WEBVTT
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(upbeat music)
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Let's talk about family,
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a complex topic to say the least.
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What is your relationship to your family,
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to your parents, to your children?
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Would you say that it's positive, maybe it's negative,
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maybe a relationship doesn't exist at all?
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In this episode
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we're going to take a long look at family dynamics
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from birth to adulthood, from closeness to estrangement,
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how these bonds are built and how they're broken.
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Because when you start unpacking familial relationships
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and how they came to be,
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you find there's so much to discover.
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(upbeat music)
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I'm Jacob Carozza and you're listening
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to "Now at Ohio State".
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We talk with researchers, innovators
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and bold thinkers who look at our world,
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see what the real challenges are,
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and create the solutions that people need now.
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Let's start at the very beginning.
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(baby crying)
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Even before the beginning, before a child is born.
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Believe it or not,
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parenting relationships start well before the baby arrives.
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How these co-parenting relationships shape up,
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the foundations they're built on, it has a profound impact
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not only between child and parent,
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but between the parents themselves.
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Ohio State's Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan
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studies these co-parenting relationships in depth.
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She focuses on how the adults
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in a family system coordinate their roles as parents
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and how that inevitably affects the child.
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Our Jeff Grabmeier sits down with Sarah to discuss her work,
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what she's discovered through her research,
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and how these findings can potentially help parents-to-be.
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(upbeat music)
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Hi Sarah.
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Thanks for coming in and talking to us today.
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You've spent a lot of your career studying co-parenting.
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Can you explain exactly what co-parenting is?
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Co-parenting relationships are those shared
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by individuals who have joint responsibility
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for raising particular children.
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So in any case where there's more
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than one parental figure parenting a child,
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those folks have some sort of co-parenting relationship.
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However, co-parenting relationships are not
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all created equal.
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Some are higher in quality than others.
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And high quality co-parenting relationships are those
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in which co-parents support one another,
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they're warm and cooperative,
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and they do generally a good job
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of coordinating their parenting roles and responsibilities.
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Unfortunately, some co-parenting relationships
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are lower in quality,
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and those relationships can be characterized
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by conflict, hostility, blame,
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disparagement of the other parent,
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parents parenting a relationship with the child
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and so forth.
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So often parents have a relationship with each other.
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They're married, they may be married or living together.
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They have some kind of romantic relationship.
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So this is actually different than that, right?
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So it's not like there's just one relationship here.
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There's a combination of relationships
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between all the people involved.
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Yeah, that's right.
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It's really interesting
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because the concept of co-parenting emerged
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during the 1970s when there was a spike
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in divorce rates in the US.
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And there was the realization
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that just because a couple got divorced
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or was no longer in a romantic relationship didn't mean
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that if they had shared children,
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that they weren't still in some kind
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of relationship with one another
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in relation to those children.
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And that's where co-parenting
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started being formally studied.
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And then the next sort of stage
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of research in the 1990s when I started getting involved
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in researching co-parenting
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was to take the concept and apply it to families
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in which couples are still together or married,
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because of the realization that the bond
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that individuals have, that co-parents have, is distinct
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from the romantic relationship that they might share.
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Because co-parenting relationships really focus on aspects
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of the parenting realm, and don't include other aspects
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of a romantic relationship
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such as intimacy or sexual interactions
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or even arguments about finances and things like that.
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I know one of the things that has really kind of
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dominated your research in the past years is
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a long-term research project that you and your colleagues
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did here in central Ohio that followed 182 couples,
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from prior to their firstborn child's birth
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through their seventh birthday.
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And you called this the the New Parents Project.
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Can you tell me a little bit about this project,
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and you know, what it meant
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for your research and what you found there?
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In general, in the New Parents Project,
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we've been very productive.
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And we published a lot of papers using these data.
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I would say that a couple of our key findings
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are one, that co-parenting relationships
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actually begin to develop prior to the birth of a child.
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And so in one study that we used data
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from the New Parents Project for,
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we actually took data from observations
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of expectant couples interacting together with a doll.
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They did this during the third trimester of pregnancy.
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We video recorded them at home,
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asking them to pretend it was the first time
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they were meeting their new baby.
