PARENT DEVELOPMENT AND WELLBEING DURING THE LAUNCHING STAGE OF PARENTHOOD

At the present time, the young adult transition into adulthood has been extended, which has also extended the launching stage. One result of the extended launching stage is that parents are now involved in active parenting longer than before. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the extended launching stage in key areas (the parent- child relationship and parent support) on parental emotional wellbeing. The contribution of this research is that it adds to the limited body of knowledge about normative launching stage parenting practices and outcomes. This dissertation is a three chapter manuscript that uses data from the Longitudinal Study of Generations. Chapter one provides the background for the dissertation. Chapter two, using cross-sectional analyses, examines the effect of parent support and the parent-child relationship on parental emotional wellbeing between two parent cohorts—1985 and 2005. Chapters three and four are longitudinal studies that use cross-sectional regressions and fixed effect models to estimate parent role changes involving parental role evaluation and wellbeing at four time waves—1994, 1997, 2000, and 2005. Chapter three focuses on the effect of changes in parent support on parents’ emotional wellbeing. Chapter four investigates the impact of the parent-child relationship on parent role evaluation. The results of the analyses show that compared to their parents at the same point in their life course, contemporary parents have a lower quality of life. Results also find that over time, wellbeing is impacted by the quality of the parent-child relationship, but supporting young adult offspring does not impact self-esteem