Parental Nurturance and the Mental Health and Parenting of Urban African American Adolescent Mothers

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between a teen mother's perceptions of nurturance from her mother and father and her mental health and parenting attitudes. One-hundred and thirty-eight urban, primarily African American adolescent mothers were interviewed. Multivariate results indicate that teen mothers who felt nurtured by their mothers had greater empathy toward their own children, and those who felt nurtured by their fathers reported greater parenting satisfaction. These findings support the importance of interventions that include supporting nurturing parenting of adolescent mothers by their mothers and their fathers.

KEYWORDS:

• adolescent mother
• nurturance
• parent-grandparent relationship
• parenting
• young children

Acknowledgments

This project was supported by a grant from the Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs, Office of Population Affairs, Department of Health and Human Services (APH PA 006026), and the DC-Baltimore Research Center on Child Health Disparities (P20 MD00165). Additional support was received from the Center for Clinical and Community Research at Children's National Medical Center. The contents of this manuscript are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies. The funders did not have a role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; nor preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript.

Notes

Note. AAPI = Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory; FOB = Father of Baby.

Note. Correlation between maternal nurturance and paternal nurturance is for the n = 78 who reported both.

*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.