Parental Relationship Stability and Parent-Adult Child Relationships in Stepfamilies: A Test of Alternative Models
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-1-2019
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Family Psychology
Abstract
Stepfamily relationships remain important over the life course to both children and parents. Unfortunately, limitations in availability of longitudinal data that include useful measures of stepfamily relations remain, thereby scholars must rely mostly on cross-sectional examinations. As a way to more rigorously test some of the mixed cross-sectional findings related to the links among stepcouple stability and parent-adult child relationships (closeness, involvement) for three parent- child subsystems (mother- child, father- child, stepparent- child), we used an alternative modeling strategy to test three plausible models. Multiple group analyses also were used to compare associations for stepmother and stepfather families. Stepfamilies (N = 330) from the National Survey of Families and Households with data from both adult children and primary respondents (resident parent or stepparent) were included. All three models fit the data. The best-fitting model suggests the most probable order of association is that parental involvement is associated with parent- child closeness which, in turn, is associated with stepcouple stability. Results also suggest that multiple parent- child relationships and stepcouple relationship stability are generally positively linked for both stepmother and stepfather households, although some differences emerged. Taken together, findings underscore the influence of cross-household stepfamily relationships even when children are adults.
DOI
10.1037/fam0000481
MSU Digital Commons Citation
Petren, Raymond E.; Lardier, David T.; Bible, Jacqueline; Bermea, Autumn; and van Eeden-Moorefield, Bradley, "Parental Relationship Stability and Parent-Adult Child Relationships in Stepfamilies: A Test of Alternative Models" (2019). Department of Family Science and Human Development Scholarship and Creative Works. 120.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/familysci-facpubs/120
Published Citation
Petren, R. E., Lardier Jr, D. T., Bible, J., Bermea, A., & van Eeden-Moorefield, B. (2019). Parental relationship stability and parent–adult child relationships in stepfamilies: A test of alternative models. Journal of Family Psychology, 33(2), 143.