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Intensive parenting ideology and overprotective parenting: a cluster study

par Lamprianidou, Elli-Anastasia ;Eira Nunes, Cindy ;Van Petegem, Stijn Julien
Référence European Association for Research on Adolescence 2022 Conference (Dublin, Ireland)
Publication Non publié, 2022-08-24

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Résumé :

The term of overprotective parenting describes a level of parental protection that is excessive, considering the developmental level of the child (Thomasgard et al.,1995). Parental overprotection can have detrimental consequences on adolescents’ mental health, since it has been linked to externalizing problems, higher levels of depression and a decreased satisfaction with life. Studies comparing heterosexual mothers and fathers indicate that mothers engage more often in overprotective parenting than fathers, both from the perspective of parents (e.g. Fingerman et al., 2012) and children (e.g. Pistella et al., 2020). This gender difference could be related to the different socially prescribed parenting expectations towards women and men, as they are depicted in the “intensive mothering” ideology (Hays, 1996), according to which, parents (and mothers in particular) are the only responsible for their children’s outcomes. Because this ideology promotes the idea of parental self-sacrifice and child-centeredness, it puts extreme pressure on parents, and especially mothers. Despite the emergence of a more engaged father model who has abandoned the strict breadwinner role (Lee et al,. 2014), the ideal of the “good mother”, as the one who always places her child’s needs before her own’s, is still relevant (Bertolini et al., 2015). If the gender-neutral term of intensive parenting (as opposed to that of “intensive mothering”) “conceals” how intensive parenting is still strongly gendered (Rao, 2018), very few studies have empirically examined how this concept relates to parenting, and especially among parents of adolescents. Therefore, treating intensive parenting as a multidimensional ideology, i.e. a potentially gendered concept that could also apply to both parents , the purpose of this study is to examine whether we can distinguish different parental typologies, and whether these are differentially associated to parenting aspects.