Couples' Cultural Values, Shared Parenting, and Family Emotional Climate Within Mexican American Families

Abstract

This study tested a model of shared parenting as its centerpiece that incorporates cultural values as predictors and family emotional climate as the outcome variable of interest. We aimed to assess the predictive power of the Mexican cultural values of familismo and simpatia over couples' shared parenting practices. We anticipated that higher levels of shared parenting would predict family emotional climate. The participants were 61 Mexican American, low income couples, with at least one child between 3 and 4 years of age, recruited from a home‐based Head Start program. The predictive model demonstrated excellent goodness of fit, supporting the hypothesis that a positive emotional climate within the family is fostered when Mexican American couples practice a sufficient level of shared parenting. Empirical evidence was previously scarce on this proposition. The findings also provide evidence for the role of cultural values, highlighting the importance of family solidarity and avoidance of confrontation as a pathway to shared parenting within Mexican American couples.

Contributions of Matrilineal and Patrilineal Kin Alloparental Effort to the Development of Life History Strategies and Patriarchal Values

“…Coparenting research on low-income Mexican American mothers and fathers of toddlers yielded results similar to research on White families (Sotomayor-Peterson, Figueredo, Christensen, & Taylor, 2012). Couples who reported a high-quality coparental relationship reported higher levels of positive emotional family climate.…”

Associations between Positive Parenting Practices and Child Externalizing Behavior in Underserved Latino Immigrant Families

“…This may suggest the value of engaging both parents in parenting interventions for Latino immigrant families. It may also be meaningful to promote shared parenting, as research with Mexican-American families suggests this is associated with a positive emotional climate (Sotomayor-Peterson, Figueredo, Christensen, & Taylor, 2012). …”

The negotiation of parenting beliefs by Mexican American mothers and fathers of young children

“…A number of survey studies have incorporated Latino/a parenting beliefs and values in some way, for example, by describing values endorsed by immigrant mothers on a parenting questionnaire (Fischer et al, 2009), or by relating cultural beliefs of Mexican-origin families to parenting practices (Sotomayor-Peterson, Figueredo, Christensen, & Taylor, 2012;Taylor, Larsen-Rife, Conger, & Widaman, 2012). However, our interest was in less structured approaches to the study of parenting beliefs involving interviews or focus groups, and qualitative analyses.…”