A new survey of American parents shows that the majority believe they are better parents than their own were, and they are more affectionate with their children than their mothers and fathers were with them. Two-thirds of those surveyed said they were spanked by their own parents, but only half of the respondents spank their own children as often as they were spanked.
Although 61 percent of those surveyed believe that communication in today`s families is better and more open, 75 percent feel that, all things considered, it is much harder to be a parent today than in the past. The survey was conducted by Better Homes and Gardens magazine and was based on the responses of 30,000 readers to a four-page questionnaire that appeared in last January`s issue.
In contrast to dire revelations about the problems of American families,
”many of the findings were pretty positive,” said Kate Greer, the magazine`s managing editor. ”Some of the parents told us they felt this was the best-educated, most affluent and most socially aware generation of parents ever; there was a lot of confidence there.”
In describing their family life at home, 70 percent said it was
”loving,” 65 percent said it was ”fun” and only 4 percent felt it was hostile. However, 51 percent also said their family life was ”chaotic,” a finding ”we didn`t necessarily interpret as negative,” said C. Ray Deaton, the magazine`s director of editorial research. ”It could mean that there`s an awful lot of excitement, movement and change.”
A dash of discipline
Although they are less likely to spank their children regularly, the parents surveyed are nevertheless very interested in discipline. Fifty-one percent believe that their child-rearing methods are stricter than those of most parents they know.
The survey`s findings were not unrelievedly rosy, however. The majority of all respondents, 51 percent, said they were sometimes overwhelmed by their responsibilities as parents. Of those factors causing the most difficulties, the primary one, cited by 48 percent, involved finances. This was limited to lower-income parents, ”and we were surprised that this was the top problem that middle-income people cited,” Greer said.
Among other problems for parents, 43 percent said they had difficulty juggling work and home responsibilities, and 33 percent indicated that disciplining their children caused problems.
Of all the kinds of conflicts among parents and children, the respondents said that arguments between siblings caused them the most concern, followed by their children`s irresponsible acts and disobedience.
Despite the spate of books, magazines and newspaper columns on parenthood, 77 percent of the parents surveyed said they relied most often on ”common sense and intuition.” Only 25 percent cited ”books, magazines and television,” and even fewer, 22 percent, cited their own parents as sources of information.
One of the most reassuring findings was that the great majority of parents–8 out of 10–said that if they had it to do over again, they would have the same number of children, or more. And 90 percent said that having children was worth all of the sacrifices entailed.
”This counters the notion that people regret having children,” Deaton said.
The magazine`s editors make no claim that the survey is representative of all American families, because the magazine`s audience is largely middle-class and because the parents elected to be part of the survey by returning the questionnaires.
The average age of those surveyed was 37.6, three-fourths of them had attended college, 89 percent were currently married and their median income was $36,579, far above the national average.
The study was prepared with the help of the Opinion Research Corp. of Princeton, N.J., and its conclusions were based on a random sample of 2,000 of the responses to the questionnaires, 90 percent of which were filled out by mothers. ”We believe that the number of fathers–3,000–responding to the study was large enough to be meaningful,” Deaton said. —
