The effect of pregnancy planning on the quality of mother-adolescent relationships 15 years later was examined among 373 first-time parents and 472 experienced parents using a mediated moderation model. Among first-time mothers only, the experience of an unplanned pregnancy was related to higher maternal depressive symptoms when mothers also…

Prior research has noted that although cooperative coparenting between resident and nonresident parents is beneficial to children, this form of shared parenting is relatively uncommon. Relying on nationally representative data from two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 628), this study examines the importance of…

Despite growing numbers of singles, the idealization of marriage and child rearing remains strong, pervasive, and largely unquestioned. Guided by life course perspective, the purpose of this article was to examine familial and societal messages women receive when not married by their late 20s to mid-30s. Using descriptive phenomenological method,…

Using both quantitative and qualitative data, this study investigates the role of ultrasound technology on feelings of attachment and emotions experienced by expectant grandmothers. A total of 109 expectant grandmothers complete the 84-question Web-based survey. A 12-item scale is used to assess the impact of ultrasound on attachment. As expected,…

In this article, the authors argue that to understand the very low incidence of outside-of-marriage childbearing in contemporary Japan one needs to take into account perceptions of all possible solutions to a premarital pregnancy: marriage, abortion, and childbearing outside wedlock. To demonstrate the particular impact of these perceptions in…

There are good reasons to suspect that the transition parents go through when having their second child may be different from when having their first, yet these differences remain understudied. This study focuses on one specific area of possible divergence by looking at how first-time versus second-time mothers decide on maternity leave length. To…

In this study, the authors examined the associations between parental divorce, quality of relationships with parents, and dyadic adjustment during transition of 114 couples to parenthood. Data were collected during the third trimester of pregnancy and at 9 months postpartum. As predicted, the authors found that women from divorced families…

Mothers play an important role in promoting the sexual health of their adolescent children. Fifty-seven HIV-positive mothers with adolescent children participated in an in-depth, qualitative interview regarding whether they have talked to their children about safer sex and sexually transmitted disease (STD) prevention, including at what age they…

Theory suggests that relationship inequity will be associated with less marital and personal distress among the more religious, and that this interaction effect will be stronger for women than men. Data are from 178 married couples experiencing the third trimester of pregnancy of their first biological child. Five outcome variables were assessed…

This study advances our understanding of fertility norms by examining whether fertility norms remain stable over time. In addition, this article also investigates whether these norms are influenced by (a) sociodemographic background characteristics; (b) fertility norms of close family members: partners, siblings, parents, and children; and (c)…

Most research on nonmarital births focuses on disadvantaged populations. This study examined the childbearing expectations and experiences of a working-class sample, drawing on in-depth interviews with 30 cohabiting couples. Few couples in the sample were attempting to conceive; most desired to defer parenting. Three responses emerged to how a…

Research on nonmarital fertility has focused almost exclusively on unmarried mothers, due in part to a lack of fertility information for men. Cycle 6 of the National Survey of Family Growth allows exploration of nonmarital fertility for both genders.The authors compare the characteristics of unmarried first-time mothers (n = 2,455) and fathers (n…

The authors use data from the 2000 Census Public Use Microdata Sample to examine the likelihood of a birth event, defined as the household presence of a child younger than 2 years, for male and female professionals. Physicians have the highest rate of birth events, followed in order by attorneys and academics. Within each profession men have more…

Using data from Waves I and III of Add Health, this study examines early family formation among 6,144 White, Black, and Mexican American women. Drawing on cultural and structural perspectives, models of the first and second family transitions (cohabitation, marriage, or childbearing) are estimated using discrete-time multinomial logistic…

The majority of U.S. women who have abortions (61%) have children. This exploratory study analyzes qualitative information from 38 women obtaining abortions to examine how issues of motherhood influenced their decisions to terminate their pregnancies. Women in the sample had abortions because of the material responsibilities of motherhood, such as…