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And to play in four parts,
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each parent play with the baby together
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and then put the baby,
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the baby, (laughing) the the doll to sleep
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in a little basket and talk about their experience.
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And these video recorded observations were coded
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for aspects of co-parenting behavior
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even though the parents were interacting with a doll.
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Then a whole year later
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when the couple's infants were nine months old,
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we observed them again interacting together
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with their real infants.
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And what we found was even after controlling
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for a host of other factors, that how couples interacted
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with that doll together
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in the the third trimester of pregnancy
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predicted how well they co-parented
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their real child together at nine months postpartum.
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So I think that's definitely one
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of the most interesting and novel findings from the study.
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Another one I would add is that we've found
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that early father-child relationship quality,
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so when fathers are engaged with their infants,
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they're warm and sensitive when interacting with them,
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that kind of behavior predicts
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children's social emotional development
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all the way out to age seven.
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So basically after accounting for, you know,
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the quality of mother-child interactions,
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that father child interaction quality
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appears to have a relatively long term impact
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on children's development.
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So what would be an example
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of a positive interaction, co-parenting interaction
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while playing with a doll,
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and on the other side something that might be less positive?
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Sure, okay.
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So a positive interaction would be one parent
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showing affection to the other parent
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while they're playing with the doll,
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or complimenting the other parent's parenting of the doll.
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I know that might sound kind of strange
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but we really ask the expectant parents to pretend.
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And so one parent might say something like, oh, you know,
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you're gonna be such a great mom,
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you're gonna be such a great dad.
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Like, things like that, you know,
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so compliments or genuine smiles and warmth.
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On the flip side, we did see some couples where
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the expectant parents were critical, if you can believe it,
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of their partner's parenting of the doll.
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The doll was designed to be like,
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in some ways, like a real infant.
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It had a floppy head, a floppy fabric head.
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And so, you know, you would see parents
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criticizing their partner for not holding the doll properly
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and those kinds of things.
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And you mentioned this, that one
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of the most interesting aspects of your work
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is your focus on fathers as parents and not just mothers.
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What have you learned about the role fathers play
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in their young children's lives,
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especially in the context of what the mothers are doing?
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Sure, so fathers who have high quality relationships
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with their infants and young children
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definitely make a difference in their development.
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And again, that's over and above what mothers contribute,
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which we've known for a long time is very important.
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The other thing I would say is that, however,
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fathers differ a lot
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in the extent to which they're involved
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in parenting infants and young children.
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Now that is for a lot of reasons.
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Some fathers are really involved and just as involved
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as mothers are, or may even be primary caregivers
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of infants and young children.
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But in other cases, fathers are less involved.
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And because of my interest in co-parenting relationships,
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those dynamics between parents with respect to parenting,
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one of the factors that I've studied
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that can influence fathers' involvement in parenting
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is called maternal gatekeeping.
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And so maternal gatekeeping encompasses
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beliefs and behaviors of mothers
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that may encourage greater father involvement in parenting
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or discourage greater father involvement in parenting.
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And so some of my research has focused
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on the role of mothers in father-child relationships.
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And what we find is that when mothers are more encouraging
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and less discouraging a father involvement in parenting,
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fathers are not only more involved,
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but also the quality
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of their interactions with their children are more sensitive
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and responsive and warm, which are exactly
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the kind of behaviors that promote
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children's positive social and emotional development.
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Your most recent study kind of has extended
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that work from the New Parents Project
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in that you used a national data set here that included
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a lot more families, a lot of low income families.
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And one of the key points that you found was
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that how mothers and fathers see each other as co-parents
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play a role in how well adjusted their kids become.
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That's pretty interesting.
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How did that work in what you found in the study?
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In the study, the parents each reported
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on their co-parenting relationship, and their perceptions
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of their partner's co-parenting behavior.
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And we found four patterns
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of perceptions of co-parenting relationships.
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One pattern was when both partners were like, yes,
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our co-parenting relationship is great
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and they saw each other very, very positively.
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And in those families, children fared the best
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in terms of their social and emotional development,
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which we gathered from surveys completed
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subsequent to the assessments of co-parenting.
