Some marital and child‐rearing characteristics of early mother‐bereaved women

Abstract

A sample of 160 female, psychiatric patients from North‐east Scotland whose mothers died before they were aged 11 was compared with 80 non‐bereaved, female, psychiatric patients, matched by decade of birth, from the same area. Six subgroups of the bereaved patients classified according to the events which followed the bereavement were also examined. In addition, samples of 44 and 27 women from the Chichester general population, whose mothers died before age 11 and from 11 to 19 respectively, were paired by age, parental social class and age at death of father, with Chichester women who were not mother‐bereaved. Comparisons were made in respect of age at marriage, relative age of subject and marital partner, quality and fate of marriage, delay between marriage and birth of first child, total number of children, and ability to cope with the birth and subsequent child‐rearing. The early bereaved women showed a tendency to marry younger men but otherwise their marriages were no different from those of the controls. The early bereaved had more difficulties with child‐rearing, particularly when their children reached adolescence. Surprisingly, the findings for the six subgroups were not appreciably different from those of the total bereaved patients.

Longitudinal Effects of Parental Bereavement on Adolescent Developmental Competence

“…These findings add to previous reports of adults who lost parents as children that found difficulties in intimacy, parenting, lower perceived support, and lower educational attainment compared to non-bereaved controls (Birtchnell & Kennard, 1982; Hepworth et al, 1984; Maier & Lachman, 2000; Marks et al, 2007). Studies conducted in Ethiopian and in Indonesian youth who lost their parents to HIV/AIDS or to a tsunami, respectively, also showed the negative impact of parental death on children’s school attendance, educational aspirations, and optimism about the future (Cas et al, 2011; Himaz, 2009).…”

“…To date, there is a limited literature linking parent loss to positive, adaptive, developmental outcomes. Early retrospective studies of childhood bereavement, typically in case series or controlled studies in referred or convenience samples, found that adults who lost a parent during childhood were more likely to have difficulties in educational attainment, the establishment of intimate and stable relationships, and parenting their own children (Balk, 1991; Birtchnell & Kennard, 1982; Harris, 1991; Hepworth, Ryder, & Dreyer, 1984; Jacobson & Ryder, 1969; Ragan & McGlashan, 1986). …”