Annotation Article 5

8/14/2019 Annotation Article 5

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Remarriage, Cohabitation, and Changes in Mothering Behavior

Author(s): Elizabeth Thomson, Jane Mosley, Thomas L. Hanson, Sara S. McLanahanSource: Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 63, No. 2 (May, 2001), pp. 370-380Published by: National Council on Family RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3654598

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ELIZABETHHOMSONUniversity f Wisconsin-MadisonJANEMOSLEYMidwestResearch nstitute*

THOMAS . HANSON WestEd**SARA . MCLANAHAN rincetonUniversity***

Remarriage,ohabitation,ndChangesnMothering ehavior

Weuseddata romtwowavesof theNationalSur-vey of Families and Household to investigatechanges in motheringbehaviorassociated withremarriage r cohabitation ysinglemothers.Weconsidered three dimensionsof mothering:(a)timeandsupervision,b) harshdiscipline,and(c)relationship uality.Mothersandchildrenagreedthat motherswho remained n new partnershipsusedharshdiscipline essfrequently hanmotherswho remainedsingle or whose new partnershiphad endedby the second interview.Mothersre-portedless supervision f theyhad experienceddisruptedpartnership,whereas childrenreportedless supervision f their mothersremained n anewpartnership t thesecondinterview.ChildrenbutnotmothersreportedbetterrelationshipswithDepartmentf Sociology,1180ObservatoryDrive,Universityof Wisconsin,Madison,WI 53706 ([email protected]).*Midwest Research Institute,425 Volker Avenue, KansasCity, MO 64110.**WestEd, 4665 Lampson Avenue, Los Alamitos, CA90720.***Officeof PopulationResearch,NotesteinHall, 21 Pros-pect Avenue, PrincetonUniversity,Princeton,NJ 08540.Key Words: cohabitation, divorce, parent-child relation-ships, remarriage.

mothers n partnershipsat the second interview,comparedwith childrenwhosemothersremainedsingleor whose newpartnership ad ended.Onlya smallpartof thedifferencesn harshdiscipline,andnoneof the other observeddifferences, ouldbe explainedbymaternal rfamilycharacteristicsor bymothering ehaviorandrelationshipsn thefirst interview.Althoughcohabitingpartnershipswere morelikelyto end thanweremarriages,wefound no differences n effects of cohabitingormaritalpartnerships, etof theirstatusat thesec-ond interview.

Demographicrends n cohabitation,marriage, i-vorce,andremarriageavechangedchildren's x-perienceof familylife (Bumpass,1994;Cherlin,1992;Manning& Lichter,1995). Gone for mostchildrenare thedaysof livingwith twobiologicalparentsuntil age 18 (Bumpass,Raley, & Sweet,1995; Graefe & Lichter,1997). Many childrenwhoseparentsdivorceor end theircohabiting e-lationshipor who were bornto unmarried, on-cohabitingmotherswill experience urtheramilychangewhen a parentremarries r cohabitswitha new partner(Cherlin;Norton & Moorman,1987).In this article,we use paneldatafromtheNa-tional Survey of Families and Households

Journal f Marriage ndFamily63 (May2001):370-38070


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Cohabitation and Changes in Mothering Behavior

(NSFH)to estimateeffects of mothers'new part-nerships,cohabitingor marital,on motheringbe-havior.Weexamine hreedimensions f children'sexperienceswiththeirmothers: a) mother's imeand supervision;b) harshdiscipline,and(c) re-lationshipquality.Ourstudymakes woimportantcontributions. irst,thepanel designof NSFH al-lowed us to measure mothers' behaviors andmother-childelationships efore mothers ormanew partnership.We could thereforecontrol forpotentialselection of particularypes of singlemothersinto partnerships, oing beyond cross-sectionalanalysesof differencesbetweensingleandremarried rrepartnered others.Second,be-causeboth the motherand a focal childwere in-terviewed,we had a more completepictureofmothering t the second nterview hanwe wouldhave withonly mothers'reports.Why might one expect mothering o changewhen a womanenters a new partnership? irst,new partners ringadded ncome into the house-hold. Remarriagen particulars associatedwitha large increasein family economicwell-being(McLanahan& Sandefur, 993).Low levels of in-come increaseparental tress,whichin turnmaylead to poorerparentingElder,1974;McLeod&Shanahan,1994; McLoyd& Wilson, 1991). Anincrease n income andeconomicsecurity houldlowerstress andthereby mprovemothering.New partners lso bringa secondpairof eyes,ears, and handsto the childrearingask. Cross-sectionalanalysesshow thatthe presenceof an-otheradult n thehouseholds associatedwithin-creased supervision (Thomson,McLanahan&Curtin,1992).A new partnermay engage directlyin childrearingasks or take over some of thehouseholdand daily life tasks so that a mothercan devote moretimeto children.Third,a spouseorpartner ffers socialsupportfor the mother(Bronfenbrenner,979). He maybe helpfulin makingdifficultchildrearing eci-sions andin strengtheninger authority.He maybe a sourceof comfortwhenparentings stressful.All of thesesupportsmaybenefit he mother's ar-enting and her relationshipwith her child(ren).New partnersmayalso inhibitnegativeresponsestowardchildren, implybecausetheyare theretoobserve hem.Motherings in a sense morepublicin a new relationship han when mothers livealonewiththeir children.Not all of thehypothesized ffects of newpart-nershipsarepositive,however.New partners ec-essarilytaketimeawayfrommothering ndmaynot transfer he sameamountsof theirown time