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What was interesting, though,
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was that there was a group that we hadn't expected
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that emerged from the data that appeared to be more at risk.
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And this was a group in which the overall quality
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of the co-parenting relationship
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reported by parents was moderate.
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So it wasn't terrible.
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But fathers were markedly
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less positive about co-parenting than mothers were.
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And in these families,
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children's social emotional development wasn't as positive.
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So based on your work overall,
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what advice would you give to new mothers and fathers
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about how to develop the ideal co-parenting relationship?
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Okay, great question.
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I would say that a lot
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of preparation for parenthood tends to focus
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on buying things, acquiring things,
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figuring out what the birthing plan is gonna be
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or even taking, you know, childbirth education classes.
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A lot of those elements are important,
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but they don't necessarily focus
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on how a couple's relationship is going to change
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over that transition into parenthood.
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They don't necessarily focus on who's going to do what
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with respect to all the work involved in having a new baby.
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And yet those are the areas that tend to cause a lot
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of conflict for new parents.
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So I think it's very important
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for expectant parents to have lots of conversations,
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not just one conversation, but lots of conversations
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about how they think parenting
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and co-parenting should be after the child's born.
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And to then check in with each other frequently.
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I know this is difficult
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because having a new baby is so all consuming,
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but to check in with each other frequently about
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how your partner's feeling
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and how they're thinking about co-parenting relationship.
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You know, is this as they expected it to be,
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or are they doing more parenting
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or less parenting than they expected to be doing?
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I think that's really the most important thing
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is communication.
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'Cause even if you start off well when co-parenting,
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co-parenting a two month old is very different
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than co-parenting an eight month old
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or a 12 month old or 15 month old.
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So as children develop, it's really a process
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of communication and negotiation, I would say,
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in terms of making sure that you're still on the same page
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as your children grow and develop, and that you're really
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in a position where you can feel comfortable
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appreciating your partner's contributions.
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Thanks for joining us today, Sarah.
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I appreciate you talking about your work.
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(upbeat music)
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Now let's shift to later in life when children
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have now become adults and have greater power
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to shape their relationships with parents.
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For some bonds get stronger, more loving.
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For others, relationships are strained and deteriorating.
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Parent estrangement is becoming more common.
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Rin Reczek wants to know not just why
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but how this rise is redefining what family means.
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Rin's work at Ohio State focuses
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on parent-child ties through adulthood,
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why some are good and others are deeply painful.
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Jeff Grabmeier sits down
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with Rin to discuss these complicated relationships,
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how they come to be, and how we have the power
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to shape what these connections are.
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Hi Rin, thanks for joining us today.
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When I was doing some research for our conversation,
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I was surprised by how much has been written
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in the past several years about various forms
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of family estrangement, and how many people are asking for
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or giving advice about how to heal these relationships.
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Do you have a sense of why family estrangement
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00:14:15.780 --> 00:14:19.500
is such a big deal in our society right now?
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It could be that we're talking more about estrangement now
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because it's starting to become destigmatized.
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So it might just be
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that the prevalence rate has been the same
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or consistent at least over the last 100 years.
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We could kind of make a guess around that.
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But because of the rise of the internet,
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because of new estrangement groups on the internet,
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which I do think are happening,
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we're starting to see people talk about it more.
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We see people, I don't know,
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thinking more about becoming estranged.
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And so I think that might be increasing prevalence possibly.
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The other really important thing
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that I think is going on is changes in cultural norms
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around intimate relationships.
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What I mean by that is, I would say in the last 20 years,
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probably predating that,
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but especially in the last 20 years,
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we see a cultural change
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in thinking about the quality of our relationships.
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And that could go for marriage, friendship,
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family of origin, grandparents, siblings.
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In part I would say because of pop psychology,
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like a desire to be better in our relationships,
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learn how to communicate better,
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learn how to express our emotions more appropriately.
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And I think that is sort of filtering
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into the parent-adult child tie where now,
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especially younger cohorts who are kind of coming
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into this moment are saying, actually,
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I kind of want a better relationship with my parent.
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And if the parent isn't on the same page, that can lead
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to kind of tension and potentially estrangement.
