fathers. In this study, we focused on parents’ endorsement of gender essentialist beliefs about parenthood, according to which fathers are biologically less suited to parenting than mothers (Pinho & Gaunt, 2021). Mothers’ gender beliefs have been shown to relate to lower levels of father involvement, and even more so than fathers’ own gender beliefs (e.g., McBride et al., 2005). Because existing evidence is primarily cross-sectional, this study relied upon a longitudinal design to address the direction of effects. Such design allows us to concurrently test a maternal cognitive dissonance hypothesis (i.e., mothers adjust their beliefs about parenthood across time, depending on fathers’ quality of parenting) and a maternal gatekeeping hypothesis (i.e., mothers holding essentialist beliefs are more likely to display gatekeeping behaviors, hence discouraging fathers’ involvement). To do so, we used a sample of 167 heterosexual couples of parents drawn from an ongoing longitudinal study. We conducted cross-lagged models to test the direction of effects in the relationship between mother's essentialist beliefs and father's parenting, focusing specifically on the quality of parenting (i.e., responsiveness, autonomy support, overprotection, and controlling parenting). In a second step, we tested the intervening role of maternal gatekeeping in the relation between mother’s essentialist beliefs and father’s parenting. The cross-lagged models offer support for the cognitive dissonance hypothesis. Specifically, mothers’ gender essentialist beliefs did not significantly predict change in any of the fathers’ parenting practices. However, each of the four parenting dimensions predicted change in mothers’ essentialist beliefs. That is, fathers’ responsiveness and autonomy-support predicted decreases in mothers' essentialist beliefs, whereas controlling and overprotective parenting predicted increases in mothers' essentialism. Nevertheless, when we examined the effect of mothers’ essentialist beliefs (at T1) on fathers’ parenting (at T3) through maternal gatekeeping (at T2), we found evidence for an indirect effect on fathers’ responsiveness, autonomy support, and controlling parenting.In conclusion, our findings highlight that mothers’ gender essentialist beliefs about parenthood and fathers’ parenting are mutually reinforced across time.