Attitudes toward children and parenthood are usually formed early in life, though they may crystalize when the individual knows that he or she will soon become a parent.

Many factors influence the formation of attitudes toward children. First, young people’s earlier experiences with children have a marked effect on how they feel about them in general and about their own impending roles as parents. A woman, for example, who had to help care for younger brothers and sisters may have an unfavourable attitude toward children, or a woman who grew up as an only child may want many children to make up for the loneliness she felt when she was young.

Second, the experiences of friends, either in the past or at present, color the individual’s attitudes. For example, a young man who hears his friends complain about the financial burdens of parenthood may decide that he would rather not have children.

Third, a parent or grandparent who loves children and who pities people who are childless can influence a person’s attitudes favourably. Fourth, a person’s attitude toward the sex of the unborn child can be influenced by stereotyped ideas – that boys are “a handful,” for example.

Fifth, the mass media tend to glamorize family life and the parental role. The attitudes of an adult whose own experiences with children have been limited may be profoundly influenced by “family shows” on television.

Conditions Influencing Attitudes

Many conditions affect the attitudes – both favourably and unfavourably – of parents, siblings, and grandparents toward a child. The most commonly reported of these are summarized below:

Conditions Affecting Attitudes of Significant People

Mother’s Attitude

  • Love of children
  • Desire for companionship
  • Desire to please her husband or improve a poor marital relationship
  • Desire to be like her friends who have children
  • Feelings of inadequacy for the parental role
  • Resentment at having to give up a career
  • Fear of childbirth or of having a defective child
  • Resentment at the physical discomforts and weight gain associated with pregnancy
  • Resentment at being overworked or tied down

Father’s Attitude

  • Desire for a son to carry on the family name or be associated with him in business
  • A need to prove his virility to himself and others
  • Feelings of inadequacy for the parental role
  • Resentment at interference with educational or vocational plans
  • Worry about the financial burdens of raising a child
  • Worry about the financial burdens of raising a child
  • Resentment at being tied down

Sibling’s Attitudes

  • Desire for a playmate
  • Desire to have as many siblings as their friends
  • Fear of losing parental affection and attention
  • Fear of having to share a room or toys with the new sibling or having to help care for it
  • Desire for sympathy from friends who complain about their own siblings.

Grandparents’ Attitudes

  • Desire for a grandchild to carry on the family name
  • Love of children
  • Desire to feel useful by helping care for the grandchild
  • Fear of being imposed on for financial or other help

A careful study of the conditions listed in this box will show that different conditions affect the attitudes of different significant people. For example, the attitudes of siblings are affected by conditions that are different from those of the mother or of the father or of the grandparents – just as the mother’s attitudes are affected by conditions different from those of the father, of the siblings, or of the grandparents.

Persistence of Attitudes

Likes, dislikes, prejudices, and attitudes, once formed, tend to persist, though slight changes are possible. The changes that do occur are usually in the form of modifications of existing attitudes; these attitudes become less or more favourable than they originally were. Thus changes in attitudes are quantitative rather than qualitative. For example, a teenage boy’s hero worship of a well-known football player may diminish when he discovers that his idol has faults not readily apparent at first. Similarly, a person’s dislike for someone of a different race, religion, or socioeconomic background may mellow somewhat with personal contacts. Such changes are modifications of already-existing attitudes.

There are two reasons for persistence of attitudes. First, attitudes tend to persist because they are based on beliefs the individual considers to be valid and justified. After all, the hero-worshipping teenager contends, his idol certainly must be someone special if he has become a hero to others too.

Siblings and other significant people in the life of the unborn child have reasons for wanting or not wanting the child, and they consider these reasons valid. Hence their attitudes, like those of parents, tend to persist, though they too may be modified.

The second reason for the persistence of attitudes toward a child, formed before the child’s birth, are that they are usually highly emotionally toned. And, like all emotional attitudes, they are difficult if not impossible to change. A woman, for example, who as a girl resented having to give up some of the time she wanted to spend with her friends to help with the care of younger siblings, is likely to resent being tied down again with the care of a child, even if it is her own.

Attitudes may appear to change, but there is evidence that they change far less than they may appear to on the surface. This is because most people try to cloak their own unfavourable attitudes toward their children when they realize that social attitudes toward them will be unfavourable attitudes toward their children when they realize that social attitudes toward them will be unfavourable if they express in words or actions their unfavourable attitudes toward their own children.

A man, for example, who is upset and resentful at the privations fatherhood brings, may and often will tell others that he is delighted at the prospects of having a child. At home, he may accuse his wife of “being careless” and allowing herself to become pregnant, but, to those outside the home, the camouflage of his true feelings will usually be adequate to make others believe that he is delighted at the prospect of becoming a father and, later, in his role or father.

To date, relatively few studies have been made of the persistence of attitudes toward family members, partly because of the problems inherent in making such studies – such as the difficulty of getting accurate reports of attitudes, especially when they are unfavourable – and partly because of the difficulty of following the same group of subjects for a long enough period of time to assess whether their attitudes have persisted or changed over a span of time.

A study by Schaefer and Bayley concentrated on the persistence of maternal behaviour toward boys from birth through the preadolescent years. Because behaviour is greatly influenced by attitudes, the results of this study help to throw light on the persistence of attitudes. These researchers reported little change in maternal behaviour through the years, suggesting that attitudes likewise change little.