Parent and Child Mental Health in Nontraditional Families: The Intersecting Roles of Gender, Dyadic Support, and Communication.

Abstract

While families that deviate from traditional, nuclear, and biologically-based arrangements are increasingly common, relatively little work has adopted a systems-based approach to understand parents’ experiences, and the psychological correlates of these experiences, in nontraditional families. To fill this gap, this dissertation employs a family systems and feminist model to examine the psychological outcomes, for both parents and children, associated with parenting in nontraditional or stressful contexts. In particular, this dissertation explores the role of dyadic support and communication among family members and the ways in which these two processes buffer both parents and children from depressive and other psychiatric symptoms. This dissertation also explores whether, and how, gender intersects with adopting a nontraditional parenting role. The first two of the three papers of this dissertation examine depression as an outcome of stepparenting, the ways in which social supports buffer stepparents against psychopathology, and gender as a potential moderator in stepparent well-being. To do so, the first of these studies used a sample of 75 step mothers and 60 biological mothers and the second study used a sample of 84 stepmothers and 41 stepfathers, all recruited online. Findings from these two studies suggest that low parenting stress (Study One), high dyadic support (Studies One and Two), and more experience stepparenting (Study Two) are important buffers against depressive symptoms among stepparents. Importantly, these effects seem to matter equally for stepmothers and stepfathers. The third study expands upon these findings by highlighting the significance of dyadic support for children in nontraditional families. Study Three examines the relational correlates of depressive symptoms in 26 recently widowed mothers and their 38 children between the ages of 3-12. Specifically, this study found that the quality of (observed) communication about the loss between parentally-bereaved children and their surviving mothers was associated with depression and maladaptive grief in children. Further, Study Three suggested that mothers’ blunted emotional response to the loss, characterized by atypically low depressive symptoms, may prevent them from effectively communicating with their children about the loss. Implications for research and practice are discussed.