to children Hetherington& Jodl, 1994).Remar-riageor cohabitationmay meana changeof res-idence for the motherand her child(ren),and atthe very least a changein daily routines.Suchchanges may be stressfulfor both motherandchild(ren),producing oorermothering ndmoth-er-child elationships. ecausesinglemothersandtheir children often develop a particularly loseand interdependentelationship Ganong& Co-leman, 1994), new partnersmay be viewed ascompetitionor the mother's ffectionandperhapsalso to theirrelationshipwitha nonresidentather(Crosbie-Bumett& Ahrons, 1985). As a result,they may behavebadly and make the mother'sparenting ask more difficult.Finally, cohabitingpartnershipsnd higherordermarriagesmay beless stablethanfirstmarriages. f a relationshipends, the stressof two major amily changes n arelativelyshortperiodof time may adverselyaf-fect motheringandthe mother-childelationship.In addition, f the new partnership rovided m-provementsn mothering,ts disruption ouldre-versethose effects.Cross-sectionalnalysesusually inddifferenc-es in parenting rparent-childelationshipscrossfamily types (e.g., Kurdek& Fine, 1988; Peek,Bell, Waldren,& Sorrell,1993; but see Amato,1987). Furstenberg nd Spanier 1984) reported,for example, that remarriedparentswere morelikely thanparentsn originalmarriageso reportparentingburdens,while at the sametimereport-ing thatremarriage elpedin the raisingof theirchildren. Thomson, McLanahan, and Curtin(1992) foundthatsinglemothers pentmoretimewith children than did remarriedor cohabitingmothersbut that remarriedmothershad stricterrules and supervisedchildrenmore closely thansingleor cohabitingmothers.Finding differences in parenting behavioracrossfamily typesdoesnot,however, ell us thatfamily structure r the associatedexperienceoffamilyformationor separation auseschanges nparentingbehavior. nstead,we could be observ-ing an associationproducedby selectionof par-ticular ypesof parentsnto separation, ew part-nerships, or both. Whatever unobservedcharacteristics nderlieparentingbehaviorcouldalso makeparentsmoreattractive artners r lessinterestedn living alone.Data collected by Hetherington nd her col-leaguesprovidesome of the limitedinformationon remarriagendmotheringbehaviorusinglon-gitudinaldata(Hetherington, 989;Hetherington& Clingempeel,1992;Hetherington, ox,& Cox,

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Journal of Marriage and Family

1982).Theyargued hat headditionaltressors fremarriageverride n the short ermanybenefitsdue to additional ncome or the presenceof an-otheradult.Theyreportedhat herelationshipe-tweenmothersandchildrendeclinedafterremar-riagebut recoveredwithintwo years.They alsofound thatremarriedmotherswere less involvedthan divorcedsingle mothers n their children'slives (Hetherington& Clingempeel).The limita-tionsof theirwork are thatthe samplesare rathersmall and composed predominantlyof White,middle-class amilies.In an earlieranalysis,we usedpaneldata romthe NSFH to simulatechangesin motheringbe-haviorbeforeand afterdivorce, ncluding hangesassociatedwith the cohabitation r remarriagefdivorcedmothers Hanson,McLanahan,& Thom-son, 1998). Beginningwith a sampleof marriedmothers,we followed themthroughdivorce,co-habitation, emarriage r a combination hereof.Divorcebetweeninterviewswas associatedwithincreasedfrequencyof child activities and re-ducedsupervision.Motherswho subsequentlye-married eported he sameelevatedfrequencyofchildactivitiesbutless supervisionhandid moth-ers who remained ingle.Thus,remarriager co-habitation id not lead to a "recovery"of predi-vorcemothering.In thisarticle,we investigate heseinferred f-fects of cohabitation rremarriage y directlyob-servingchanges n mothering mongwomenwhoweresingleat the first NSFHinterview.This de-sign allows us to observe potential changes inmothering ehaviorandmother-childelationshipsfor womenwho had never been marriedas wellas those who hadbeen divorced or a longerpe-riod of time than was the case in our previousanalysis.Thedesignalso enablesus to control ormotheringbehaviorobservedduringsinglehoodbut beforeremarriage r cohabitation,hus con-trolling or thepotential electionof different ortsof mothers nto new partnerships.

