Unfit by Accident: Third-Party Perception of Parental Fitness Based on Childbearing Intention

Abstract

Prior research has examined the impact of unintended birth on parent and child welfare. The present studies examine another potential consequence: namely, how third-party observers react to information about parenthood intention. We examine whether the act of having intended (or not) to become a parent affects people’s impressions of (1) what type of caregiver the (un)intended parent will be, (2) the type of relationship the (un)intended parent will have with the child, and (3) potential outcomes for that family. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that people award less custody to accidental mothers and fathers because lack of intention during birth is perceived as decreasing parental quality and closeness between parent and child. Study 3 tests potential moderators of this effect including parenthood status and controllability, highlighting the potential negative consequences of this phenomenon for families in child custody disputes where third-party judgments are especially likely to bear weight.

Keywords

unintended childbearing parental intent child custody parent–child relationships

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

American Psychological Association. (2010). Guidelines for child custody evaluations in family law proceedings. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/practice/guidelines/child-custody.aspx

Aron

E. N.

Smollan

(1992). Inclusion of other in the Self Scale and the structure of interpersonal closeness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 596–612. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.63.4.596

Barber

J. S.

Axinn

W. G.

Thornton

(1999). Unwanted childbearing, health, and mother-child relationships. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 40, 231–257.

Baydar

(1995). Consequences for children of their birth planning status. Family Planning Perspectives, 27, 228–234.

Byrn

M. P.

Giddings

(2013). An empirical analysis of the use of the intent test to determine parentage in assisted reproductive technology cases. Houston Law Review, 50, 1295–1324.

Byrn

M. P.

Holzer

(2015). Codifying the intent test. William Mitchell Law Review, 41, 130–156.

Faul

Erdfelder

Lang

A. G.

Buchner

(2007). G*Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 175–191.

Finer

L. B.

Zolna

M. R.

(2016). Declines in unintended pregnancy in the United States, 2008–2011. New England Journal of Medicine, 374, 843–852. doi:10.1056/NEJMsa1506575

Hayes

A. F.

(2018). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

10.

Henrich

Hein

S. J.

Norenzayan

(2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33, 61–83. doi:10.1017/S0140525X0999152X

11.

Herman

S. P.

(1997). Practice parameters for child custody evaluation. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 57S–68S. doi:10.1097/00004583-199710001-00005

12.

Ketay

Welker

K. M.

Beck

L. A.

Thorson

K. W.

Slatcher

R. B.

(2018). Social anxiety, cortisol, and early-stage friendship. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. Advance online publication. doi:10.1177/0265407518774915

13.

Kost

Lindberg

(2015). Pregnancy intentions, maternal behaviors, and infant health: Investigating relationships with new measures and propensity score analysis. Demography, 52, 83–111. doi:10.1007/s13524-014-0359-9

14.

Kunin

C. C.

Ebbesen

E. B.

Konecni

V. J.

(1992). An archival study of decision-making in child custody disputes. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 48, 564–573.

15.

Lindberg

L. D.

Kost

Maddow-Zimet

(2016). The role of men’s childbearing intentions in father involvement. Journal of Marriage and Family, 79, 44–59. doi:10.1111/jomf.12377

16.

Logan

Holcombe

Manlove

Ryan

(2007). The consequences of unintended childbearing: A white paper. Washington, DC: Child Trends.

17.

Mellor

Vazire

Lindsay

D. S.

(2018). Transparent science: A more credible, reproducible, and publishable way to do science. doi:10.31234/osf.io/7wkdn

18.

Mosher

W. D.

Jones

Abma

J. C.

(2012). Intended and unintended births in the United States: 1982–2010. National Health Statistics Report (Vol. 55). Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics.

19.

Sonfield

Kost

Benson Gold

Finer

L. B.

(2011). The public costs of births resulting from unintended pregnancies: National and state-level estimates. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 43, 94–102. doi:10.1363/430941

20.

J. H.

(2017). Unintended birth and children’s long-term mental health. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 58, 357–370. doi:10.1177/0022146517717037

21.

J. H.

Addo

(2018). Born without a silver spoon: Race, wealth and unintended childbearing. Journal of Family and Economic Issues. Advance online publication. doi:10.1007/s10834-018-9577-4

22.

Sweeney

M. M.

Raley

R. K.

(2014). Race, ethnicity, and the changing context of childbearing in the United States. Annual Review of Sociology, 40, 539–558. doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-071913-043342

23.

Wallace

S. R.

Koerner

S. S.

(2003). Influence of child and family factors on judicial decisions in contested custody cases. Family Relations, 5, 180–188. doi:10.1111/jomf.12377

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.02 MB