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You know, you mentioned that there hasn't been a whole lot
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of research on on family estrangement.
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But just recently you and some colleagues did do
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one of the first national studies to look at trends
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in estrangement between adult children and their parents.
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What were the major findings in your mind from what you saw?
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So here's the rundown of the study.
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We basically found in terms of prevalence
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for this group of people
363
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that about 6% of adult children report any period
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of estrangement with their mother.
365
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And about 26% report any period of estrangement
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00:16:24.780 --> 00:16:27.540
across their kind of young and mid adulthood
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with their fathers.
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00:16:28.680 --> 00:16:31.230
So a ton more people are reporting estrangement
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with their fathers than their mothers.
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And I should say the way we are calculating estrangement
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in this study is that you either have no contact
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with one of the parents over the study period
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for any period of time,
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or you have very low contact and very low quality.
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And these are folks that we would call
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near estrangement or like, estrangement light.
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But regardless, these are people who do not
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have really strong relationships with their parents
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It seems like one of the things
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you're finding in all these strands here
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is that there seems to be more estrangement with fathers.
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Do you have any ideas why that might be?
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We know that due to gender norms,
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due to patriarchy and due to lots of other forces,
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women are much more likely to care for children.
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And this begins, of course, in early childhood, but they are
387
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more likely to have just more intense relationships,
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more emotionally close relationships than fathers are.
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Now, I don't wanna make it seem
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like there is something inherent about fatherhood that means
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that fathers aren't close to their children,
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lots of fathers are.
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But instead we think about these sort of ways in which
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our family are structured that might just
395
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create closer bonds with with mothers.
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We also know that there's much more likely
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to be non-residential fatherhood for young children,
398
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and this might shape later life
399
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adult child-father experiences.
400
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But I think overall it is this kind of different ways
401
00:17:56.400 --> 00:17:59.520
in which mothers and fathers, and this of course is thinking
402
00:17:59.520 --> 00:18:02.190
of a two-parent household in a heterosexual context,
403
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but the different ways that mothers
404
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and fathers do parenting.
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And this is also where I'd like to go back
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to the generational differences,
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because this again is a cohort of people who are, you know,
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in between their 40s and 60s of parents.
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We have a new generation of parents,
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in particular of fathers who may parent differently.
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And I think that's really important
412
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that we look at that generation and their parenting style.
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It may be that we see less fathers estranged
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from their children in newer cohorts.
415
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Are these child-parent estrangements
416
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normally for a lifetime or are they more short-lived?
417
00:18:37.890 --> 00:18:39.570
That's a great question.
418
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So one of the cool things
419
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about this data is it's longitudinal.
420
00:18:42.660 --> 00:18:46.860
So we were actually able to track everybody from 15 on.
421
00:18:46.860 --> 00:18:50.460
And what we found actually kind of did surprise us.
422
00:18:50.460 --> 00:18:53.040
We found that for the vast majority of people,
423
00:18:53.040 --> 00:18:55.500
estrangement wasn't long term.
424
00:18:55.500 --> 00:18:58.560
It was usually just for one wave.
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00:18:58.560 --> 00:19:00.330
In fact, especially from mothers,
426
00:19:00.330 --> 00:19:03.780
about 80% or so percent of people who were estranged
427
00:19:03.780 --> 00:19:06.570
from their mothers actually started contact again
428
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and had increased relationship quality
429
00:19:08.790 --> 00:19:11.130
in subsequent waves of the data.
430
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And this is true for fathers as well,
431
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just about almost under 70% of people who had periods
432
00:19:16.830 --> 00:19:19.230
of estrangement with fathers also reconnected
433
00:19:19.230 --> 00:19:21.780
with their father in later waves.
434
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Do we have any idea
435
00:19:23.100 --> 00:19:26.790
of what the most common causes of estrangement are?
436
00:19:26.790 --> 00:19:31.650
So for children, children perhaps not surprisingly
437
00:19:31.650 --> 00:19:34.620
cite the negative characteristics of their parents.
438
00:19:34.620 --> 00:19:38.160
So how they perceive their parents
439
00:19:38.160 --> 00:19:42.600
and their childhood in not so positive ways.
