Parental Caregiving Goals and the Subjective Experience of Caregiving

The current investigation identified the goals that motivate parents to provide care to their children and how these goals relate to parents’ subjective experiences of caregiving. In two pilot studies and Study 1, a total of 1,137 parents were surveyed to develop the Parental Caregiving Goals Scale (PCGS), which captures four unique goals: child love and security, child growth and development, parent self-consciousness, and child acceptance. In Study 2, a cross-sectional study of 701 parents, the four-factor structure of the PCGS was confirmed and each goal was found to be related in unique ways to individual differences in parenting beliefs, concern for others, and self-focused concerns. The pursuit of child love and security goals was associated with greater emotional well-being, parent-child relationship quality, and responsiveness to a child’s needs, whereas parent self-consciousness and child growth and development goals were both associated with lower emotional well-being, parent-child relationship quality, and responsiveness to a child’s needs. Child acceptance goals predicted greater positive emotions only. In Study 3, a 10-day experience sampling study of 118 parents, the daily pursuit of child love and security goals and child acceptance goals predicted more positive caregiving experiences, whereas daily pursuit of parent self-consciousness goals and child growth and development goals predicted more negative caregiving experiences. Parents’ daily pursuit of each goal was also uniquely predictive of the caregiving behaviors in which they engaged. Lastly, while parental caregiving goal pursuit varied at the mean level based on parents’ own and their child’s demographics, these demographic characteristics largely did not change how caregiving goals predicted the subjective caregiving experience. Collectively, the current findings shed light on the goals that motivate parents to care for their children, provide insight into why parenting is both joyful and frustrating, and identify when parents feel most responsive to their children’s needs.Ph.D.2018-03-11 00:00:0