More than 200 New Zealand men and women studied repeatedly since age 3 were videotaped interacting with their own 3-year-old children to determine (a) whether childrearing and family climate experienced in 3 distinct developmental periods while growing up (i.e., early childhood, middle childhood, early adolescence) predicted parenting and (b) whether romantic relationship quality moderated the effect of childrearing history on observed parenting. Support for the first hypothesis emerged across all 3 developmental periods for mothers (only), with no evidence of moderating effects of romantic relationship quality for mothers or fathers. Results are discussed in terms of supportive versus harsh parenting, mother-father differences, and the characteristics of the sample.

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Evidence that the transition to parenthood is occurring at older ages in the Western world, that older parents provide more growth-facilitating care than do younger ones, and that most prospective studies of the intergenerational transmission of parenting have focused on relatively young parents led us to evaluate whether parental age might moderate-and attenuate-the intergenerational transmission of parenting. On the basis of the seemingly commonsensical assumption that as individuals age they often become more psychologically mature and have more opportunity to reflect upon and free themselves from the legacy of childhood experiences, we hypothesized that deferring parenting would weaken links between rearing experiences in the family of origin and parenting in the family of procreation. To test this proposition we repeated analyses reported by Belsky, Jaffee, Sligo, Woodward, and Silva (2005) on 227 parents averaging 23 years of age linking rearing experiences repeatedly measured from 3 to 15 years of age with observed parenting in adulthood; we added 273 participants who became parents at older ages than did those in the original sample. Although previously reported findings showing that rearing history predicted mothering but not fathering reemerged, parental age generally failed to moderate the intergenerational transmission of parenting. Other investigators prospectively following children and adults into adulthood and studying the intergenerational transmission process should determine whether these null results vis-à-vis the attenuation of transmission with age obtain when parents with older children are studied or when other methods are used. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

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Background To assess whether the age‐of‐onset or the recurrence of parents’ major depressive disorder (MDD), measured prospectively in a longitudinal birth cohort study, predicted offspring depression at age 15. Methods A two‐generation study of New Zealanders, with prospective, longitudinal data in the parents’ generation (n = 375) and cross‐sectional data from their adolescent offspring (n = 612). Parent and offspring depression was measured with structured clinical interviews. Parent depression was measured at six time points from age 11 to 38 years. Adolescent offspring depression was measured at age 15. Results Compared to adolescents whose parents were never depressed, those whose parents met criteria for MDD more than once and those whose parents first met criteria before adulthood had more symptoms of depression. The combination of early‐onset and recurrent depression in parents made adolescents particularly vulnerable; their odds of meeting criteria for MDD were 4.21 times greater (95% CI = 1.57–11.26) than adolescents whose parents were never depressed. The strength of the intergenerational effect did not vary as a function of parent or offspring sex. The prevalence of adolescent depression was 2.5 times higher in the offspring than at age 15 in the parents’ generation. Conclusions Recurrent depression in both fathers and mothers increases offspring risk for depression, particularly when it starts in childhood or adolescence, but a single lifetime episode does not. Health practitioners should be aware of age‐of‐onset and course of depression in both parents when assessing their children’s risk for depression.