SAMPLEANDMEASURESWe used datafrom the two waves of the NSFH,a nationallyrepresentativeurveyof U.S. adultswith a double sampleof single-parentamilies.The responserateto the initialsurveyconductedduring 1987-1988 (NSFH1) was 74% (Sweet,Bumpass,& Call, 1988). If respondents eportedanychildrenunderage 19livingin thehousehold,one childwas randomly elected as a focal child.Ouranalytic ampleconsistsof motherswho were

living with the focal child but withouta partnerat the first nterview;who participatedn the fol-low-up survey during 1992-1994 (NSFH2)andwhose focal child was living with them andwasage 10-17 at thattime.Aboutfourfifths(81%)of the singlemothersat NSFH1 were interviewed n NSFH2. As ex-pected,almost90% of focal childrenaged 10-17at NSFH2 were living with their mothers(N =417). About three fourthsof these childrenalsoparticipatedn theNSFH2survey(N = 316).Weinvestigatedpotentialnonresponsebias with lo-gistic regressionmodels of maternal esponseandof focal child response, contingenton maternalresponse. Educationand home ownership in-creased the likelihoodof maternal esponse,andAfricanAmericanmotherswere more ikelyto re-spond hanwereWhitenon-Hispanicmothers.Nodifferences n responsewere found by mother'smaritalexperience,includingrecentness of di-vorce,focal child'sage or sex, sibshipsize or sexcomposition,maternalemployment,religion, orpresenceof anotheradult(not a partner)n thehouseholdatthe first nterview.Two indicators fmotheringbehaviormeasured n the firstsurveywere also associatedwithresponse o the secondsurvey:Enjoyableimes with the focal childwereassociatedwitha lower ikelihoodof response, o-cal child supervisionwith a higherlikelihoodofresponse.Focalchildresponsewas alsopositivelyassociatedwith mother'seducationand activitieswith children.As formothers, hildresponsewasnegativelyassociatedwithmaternaleports inthefirst nterview)of enjoyable imeswith the child.We investigated he potentialbias in modelsestimated rompanel databy includingthe pre-dictedlikelihoodof response n ourmodels.Forchildren's eports,we included wo separatepre-dictedvalues,one formaternal,he other or childresponse. Estimates of other structuraleffectswere not alteredwhen predictedresponsevari-ables were included.We thereforepresentesti-mates frommodelswithout hosevariables.We included n ouranalysismeasuresof threedimensionsof mothering:nvestments f time andsupervision, harsh discipline, and relationshipquality.In preliminary nalyses,we also investi-gated indicatorsof milder forms of discipline,findingno significant ifferencesby mother's art-nership experience. (Analyses availableon re-quest.)Becausewe did not have good indicatorsof mild discipline n the firstsurvey,we focus inthis articleon the dimensionsof mothering orwhich we have repeatedor similarreports rom

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the mother n bothsurveysandparallel esponsesfrom the motherandchild in the secondsurvey.We attempted o develop a smaller number ofscales thanpresentedhere,butexploratoryactoranalyses showed that very few indicatorsweresufficiently tronglyassociated o represent sin-gle latentconstruct.To create multi-itemscales,we averagedvalid item scores;respondentswhoprovidedvalidresponses orat least half theitemsin a scalereceiveda validscore.In thefollowingparagraphs, e firstdescribemeasuresof eachdi-mensionof motheringn thesecond nterviewandthenparallelor similar ndicators f motheringnthe first nterview.

Mother'sTimeand SupervisionInthefollow-up nterview,mothers ndfocalchil-drenwere asked to reporton the amountof timetogether,hat s, how manyhourseach weektheyspent imetogether, ne-on-one,upto a maximumof 50 hours.Because the tail end of the distribu-tionwaslongandthin,we truncatedhemaximumnumber f hoursat 10perweek.Amongmothers,13%reported erohours,20%10 or morehours,with a relativelyeven distribution etween1 and9 hoursper week. Mothers were also asked toindicatewhether hefocal childwas allowed o beat homealone in the afternoon, fterschool, latein theevening,orovernight.Supervision thomeis scored 1 if the child was allowed home aloneovernight,2 if allowed home alone late in theevening but not overnight,3 if allowed homealone in the afternoonbut not in the eveningorovernight, nd4 if notallowedhome alone at anyof thesetimes.Focalchildrenwere askedhow of-ten they were left at home alone duringthesetimes;we categorized achresponseasanytimeorneverandconstructed scale parallel o that formothers.Measuresof time and supervision n the firstinterviewwere not completelyparallel.Motherswere not asked the samequestionaboutone-on-one time with the focal child. They were, how-ever,askedto reporthow often they engagedinfourdifferent ypesof activitieswith one ormoreof their children (leisure activities away fromhome, at home workingon a projector playingtogether,having private alks,helpingwith read-ing or homework),withresponseoptionsrangingfrom never = 1 to almostevery day = 6. Theaveragedscale, child activities,has an estimatedreliabilityof .70. The same questionsabout su-pervisionwere asked in the first interview,and

we constructed scale identical o thatconstructedfromthesecond nterview.An additionalndicatorof priorsupervision notasked in the secondin-terview) s also included n ouranalysis.Mothersreported ow often the focal childwasrequiredoinformparentsof her or his whereaboutswhenaway fromhome,ranging romhardlyever = 1to all of the time = 4.

