Fathers’ Experiences in the Family of Origin and Parenting Participation: The Mediating Role of Generativity
AUTHOR : 김다혜, 김연하
INFORMATION : page. 45~62 / 2020 Vol.27 No.2
ABSTRACT
This objective of this study was to examine the structural relationships among the fathers’ experiences in their families of origin, generativity, and parenting participation. Specifically, the study aims to investigate the direct effect of the father’s experience in his family of origin and the indirect effect of the generativity on parenting participation. To this end, research data was collected from 256 parenting couples living in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do with young children aged 3, 4, and 5 years. The collected data were analyzed through the structural equation modeling. The result demonstrate a significant positive correlation between the emotional health of father’s origin family, parental attachment, generativity and parenting participation. Further, with regard to the effect of the father’s experience in his family of the origin on parenting participation, the structural equation modeling results verifying the mediating effect of the generativity show that the complete mediation model was suitable for the analysis. In other words, fathers with higher awareness of emotional health of their origin family and with experience of positive attachments led to a high level of generativity, and fathers with a high level of generativity were also more active in parenting. The result of this study allow the conclusion that the farther’s positive experience in his family of origin encourages the formation of generativity, an important psychosocial development achievement. This again proves that there is a ‘virtuous cycle of generativity transferred between generations’ when fathers actively participate in parenting.