440
00:19:42.600 --> 00:19:46.470
And typically what's kind of articulated by adult children
441
00:19:46.470 --> 00:19:51.300
about parents includes physical, emotional, sexual abuse,
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00:19:51.300 --> 00:19:56.160
neglect, general mistreatment, poor parenting,
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00:19:56.160 --> 00:19:58.410
homophobia or transphobia,
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00:19:58.410 --> 00:20:01.800
parental favoritism, and parental incarceration.
445
00:20:01.800 --> 00:20:03.810
There's also some literature that suggests
446
00:20:03.810 --> 00:20:06.720
that some money and inheritance causes estrangement
447
00:20:06.720 --> 00:20:09.123
and rifts for children from their perspective.
448
00:20:10.020 --> 00:20:11.310
From parents,
449
00:20:11.310 --> 00:20:14.850
they often see that it's a child's romantic partner choice
450
00:20:14.850 --> 00:20:16.920
that causes estrangement.
451
00:20:16.920 --> 00:20:19.500
So not only the choice of a partner,
452
00:20:19.500 --> 00:20:22.380
but perhaps also that the partner pulls children away
453
00:20:22.380 --> 00:20:24.213
from their family of origin.
454
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Parents also point to therapy
455
00:20:27.360 --> 00:20:28.980
that their children are undergoing
456
00:20:28.980 --> 00:20:30.780
that is causing estrangement,
457
00:20:30.780 --> 00:20:32.370
that therapists are encouraging children
458
00:20:32.370 --> 00:20:34.979
to estrange from them.
459
00:20:34.979 --> 00:20:37.980
And there's also these sort of notions
460
00:20:37.980 --> 00:20:41.640
of the child turning on them, that something has happened
461
00:20:41.640 --> 00:20:43.740
and they can't really explain why the child
462
00:20:43.740 --> 00:20:45.780
no longer wants the relationship.
463
00:20:45.780 --> 00:20:47.940
There's other things like politics, values,
464
00:20:47.940 --> 00:20:50.460
and children's life decisions that parents point to
465
00:20:50.460 --> 00:20:52.140
as causing estrangement.
466
00:20:52.140 --> 00:20:53.670
So these are like the moments
467
00:20:53.670 --> 00:20:56.310
or things that people say causes estrangement,
468
00:20:56.310 --> 00:20:58.170
and I think they're really important.
469
00:20:58.170 --> 00:21:00.030
That disconnect is quite clear, right,
470
00:21:00.030 --> 00:21:02.550
the different generational disconnect.
471
00:21:02.550 --> 00:21:05.130
what I think is happening today is changes
472
00:21:05.130 --> 00:21:06.240
in our understanding
473
00:21:06.240 --> 00:21:10.230
of what the parent-adult child relationship should be.
474
00:21:10.230 --> 00:21:11.340
You talk about this
475
00:21:11.340 --> 00:21:14.160
in terms of what you call compulsory kinship.
476
00:21:14.160 --> 00:21:15.480
So people feel
477
00:21:15.480 --> 00:21:19.320
like they have to keep their ties with their parents?
478
00:21:19.320 --> 00:21:22.980
Compulsory kinship is when we talk about
479
00:21:22.980 --> 00:21:26.130
kind of these big picture structural forces in sociology,
480
00:21:26.130 --> 00:21:28.980
what we're talking about is the water we're swimming in
481
00:21:28.980 --> 00:21:31.200
that we can't actually even see.
482
00:21:31.200 --> 00:21:35.490
So there's sort of these deep seated cultural belief systems
483
00:21:35.490 --> 00:21:37.830
about what family is
484
00:21:37.830 --> 00:21:39.930
and what the parent-child tie should be.
485
00:21:39.930 --> 00:21:42.480
And in the book we really talk about the ways
486
00:21:42.480 --> 00:21:45.540
in which not only relationships with parents and children
487
00:21:45.540 --> 00:21:47.520
but also siblings and grandparents
488
00:21:47.520 --> 00:21:49.620
and all the other family of origin relationships
489
00:21:49.620 --> 00:21:53.400
that we have are held together by compulsory kinship,
490
00:21:53.400 --> 00:21:58.400
by the expectation that these ties are maintained.