HarshDisciplineIn the follow-upinterview,motherswere asked"When (child) does somethingespecially bad,how often do you yell at him or her?Spankorslaphim orher?" and"How muchof the timedoyou yell or shout to get (child) to do whatyouwant or not to do what you don't want?" Re-sponse options for both questions rangedfromnever= 1 to always= 5, withabouthalfthetimeat the midpoint.Motherswere also asked howmany times within the past week they hadspankedor hit the focal childwhen he or she be-haved badly, scoredfrom none = 1 to threeormoretimes = 4. We averagedpairsof items re-ferring o yelling andto spankingorhitting,pro-ducing scales with estimatedreliabilitiesof .80and.92, respectively.Focalchildrenwereaskedhow often theirpar-ent(s)usedyellingto influence he child'sbehav-ior,withresponsesranging rom never = 1 to allthe time = 5 andhow manytimestheyhadbeenspankedor hit in the pastweek. Only 5%of thechildrenreportedrecent spankingor hitting,sothis indicatorwas dichotomized.Indicators f parentaldisciplinewereextreme-ly limited n the initial nterview.Mothers eport-ed how frequently heyyelledat or spanked rhitone of thechildren, esponsesranging romnever= 1 to very often = 4. In addition,they wereaskedhowmanytimestheyhadspankedhefocalchild in the past week (for focal childrenunderage 12),withnospanking r hitting= 1 andthreeor more times = 4. Yellingwas thereforemea-sured with a single indicator rom the initial in-terview, spankingby an averageof the two re-sponses,havinganestimated eliabilityof .57. Asnotedabove,we do notpresentanalyses ormild-er forms of disciplinein our analyses(e.g., de-nying privileges, explaining why behavior iswrong)becausewe do not have good indicatorsof those formsin the first nterview.

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Journal of Marriage and FamilyTABLE 1. MOTHERS'NEW PARTNERSHIPS ETWEEN

SURVEYSPartnershipExperience Number PercentRemainedsingle 229 54.9Cohabited,partnership nded 51 12.2Married,marriageended 23 5.5Cohabited,partnershipntact 29 7.0Married,marriage ntact 85 20.4Total 417 100.0

Relationship QualityIn the follow-upinterview,motherswere asked:"During he last 30 days,how oftendidyou and(child) talk about somethingthat was worryinghimor her? ... thathe or she was excitedaboutor interested in?" (1 = never ... 6 = almosteveryday). Childrenwere asked: "If you had amajordecisionto make.... felt depressedor un-happy...., how likely would you be to talk toyour mother?" (1 = definitely wouldn't .... 5 =definitelywould).Weaveraged achpairof itemsto measure he extentto whichthe mother ervedas a confidantorthechild,producingcaleswithestimated eliabilitiesof .51 and.71, respectively.As a measureof theirglobalrelationshipmothersand childrenwere asked: "Takingall things to-gether,on a scale from0 to 10 where0 is reallybadand 10 is absolutelyperfect,how wouldyoudescribeyourrelationshipwith (child/yourmoth-er)?"In the first nterview,mothers eportedhefre-quencyof "enjoyable imes" with the focalchildduring hepastmonth,ranging romnever= 1 toalmost every day = 6. They also provided anoverallratingof theirrelationshipwith the focalchild, ranging from very poor = 1 to excellent =7. And finally,they indicated he frequencywithwhichtheypraisedor huggeda child (notneces-sarilythe focal child), from 1 (never)to 4 (veryoften),producinga scale of warmthwith an esti-matedreliabilityof .48.At NSFH2,mothersprovided nformation nall cohabitingand maritalpartnerships etweeninterviews. Table 1 shows the distributionofunionexperience.Morethan half of the mothersremained ingle throughoutheperiodbetween n-terviews, about one fifth cohabitedand did notmarry,andmore hanonequartermarriedusuallyprecededby a periodof cohabitation).One fifthof themarriages nd morethanhalf of the cohab-iting partnershipshatdid not result in marriagehad dissolved before the second interview.Di-

vorced women were more likely to form a newpartnership,morelikely to marry,and less likelyto separaterom a new partnerhan were womenwho had not marriedby the time of the firstin-terview(dataavailableon request).

ANALYSES AND RESULTSExcept or themodelof child'sreport f spanking,estimatedwith logistic regression,models wereestimatedwith ordinary east-squares egression.As shownin Table1, we couldclassifymothers'partnership xperiencealong two dimensions-whethera partnershipwas cohabitingor maritalandwhether t hadendedby or was intact at thesecondinterview.Net of partnershiptatus(dis-rupted,ntact),we foundno significant ifferencesbetweeneffectsof cohabitingand maritalpartner-ships.Ouranalysis herefore ocuses on effectsofdisrupted nd ntactpartnerships,gnoring he dis-tinctionbetweenmarriage ndcohabitation. ote,however, hatcohabitingpartnershipswere morelikely to end than weremarriages.Weconductedpreliminary nalyses o identifydemographicand socioeconomic characteristicsthatwere significantlyassociatedwithmotheringat NSFH2.We considerednot only focal child'ssex andageat NSFH2but alsomeasures f familyand maternalcharacteristics t NSFH1: sibshipsize andsex compositionandageof youngest ib-ling;mother'smarital tatusandrecentnessof di-vorce;mother'seducation,home ownership, th-nicity, and religion;and whetheranotheradult(not a partner) lived with the mother andchild(ren).Parallelmeasuresat NSFH2were notincludedbecausetheycould be the consequencesrather han causes of partnership xperiencebe-tween interview.Finalmodelsincludeonly char-acteristics hat were statistically ignificantlyas-sociatedwith NSFH2 motheringor that alteredcoefficientsfor partnershipxperiencewhen in-cluded in the model. We note in particularhatmotherswhohadbeendivorced or shorter rlon-gerperiodsat NSFH1did not differ n motheringat NSFH2,net of othereffects;significantdiffer-enceswere foundbetweenmotherswhohadneverbeen marriedand those who were divorced atNSFH1.Parallelanalyseswere conducted o se-lect appropriateontrols ormothering tNSFH1.We considerednot only indicators romthe samedomain of mothering,but also indicators romotherdomains. nmostcases,thestrongest ronlystatistically ignificantassociationswerebetweenparallelmeasuresat NSFH1andNSFH2.

