This study examined the relationship between young adolescent girls' feelings of closeness to mother and father and the ages at which they expected to make certain transitions to adult life, including becoming sexually active, marrying, becoming a mother, establishing an independent residence, completing education, and beginning to work full-time. Interviews with 106 girls (13-17 years of age) from a rural school district were conducted. Results indicated that the closer girls felt to their mothers, the later they expected to make the transitions related to sexuality and family formation. Feelings of closeness to father covaried with girls' expectations of becoming sexually active later but were not related to expectations about the timing of other transitions. Although analyses of the stability of girls' ideas about life course timing revealed considerable stability in girls' timing expectations across a six-month period, it was also clear that some shifting in ideas about life course transitions and timing had occurred. A more fine-grained study of continuity and change in these ideas across the adolescent years would be a promising direction for future research.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.