Abstract

Objectives

Multi-actor data show that parents’ and adult children’s evaluations of their relation do not necessarily match. We studied disagreement in parent- and child-reported closeness, comparing parent–child dyads involving separated parents, non-separated parents, and stepparents to shed new light on today’s diverse landscape of adult parent–child relations.

Method

Using data from the Parents and Children in the Netherlands (OKiN) survey, we analyzed closeness in parent–child dyads (N = 4,602) comparing (step)parents’ and their adult children’s (aged 25–45) reports. To distinguish directional disagreement (i.e., differences in child- and parent-reported means) from nondirectional disagreement (i.e., the association between child- and parent-reported measures), while accounting for absolute levels of closeness, we estimated log-linear models.

Results

All types of parents tend to report higher levels of closeness than their children. Whereas parental overreport is more prevalent among biological father–child dyads than among biological mother–child dyads, we found no differences between biological dyads and stepdyads. The association between children’s and parents’ reports is higher among dyads involving stepmothers or married mothers than among those involving separated mothers and (step)fathers.

Discussion

The intergenerational stake (i.e., parental overreport) is not unique to biological parent–child relations. Instead, patterns of disagreement seem most strongly stratified by gender.

中文翻译：

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成人亲子二人组的亲密感：家庭复杂性背景下的不对称性。

 抽象的

 目标

多主体数据显示，父母和成年子女对其关系的评价并不一定一致。我们研究了父母和孩子报告的亲密关系的分歧，比较了涉及分居父母、非分居父母和继父母的亲子二人组，为当今成人亲子关系的多样化景观提供了新的视角。

 方法

利用荷兰父母与儿童 (OKiN) 调查的数据，我们分析了亲子二人组 ( N = 4,602) 的亲密程度，比较了（继）父母及其成年子女（25-45 岁）的报告。为了区分方向性分歧（即儿童和家长报告的平均值的差异）与非方向性分歧（即儿童和家长报告的测量值之间的关联），同时考虑绝对的密切程度，我们估计了对数线性模型。

 结果

所有类型的父母都倾向于比他们的孩子表现出更高的亲密程度。尽管父母的过度报告在亲生父子二人组中比在亲生母子二人组中更为普遍，但我们发现亲生二人组和继父子组之间没有差异。在涉及继母或已婚母亲的二人组中，儿童和父母的报告之间的相关性高于涉及分居母亲和（继）父亲的二人组。

 讨论

代际利益（即父母的过度报告）并不是亲子关系所独有的。相反，分歧的模式似乎按性别划分最为明显。