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TABLE 2. MOTHERING BEHAVIOR AND MOTHER-CHILD RELATIONSHIPS BY PARTNERSHIP EXPERIENCERemained Disrupted IntactSingle Partnership Partnership All Mothers

M SD M SD M SD M SD NNSFH1 MotheringChild activities 4.68 0.90 4.65 0.95 4.70 0.89 4.68 0.90 402

Supervisionat home 3.63 0.58 3.61 0.59 3.60 0.60 3.62 0.58 348Parents nformed 3.89 0.43 3.98 0.13 3.92 0.31 3.91 0.37 357Yelling 2.91 0.75 2.86 0.78 2.75 0.72 2.86 0.75 400Spanking/hitting 1.37* 0.71 1.54* 0.74 1.25* 0.68 1.37 0.72 417Global relationship 6.48 0.81 6.47 0.83 6.42 0.82 6.46 0.81 377Enjoyabletimes 5.13 1.14 4.95 1.43 5.10 1.00 5.09 1.16 416Warmth 3.77 0.36 3.80 0.33 3.81 0.33 3.79 0.35 401NSFH2 MotheringTime togethermother 4.56 3.46 4.27 3.59 4.09 3.43 4.37 3.46 361child 3.21 4.40 3.27 4.11 2.57 4.52 3.02 4.39 296Supervisionat homemother 2.71 0.97 2.59 0.94 2.70 0.97 2.68 0.97 361child 2.79 1.11 2.79 1.18 2.58 1.00 2.73 1.09 311Yellingmother 3.06* 1.19 3.25* 1.13 2.60* 1.12 2.97 1.18 363child 2.45* 1.18 2.65* 1.16 2.02* 0.94 2.35 1.13 307Spanking/hittingmother 1.29* 0.52 1.31* 0.61 1.09* 0.22 1.23 0.48 363child 0.01 0.24 0.10 0.31 0.00 0.15 0.01 0.23 308Confidantmother 3.94 1.21 4.14 1.15 4.02 1.00 4.00 1.14 413child 3.81 1.02 3.77 0.95 3.98 0.87 3.86 0.97 309Global relationship

mother 8.43 1.52 8.36 1.72 8.44 1.57 8.42 1.57 413child 8.16* 2.10 8.67* 1.52 8.72* 1.41 8.41 1.85 306*p < .05.

In both interviews,a relatively arge numberof respondents10-15%)didnotprovideanswersto one or anotherquestionpresentedn self-enu-meratedquestionnaires.Unfortunately,severalquestionsabout motheringwere presentedthisway, ratherthan in the personalinterview. Forsome mothers, moreover, he focal child was ayear or so too young (supervision)or too old(spanking)at the firstinterviewfor the questionto have been asked.Tomaximizethe size of ouranalyticsample,we used scores predicted romdemographicand socioeconomiccharacteristics(including he child's sex andage at NSFH1)tosubstitute or missing data on motheringat thefirstinterview and includeddummyvariables nourmodelsto identifycaseswithpredictedcores.Remainingdifferencesbetween the total andan-alytic samplesare due to nonresponseon mea-sures of motheringat NSFH2or,in a very smallnumberof cases, to missinginformation n edu-cation,employment, r homeownership.Theprimary dvantage f paneldata orstudy-ing effectsof partnershipxperienceand statuson

mothering s that we can controlfor motheringbehaviorbeforethe formationor dissolutionof anewpartnership.Mothering ehaviormay varybya woman's capacity for interpersonal elation-ships,her relative nterest n findinga newpartner,and a varietyof otherdispositions hat couldde-terminewhether he entersa new partnershipndwhetherthat partnershipurvives to the secondinterview. f we control ormothering t theinitialinterview,we arein effectcontrollingora majorformof selection nto andoutof newpartnershipsandcanmakestrongernferencesabout heeffectsof partnershipxperienceon mothering t thesec-ond interview than when only socioeconomiccharacteristicsrecontrolled.Toidentifypotential electionof different ortsof mothers nto and out of new partnerships, eestimatedassociationsbetweenmotheringbehav-ior and mother-child elationships t the firstin-terview and the mother'spartnershipxperiencebetweeninterviews.We estimated he zero-orderassociation and associations adjusted for thechild'sageatthe first nterview,andwe compared

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TABLE . EFFECTSFPARTNERSHIPXPERIENCENMOTHERS'IMEANDSUPERVISIONTime Together Supervisionat Home

