Influences on Parenting Quality
Parenting is such a wildly complex and subtle
process that it is necessary to use several levels of anal-
ysis in order to gain a well-rounded understanding of
the entire process. For instance, from most fine-
grained to most general, one can examine parent-
child interaction, parenting style or family climate,
the family as a system, and, finally, influences on par-
enting quality altogether external to the family.
Parental Employment
One factor external to the family, but important
to the parenting process, is parental employment.
Employment affects parents as individuals since the
way they feel about work is often brought home after
work, a process called spillover. Parents with very de-
manding jobs have been found in research studies to
shy away from complex parenting tasks such as help-
ing with homework. A disengaged parenting style is
one in which a parent seeks to do the minimum re-
quired when interacting with offspring. This ap-
proach may be more likely when parents are
emotionally and cognitively drained from work. Dis-
Individual parents bring unique levels of personal resources to the parenting process, including the cumulative effects of upbringing,
education, employment, and mental health. (AP/Wide World Photos)
engaged parenting style has been shown to be related
to poor outcomes for children. Jobs also affect par-
ents’ skills, attitudes, and perspectives through pro-
viding practice at the objective tasks that they
perform on the job. From this point of view, jobs
shape parents developmentally over time, reinforcing
particular strengths and weaknesses.Parental employment changes the allocation of
responsibilities and power in the family. Children
may be asked to be responsible for chores at an earlier
age when both parents are employed. Although the
data are not conclusive, fathers may take on more re-
sponsibility for running the household when mothers
are employed. The adjustment each family member
makes to the time management and effort jobs re-
quire of parents determines the effect employment
has on children. In other words, with respect to chil-
dren’s development, employment versus nonemploy-
ment is less informative than details about the job and
family functioning, such as quality of the home envi-
ronment and parental involvement.298 PARENTING