491
00:21:58.830 --> 00:22:02.190
Which is really what makes them hard to break.
492
00:22:02.190 --> 00:22:05.190
And most people's values are not to break them.
493
00:22:05.190 --> 00:22:08.250
Obviously it's great to try to heal relationships
494
00:22:08.250 --> 00:22:10.798
with parents that may have become estranged,
495
00:22:10.798 --> 00:22:13.620
but even if you can't, that's okay.
496
00:22:13.620 --> 00:22:16.080
And that there are ways to build relationships,
497
00:22:16.080 --> 00:22:18.990
to build new kinds of family
498
00:22:18.990 --> 00:22:21.543
even without the family of origin.
499
00:22:22.380 --> 00:22:25.623
Yeah, I think this is a really important message.
500
00:22:26.670 --> 00:22:30.480
People really do try to stay connected
501
00:22:30.480 --> 00:22:35.310
to their family of origin, but sometimes it doesn't work.
502
00:22:35.310 --> 00:22:38.040
But if we can kind of think about, first of all,
503
00:22:38.040 --> 00:22:42.450
de-stigmatizing this experience, again, perhaps like divorce
504
00:22:42.450 --> 00:22:45.060
where it's a part of our relationship,
505
00:22:45.060 --> 00:22:46.819
sometimes they don't work.
506
00:22:46.819 --> 00:22:51.819
We can form new bonds that perhaps can be just as supportive
507
00:22:53.280 --> 00:22:57.870
and loving and fulfilling as the family of origin can be.
508
00:22:57.870 --> 00:22:58.830
I think adult children
509
00:22:58.830 --> 00:23:01.530
have a little bit easier time doing that.
510
00:23:01.530 --> 00:23:03.630
And from the people that I've talked to,
511
00:23:03.630 --> 00:23:06.180
because they often initiate estrangement,
512
00:23:06.180 --> 00:23:07.680
they of course are in pain
513
00:23:07.680 --> 00:23:11.040
and most people do not really want to be estranged.
514
00:23:11.040 --> 00:23:14.760
But that they are able to form new family bonds
515
00:23:14.760 --> 00:23:18.480
with people who they connect to, who they share values with,
516
00:23:18.480 --> 00:23:20.430
who they feel communicate
517
00:23:20.430 --> 00:23:23.730
in ways that are respectful to them, these kinds of things.
518
00:23:23.730 --> 00:23:26.820
And I think that is actually really a wonderful thing
519
00:23:26.820 --> 00:23:31.820
to be able to meet yourself where you are, and as adults,
520
00:23:32.670 --> 00:23:36.750
form new kinds of loving, caring relationships.
521
00:23:36.750 --> 00:23:40.650
And so it is sort of a difficult thing to suggest,
522
00:23:40.650 --> 00:23:43.230
to say, okay, we have to accept, really,
523
00:23:43.230 --> 00:23:46.230
that sometimes relationships fall apart
524
00:23:46.230 --> 00:23:49.590
and we are still able to create community
525
00:23:49.590 --> 00:23:52.830
around ourselves despite the fact.
526
00:23:52.830 --> 00:23:53.670
Well thanks, Rin.
527
00:23:53.670 --> 00:23:57.350
I appreciate you coming in today and sharing your expertise.
528
00:23:57.350 --> 00:24:00.120
(upbeat music)
529
00:24:00.120 --> 00:24:01.200
Family.
530
00:24:01.200 --> 00:24:02.880
Family is a complex,
531
00:24:02.880 --> 00:24:06.030
multifaceted thing and it changes over time.
532
00:24:06.030 --> 00:24:09.780
It's redefined, reorganized and adjusted as we grow.
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Because when we really look
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at what family relationships are made of,
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we realize we have the ability to shape
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and mold connections that are most helpful
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and meaningful to us.
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And that, that is a very powerful,
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very crucial tool to have.
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(upbeat music)
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"Now At Ohio State"
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is produced by the Ohio State University's
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Office of Marketing and Communications.
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For more information, visit us at go.osu.edu/now.
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I'm your host, Jacob Carozza.
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Thanks for listening.
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(upbeat music)