Mother'sReport Child'sReport Mother'sReport Child's ReportB SE B SE B SE B SE

Disruptedpartnership -.484 .503 .352 .739 -.325** .101 189 .160Intactpartnership -.645 .421 -.658 .581 -.008 .085 -.338** .125Child age in years -.007 .083 .161 .123 -.224** .024 -.216** .036Female child -.486 .366 .133 .871 -.006 .074 .003 .182Never marriedNSFH1 -.416 .413 .396 .600 .001 .097 -.006 .150NSFH1 MotheringChild activities .551** .220Supervisionat home .328** .080 .007 .116Parents nformed .181* .106 .294** .149Global relationship .409 .332 .008* .048Enjoyabletimes .157 .167Praise,hug .874 .569 -.300 .163Constant -1.174 2.734 -3.656 3.357 3.649** .782 7.144** 1.303AdjustedR2 .060** .028* .527** .304**Valid cases 345 287 341 297Note: Ordinary east squares regression estimates. Other control variables measuredat NSFH1 include time together,mother'sreport(any religion);time together,child'sreport(mother'semployment, sibshipgender composition);supervision,mother's report (mother's education, race/ethnicity,any religion, sibship size); supervision, child's report (same as formother'sreportplus sibship gender composition).All models include indicatorsof predictedNSFH1 motheringvariables.*p < .10 (two-tailed). **p < .05 (two-tailed).

results for the observedindicatorsandmeasuresthatincludedpredictedvalues for initial mother-ing behaviorandrelationships.Very few associ-ations were found. Mothers'partnership xperi-ence was not associated with measuresof timeand supervisionor the mother-childelationshipatthefirst nterview.As shown n Table2, we didfind evidence of selection on harsh discipline.Motherswhose newpartnerships ere ntactat thesecond nterviewhadreportedhelowest levelsofspankingor hittingand yelling (not statisticallysignificant)at the first interview,whereasthosewho formedand dissolved a partnershipetweeninterviewshadreportedhehighest evelsof harshdiscipline.The bottomhalf of Table2 reportszero-orderassociationsbetween mothers'partnership xpe-rience and motheringat the second interview.Here we findthat harshparentings also greaterat the second interview for motherswho endednew partnerships,s well as for motherswho re-mainedsinglebetween nterviews.Although ero-orderassociationsare not significantlydifferentfrom zero, parameter stimatessuggest reducedtime with children-and perhapsless supervi-sion-when mothers'new partnershipsre intactat the secondinterview.On the otherhand,focalchildrenreport significantlyhigherqualityrela-tionshipswith motherswho formed a new part-

nershipbetween interviews,whether or not thecoupleseparated.Table3 reportskey modelparametersor in-dicatorsof mothers' ime and supervision.As inTable2, coefficientssuggestless time with chil-dren ormotherswhosenewpartnerships ere n-tact at the secondinterview.Again,however,wecannotreject hehypothesisof no difference.Themeasureof mothers' activities with all childrenhas a relativelyargeeffectonhourswiththe focalchild,showingcontinuityn mothers' nvestmentsof time in childrearing.Other ndicators f moth-eringdo not have significant ffectsnet of mater-nal andfamilycharacteristics.Accordingo mothers,partnershipshat ormedand dissolvedbetweeninterviews reducedchildsupervision; according to children, however,motherswho remainedn partnershipst the sec-ondinterviewprovided heleast supervision.Thedifferencebetweenthesemodels andthe zero-or-der associationspresentedn Table2 is primarilydueto controls or child'sage.Becauseolderchil-drenare less strictlysupervisedand also inhibitthe formation f new partnerships,he directneg-ative effect of partnership xperience is sup-pressed n thezero-order ssociation.ndicators fsupervision t theinitial nterviewhavethelargestdirecteffects on supervisionat the secondinter-view.

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TABLE . EFFECTSFPARTNERSHIPXPERIENCENHARSHDISCIPLINEYelling Spanking/Hitting

Mother'sReport Child'sReport Mother'sReport Child'sReportB SE B SE B SE B SE

Disruptedpartnership .209 .165 .186 .189 .000 .062 .143 .664Intactpartnership -.315** .139 -.314** .150 -.162** .053 -.963 .805Child age in years -.001 .026 .002 'A0 -.004** .010 -.193 .137Female child .389** .193 .266 .219 .006 .045 -.583 .567Never marriedNSFH1 .188 .134 -.001 .173 .118** .057 .769 .595NSFHI motheringYelling .467** .085 .177* .095Spanking/hitting .159** .032 .314 .358Constant 1.185** .597 1.391** .629 1.577** .174 -2.199 2.358AdjustedR2 .125** .064** .207** .055*aValid cases 352 300 354 298

Note: Ordinary east squares regression estimates, except for child's reportof spanking (logistic regression estimates).Other control variablesmeasuredat NSFH1 include yelling, mother'sreport(mother'seducation,sibship size and gendercomposition); yelling, child's report (home ownership, mother's race/ethnicity, sibship gender composition); spanking,mother'sreport(mother'srace/ethnicity);spanking,child's report(mother'seducation,employment).Models also includeindicatorsof predictedNSFH1 motheringvariables.aCoxand Snell estimate.*p < .10 (two-tailed).**p < .05 (two-tailed).

