Maternal authority and maternal acceptance – Rejection among mothers of preschool children: The role of childhood maternity, childhood trauma and the caregiving system.

The relationship between experiences with parenting in childhood and current parenting styles has been examined on the basis of several theoretical approaches (Bandura, 1977; Bowlby, 1973; Cox & Paley, 1997; Espasa, 2004; Stern, 1995). The present study used family theories and psychodynamic theories as a framework for examining how childhood experiences with parenting affect current parenting styles among mothers with preschool children, and how those experiences affect their tendency to accept or reject their children. In the present study, three parenting styles were defined according to the typology proposed by Baumrind (1968; 1971; 1991): Authoritative parenting combines encouragement of autonomy in the child with high demands for obedience. This style is considered to be positive. Authoritarian parenting combines high demands with low parental responsiveness, low availability, and low sensitivity; and permissive parenting combines low parental demands with high parental responsiveness, support, and warmth. The second two styles were considered to be less positive for the child. Parental acceptance-rejection was defined by Rohner (2004) as the quality of the verbal and nonverbal channels through which parents, who are the main attachment figures, communicate with their children and express their emotions (Rohner, 2004). In addition, the present study examined the contribution of several sociodemographic variables (age, number of children, economic status, and education) as well as the mothers' traumatic experience of abuse in childhood and the mothers' caregiving style (avoidance versus anxiety) to their current parenting style and to acceptance or rejection of their children. Finally, the following question was examined: Is the mother's caregiving system a moderating variable in the relationship between the mothers' childhood experiences with parenting and their current parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, permissive) and acceptance or rejection of their children.

The sample of participants consisted of 150 Israeli mothers with young children (aged 0-6). The mothers were asked to complete self-report questionnaires in reference to one of their children in that age group. The measures were as follows: the Parenting Authority Questionnaire (PAQ), which consisted of two separate questionnaires: one questionnaire measured the mothers' parenting style in the present, and the other measured the parenting style that the mothers experienced in childhood (Buri, 1991); the Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire (PARQ-f), which measured the extent of parental acceptance/rejection of children (Rohner, Khaleque, & Cournover, 2005); the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), which measured the traumatic experience of abuse in childhood (Berstein & Fink, 1998); the Caregiving System Function questionnaire (CSF) to examine the mothers' caregiving style (avoidant versus anxious); (Sherman-Iron, Mikulincer & Shaver, 2010); and a sociodemographic questionnaire.

In general, the research findings confirm the existence of intergenerational transmission of parenting styles experienced by mothers in childhood, as expressed in their current parenting styles, and indicate that parenting styles experienced in childhood affect the mothers' acceptance/rejection of their children in the present. Specifically, the participants tended to adopt the parenting styles they experienced in their relationships with their own mothers (authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive). In addition, mothers who had experienced an authoritative parenting style in childhood, which is considered to be more positive, reported more acceptance and less rejection of their own children. In contrast, mothers who had experienced an authoritarian parenting style in childhood reported more rejection of their children. Additionally, the findings indicate that mothers who had experienced abuse in childhood were characterized by an authoritarian parenting style, and that they showed less acceptance and more rejection of their children. No significant relationship was found between traumatic abuse in childhood and the tendency to adopt a permissive parenting style. Finally, the findings revealed that mothers with an avoidant caregiving style tended to adopt authoritarian and/or indulgent styles of parenting in the present, and showed less acceptance and more rejection of their children. By comparison, mothers with an anxious caregiving style tended to adopt an authoritarian parenting style and rejected their children. However, no significant relationship was found between the other parenting styles (authoritative and permissive) and parental rejection.

Regarding the relative contribution of the independent research variables to predicting the dependent variables (current parenting style and acceptance/rejection of the child), the relationship between the mothers' experience with parenting in childhood and their current parenting style was found to be significant, and they showed a greater tendency to accept rather than reject their children. Thus, the results of the regression analysis revealed that the relative contribution of the participants' past experience with maternal parenting styles in childhood to predicting the mothers' tendency to adopt a certain parenting style and to accept/reject their children in the present was highly significant in comparison with the contribution of the other variables (the mothers' sociodemographic variables and caregiving style). In contrast, traumatic abuse in childhood only contributed significantly to predicting parental rejection of the child in the present. These findings are consistent with the literature which has revealed that parents' experiences with parenting in childhood are a major factor that shape their parenting styles as adults, and that these experiences contribute to the parents' tendency to accept and/or reject their children (Belsky, 1984; Bowlby, 1973; Chen & Kaplan, 2001; Pears & Capaldy, 2001). One of the main areas in which the parents' experiences in childhood had a clear impact on current parenting was the experience of parental abuse in childhood (Capaldi, 2001; Falshaw, 2005; Harel, 2010; Kaufman & Ziegler, 1989; Lugassi, 2007; Pears & Bowlby, 1973).

Analysis of the interaction between past experiences with parenting and childhood abuse on the one hand, and the mother's current parenting style and her current acceptance or rejection of the child on the other, and the dependence of those variables on the mother's caregiving style revealed that the mother's caregiving style played a moderating role in predicting the mother's tendency to accept or reject her child. The findings revealed that an avoidant caregiving style moderated the relationship between permissive parenting in childhood and the mother's acceptance of her children in the present. That is, the relationship between a permissive parenting style in the past and the mothers' acceptance of her child in present was stronger among mothers with low levels of avoidance in caregiving. In contrast, the mothers' caregiving style did not contribute to moderating the impact of their childhood experiences with parenting on their current parenting styles or on their current tendency to reject their children. The finding that the mothers' caregiving style strengthened the contribution of their past experiences with parenting to their present parenting style support the theoretical approach that was used as a basis for the study.

Regarding the limitations of the study, the research was conducted at one point in time among mothers with relatively homogeneous characteristics and without a control group. Nonetheless, its theoretical and practical contributions are noteworthy. At the theoretical level, the findings support the intergenerational transmission approach, which argues that experience with parenting styles in childhood is related to parents' current parenting styles as well as to acceptance/rejection of their own children. In addition, the study highlights the importance of caregiving style as a factor that moderates the relationship between a permissive parenting style in childhood and the mothers' acceptance of their own children. At the practical level, the study highlights the importance of therapeutic intervention aimed at "breaking" the intergenerational transmission in cases where childhood experiences with parenting were less positive. These interventions should also aim at enhancing the mothers' awareness of their own childhood experiences, and at providing them with tools to develop positive parenting for their children. The importance of these interventions is further underscored for mothers of preschool children, when it is possible to shape the children's personality and develop a constructive dyadic mother-child relationship.