Division of Labor and Multiple Domains of Sexual Satisfaction Among First-Time Parents

Abstract

Sexual satisfaction is an important contributor to relationship functioning that is not well understood among first-time parents, at a time when relationship functioning is important for the well-being of parents as well as the child. The current study examined how several dimensions of individual and relationship functioning among first-time parents (coparenting, division of household and paid labor, parenting stress, and role overload) at 6 months postbirth predicted multiple domains of sexual satisfaction at 12 months postbirth, in a sample of heterosexual first-time parents. Role overload, work hours, and division of household labor each predicted at least one domain of sexual satisfaction for both mothers and fathers, whereas parenting stress was a unique predictor for mothers only. The implications of these results for first-time parents are discussed.

Parenting Stress and Sexual Satisfaction Among First-Time Parents: A Dyadic Approach

“…Because our data come from a large-scale family intervention, intervention status was entered as a control in our final model. Other controls that have been identified in prior work on sexual satisfaction (Maas et al, 2015) or that could potentially influence levels of parenting stress, sexual satisfaction, or both (including family income, marital status, parent age, breastfeeding, and work status) were considered. To be the most parsimonious, these controls were ultimately removed from our final model because they were often unrelated to our study variables, and the results of our model did not change when controls were entered.…”

“…Our measure of sexual satisfaction, although serving our purposes of providing a global assessment of sexual satisfaction, could be improved upon in future studies. This one-item measure has shown good correlations with satisfaction in other areas such as the frequency of sex, romance, passion, and cuddling (Maas et al, 2015). However, future research could explore more specific areas of sexual satisfaction such as the frequency of kissing, cuddling, vaginal sex, oral sex, anal sex, length of foreplay, and orgasm quality.…”

“…Higher scores indicate greater sexual satisfaction. Prior research has shown that this single-item measure is significantly related to new parents’ ratings of their sexual and romantic relationship, including satisfaction with the frequency of sex, romance, passion, and cuddling (Maas et al, 2015). …”

“…They argued that employment falls within the traditional masculine gender role and that the stress experienced from unemployment may impair feelings of masculine identity. However, longer employment hours impact women’s sexual satisfaction: Some researchers have found a curvilinear relation between work hours and sexual satisfaction among mothers 6 months after a first birth, such that the greatest sexual satisfaction was reported by mothers working part-time (Maas, McDaniel, Feinberg, & Jones, 2015). This finding was consistent with scarcity theory in that as work hours increased beyond a certain range, sexual satisfaction diminished.…”

Technoference: Parent Distraction With Technology and Associations With Child Behavior Problems

“…Following other scholars in the field (e.g., Feinberg et al, 2010; Leavitt et al, 2016; Maas et al, 2015), we chose to use 27 items from the 36-item PSI Short Form due to lower factor loadings on 9 of the items, as was found by Abidin (1995). Items were averaged to produce an overall stress score (Cronbach’s alpha = .90 for mothers, .92 for fathers).…”