Table4 showsthatmothersandchildrenagreeabouteffects of new partnershipsn harshdisci-pline.Motherswhosepartnershipsemainedntactyelled andspankedor hit less thanthose who re-mainedsingle between interviews.The fact thatcoefficientsfrom the logistic regressionmodelsfor children'sreportsdo not attainsignificancecouldbe due to poormeasurementn the child'sinterview,wherespankingorhittingwasreported

only for the pastweek. Althoughcoefficients ordisruptedpartnershipsare positive, yelling orspankingor hittingwere not significantlymorecommonfor those mothers han for motherswhoremained inglebetween nterviews.Harshdisci-pline at the firstinterview s stronglyassociatedwith harshdisciplineat the second interviewandaccounts for aboutone quarterof the effect ofpartnershipxperienceon harshdiscipline. Mod-

TABLE . EFFECTS FPARTNERSHIPXPERIENCENTHEMOTHER-CHILDELATIONSHIPConfidant Global Relationship

Mother'sReport Child'sReport Mother'sReport Child'sReportB SE B SE B SE B SE

Disruptedpartnership .239 .153 -.006 .160 -.122 .187 .448 .294Intactpartnership .002 .130 .218* .124 .194 .161 .631** .227Child age in yrs .000 .025 -.008** .026 -.000 .045 -.211** .048Female child .423** .183 .115 .109 -.007 .136 -.247 .201Never marriedNSFH1 -.007 .128 -.003 .143 .208 .177 .009 .263NSFHI motheringEnjoyabletimes .132** .050 .008 .048 .229** .061 .157* .090Praise,hug .334* .174Global relationship .549** .092 .374** .135Supervisionat home .471** .148Constant 1.529* .853 4.508** .533 2.417* 1.281 8.397** 1.331AdjustedR2 .046** .075** .274** .168**Valid cases 404 302 401 299

Note: Ordinary east squaresregressionestimates. Othercontrol variablesmeasuredat NSFH1 include:confidant,mother'sreport(sibship sex composition);confidant,child's report(mother'srace/ethnicity);relationship,mother'sreport(mother'srace/ethnicity,other adult in household);relationship,child'sreport(mother'srace/ethnicity).Models also include indicatorsof predictedNSFH1 motheringvariables.*p < .10 (two-tailed). **p < .05 (two-tailed).

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els thatcontrolonly for child's age and sex andmaternal ocioeconomiccharacteristicsroducedestimatedmeandifferencesveryclose to those re-ported n Table2.)As shown n Table5, childrenbut not mothersreport loser and bettermother-childelationshipswhen the motherremained n a new partnershipat thesecond nterview, omparedwithremainingsingleorseparatingroma newpartner.ndicatorsof relationship ualityat the firstinterviewhavedirecteffects on bothmothers'andchildren's e-

portsof relationshipqualityat the second inter-view. In addition,motherswho reportedgreatersupervisionwhen the child was younger reportbetterrelationshipsn adolescence.The positivecoefficientfor intactpartnershipss larger n thefull modelthan n the modelcontrollingonly forchild'sage andsex (analysesnotshown).This re-sult is consistentwith a selectionprocess n whichclose mother-child elationshipsnhibit the for-mationof new partnerships.

DISCUSSIONAND CONCLUSIONSIs remarriage r repartneringood for mothersandtheirchildren?The answer s yes, if ourpri-maryconcern s mothers'harshdisciplineandthemother-childelationship.Ourclearestresultsarethatmothersess oftenyell, spank,or hit childrenif they areliving with a new husbandor partner.In addition, rom the child'spointof view, a newintactpartnershipmprovesthe mother-child e-lationship.If we aremoreinterestedn supervision,how-ever,remarriager repartnering aynot be goodforchildren.Wefoundthatsupervisions greatestin stablesingle-motheramilies,butmothersandchildrendiffer n reportinghatcontinuing r dis-ruptedpartnerships roduce he leastsupervision.The comparisonwith intactpartnershipsoes notcorrespondo resultsfromcross-sectional naly-ses in which stepfamiliesprovidegreatersuper-visionthando single-parentamilies(Thomson tal., 1992). The results are, however,consistentwithoursimulated hangeanalysis Hanson t al.,1998) in which cohabitation r remarriageccel-erateddeclinesin supervision ollowingdivorce.It maybe thatfamilystability, atherhannumberof parents, acilitatesarrangementsor children'ssupervision thome.Residential nd otherhouse-holdchangesassociatedwiththeformation f newpartnershipsmaydisruptwell-established atternsof supervision Hansonet al.).Anotherpossibleexplanationor differentre-

