A new study indicates that women who have poor relationships with their parents may grow up to be pessimistic and nervous mothers. Today, the New York Times printed a questionable article entitled, "Mad At Your Parents? Motherhood May Be Rocky." Their claim is this:

The study suggested that women who felt their childhood relationships with their parents were characterized by “rejection and unresolved conflicts” were likely to view children as more demanding compared to women with happier childhoods. Women with childhood conflict also may become stricter parents. Women who clashed with their parents were also more likely to indicate they would set a lot boundaries for their children than other women in the study.

The article went on to quote a researcher, who believes this information can be beneficial in the future:

Such an evaluation will enable early identification of women who are concerned they will have difficulty contending with parental roles and offer them tools that will help them adapt better to the transition to motherhood.

First, I need to state that this study was only done with 160 women, so it is hardly an indication of every woman's feelings. Second... "concerned they will have difficulty contending with parental roles"? I'm sorry, but don't ALL new mothers experience that? I would be nervous as hell if I were about to give birth to a child that will depend on me for the next eighteen years. I don't think it has to do entirely with a woman's relationship with her parents. My mother didn't have a great relationship with her father, and she turned out to be a wonderful mother who was far from strict. And third... why is there not a study done about new fathers and their adjustment to parental roles? I should think men have just as much of a difficult time dealing with being a father as a woman does being a mother.



Eh?

Full article here.