Memories of being parented: relationship to current parenting practices

Memories of how one was parented and their linkage to current parenting practices were examined for one hundred parents of adolescents. Parents (65 women, 35 men) recalled their most important memories from childhood involving their mother and their father, and as well completed a survey of current parenting practices using a modified version of the Children's Reports of Parental Behavior Inventory. After recalling each memory parents were asked to indicate the degree of agency and communion and levels of positive and negative affect experienced. Cluster analyses of memories of one's mother and father each revealed four major types of memories. These were memories characterized by very high agency and communion and very high positive affect; those with moderately high agency and communion and moderate positive affect; those with relatively low agency and moderate communion with low levels of positive and negative affect; and finally a group with extremely low agency and communion and high negative affect. Analyses revealed that those with moderately high agency and communion and those with extremely low agency and communion were the parents who were least likely to use psychological control methods of discipline such as instilling guilt and persistent anxiety. Nor were they intrusively controlling. By contrast, those who reported extremely positive memories with high agency and communion were the most likely to use psychological control methods of discipline and to be the most intrusive and over-involved. Further analyses of the level of object relations revealed in the memories showed that for many in this latter group representations of people were rather simple, whereas representations in the other two groups were more complex. These patterns suggest that memories with an extremely high positive gloss may be defensively held and relatively unexamined, and that those holding such memories have not reflected on their parenting practices since they are the most likely to use discipline methods likely to inflict psychological pain. On the other hand, parents who recalled such negative interactions from their childhood had transformed the way in which they interacted with their adolescents so that they matched those who recalled positive experiences from childhood and who seemed to fully appreciate what they had been given by these experiences