London: English children whose mothers display negative parenting traits such as detachment, intrusiveness and controlling behaviour are more likely to have lower self-esteem, while for Indian kids the father’s behaviour has more of an impact, a new study has found. Researchers from University of Sussex in UK and University of the Negev in Israel interviewed 125 English and Indian families living in West London.
The study of English and Indian families living in Britain is the first to assess the impact on a child’s wellbeing of the household power structures that exist within different cultures.
Researchers found that children’s self-esteem is linked to the behaviour of who is considered the most powerful parent within the household. They found that English children whose mothers displayed more negative parenting traits – such as detachment, intrusiveness, lax enforcement of discipline, and controlling behaviour – reported lower self-esteem.
But, for Indian children, the father’s behaviour had more of an impact. In Indian culture, fathers are considered to be the head of the family, in terms of power and their role as disciplinarian. These differences often remain in spite of immigration into Britain, researchers said.
In contrast, in Western cultures, although still somewhat patriarchal, mothers have more central roles than fathers within the home and are often responsible for routine care and discipline. “Mothers and fathers play different roles in different cultures – these findings highlight the importance of these distinct gender-based power structures on a child’s self-worth,” said co-author Alison Pike, from the Universityof Sussex. The study was published in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology.