suits is thatcross-sectional nalysesincludesin-gle-motherandstepparentamilies of varyingdu-rations,whereaspanelanalyses imit thedegreeofvariation tthe secondpointof observation. nourcurrentandprevious(Hansonet al., 1998) anal-yses, partnerships bservedat the second inter-view are of relativelyshortduration.Aftera lon-ger period of time, we might observe greatersupervision n the stable remarried r cohabitingfamilies,comparedwiththoseof long-term inglemothers.(Samplesize constraintspreventedourdistinguishing ffects of partnershipsormedordisruptedmoreor less recently n reference o thepointat whichmotheringwas measured.)On theotherhand,Thomson t al.(1992)did not findanydifferences n familyeffects linked to the timingof partnershipormation r disruption.We expected hat our use of paneldatawouldshow the extent to which selection of differentsorts of mothers nto cohabitingpartnershipsrmarriage nd,for some,intoa subsequent isrup-tion, could accountfor parentingvariationsbyfamilystructure bserved n cross-sectional nal-yses. Althoughwe found that motherswho usedless harshdisciplinewere more likely to be instablepartnershipst the secondinterview,otherdimensionsof motheringwere not associatedwithpartnershipxperience.And harshdisciplineatthefirst nterviewaccounted oronly a quarter f theassociationbetween partnership xperienceandharshdisciplineat thesecond nterview.Thesere-sults imply that analysesof cross-sectionaldatamay providereasonableestimatesof partnershipeffects on motheringbehaviorand mother-childrelationships.They could also, however,reflectpoor measurement f mothering(and thereforepoor estimatesof a selectionprocess)at the firstinterview.We weresurprisedo findno differencesn ef-fects of cohabitation r remarriagen mothering.We know thatcohabitingpartnersmay not havethe same commitmento a mother's hildrenasdostepfathers, ndwe observed hatcohabiting art-nershipswereless stable hanmarriages.SeealsoBumpass& Sweet, 1989.) It could be that oursample s too small to detect differencesbetweenmaritalandcohabitingpartnerships. nlya smallnumber f cohabiting artnershipsemainedntactwithouthavingbeen transformednto marriages,andonly a smallnumberof marriages ndedbe-fore the secondinterview.With a largersample,it maybepossible o identifydifferencesneffectsof partnershipormationor disruptionor cohab-iting and married ouples.

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ThefactthatNSFH ncludesbothmothers'andchildren'sreportsof motheringand the mother-childrelationship trengthensurfindingsn somerespects.Mothers'andchildren's eports roducedthesamepatternsorharshdiscipline;butmothersand childrendid not agreeon the particular x-periencesassociatedwith reducedsupervisionorrelationship quality. Limiting the analysis ofmothers'reportsto those whose child had alsoparticipatedidnot alter heseresults.The differ-ence between the two reportsof supervision-mothers'reporting n rules,childrenon events-may account for differences in those results.Womenwhose partnershipsndedmay admit toless strict rules but in fact leave their childrenaloneno less often thando motherswhoremainedsingle. Women n partnershipsmay in fact leavetheirchildrenalonemoreoftenthan heir"rules"dictate.On the otherhand,no suchdifferences nmeasurementouldaccount or thefact thatwom-en in partnershipson'tperceive heenhanced e-lationshipqualityperceivedby theirchildren.Anothersource of differences n resultsbasedon mothers'andchildren's eportss thatwe haveonly mothers' eportsof mothering t the firstsur-vey. In almostevery case, the estimatedcoeffi-cients for indicatorsof NSFH1 motheringwerelargerfor mothers'thanfor children's eportsofthe same underlyingvariable.To the extentthatwe have inadequately ontrolled or selection ofdifferent ortsof mothersntoandoutof newpart-nerships,ourestimatesof partnershipffectsmaybe biased.It is importanto keepin mindthroughouthisanalysis hatwe arenotcomparinginglemotherswithmothers n original wo-parentamilies.Oncea mother s single-through divorceoranunpart-neredbirth-she doesnotusuallyhave thechoiceof reforminga partnershipwith her child(ren)'sbiologicalfather.The choice is to remainsingleor to cohabitwithor marrya new partner. tablesingle motherhoodmay provide advantages nterms of supervision,avoidingthe risk of a sub-sequent partnershipdisruptionwith its addedstresson mothersandchildren.On theotherhand,marriagesor stablepartnerships ppear o offeradvantages or children n reducingharsh disci-pline and increasingchildren'spositive feelingsabouttheirmothers.Ourresults for harshdisciplineappear o bethe most consistent,robust,andtheoreticallyen-sible.Theyimplythat t is thepresenceof a part-nerrather hantheprocessof formingor dissolv-ing a partnershiphat inhibits harshdiscipline.

What we don't know is how partnerpresencemightexert suchan effect. Differentmechanismshave different mplications or singlemothers. fpartners nhibitharshdiscipline simply as wit-nessesto the mother'sbehavior, theradults n thehouseholdmightserve the samepurpose. f part-ners' economiccontributiono the householdre-duces maternal tress,we can envisionalternativesupportso singlemothers,ncludingdirectpublictransfers, ood jobs andhigh-quality,nexpensivechildcare. f it is directhelp with or indirect up-portfor the mother'schildrearing esponsibilitiesthat makesmothering asier,we may needbettercommunity resources for single mothers andgreaterpublicsupportor the difficultob theydo.

NOTEThis researchwas supported y GrantNos. HD29601and HD19375fromthe Center orPopulationResearch,National Instituteof Child Healthand HumanDevel-opment.The NationalSurveyof Familiesand House-holdswas supported y NIH/NIAGrantNo. HD21009.

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