Motherhood motivation: childhood experiences, attachment style, feminisim, sex-role identity and fertility awareness

This study investigated the contribution of demographic and psychological variables such as childhood experiences, attachment and socio-cultural factors to motherhood motivation by utilising both qualitative and quantitative data. Initially, interviews were conducted with 15 women. Results showed that women who grew up in larger loving families and had positive relationships with their mothers expressed being enthusiastic about having their own children in order to offer to their children the positive experiences they had. Having negative memories of one’s parents’ relationship and having grown up with an absent father had a negative impact on women’s motivation to childbearing due to a fear of exposing their children to similar negative environments. All women were aware that ideally women should have their children by 35, however, they all stated that a prerequisite for having children is being in a stable relationship. The interviews showed that women with higher education experienced more conflict about giving up their careers to become mothers. However, women who had available supports (eg., family support, flexible working hours, maternity leave) seemed to be willing to embrace motherhood as they felt they would be able to combine motherhood with their careers. It was reported that the most common advantage of having children was a desire to have them due to a love of children and the excitement of seeing them achieve their milestones, while the most common disadvantage of having children was the belief that children are hard work and would affect women’s freedom, spontaneity, and time commitments. Quantitative data were obtained from 126 female participants who completed online questionnaires measuring demographics, recollections of parents, attachment style, adherence to feminist values, sex role identity and fertility awareness. Standard multiple regressions showed that all the psychological variables combined accounted for 25% of the variance in motherhood motivation and the findings partially supported prior results. It was found that recollections of fathers’ overprotective/controlling parenting style was a significant and negative predictor of motherhood motivation suggesting that women’s recollections of fathers high on controlling behaviour predicted significantly lower levels of motherhood motivation. Women’s recollections of mothers high on care predicted a significantly higher score of positively viewing motherhood and a lower score on belief of conflicts posed by motherhood. Participants’ higher scores on the feminine scale predicted higher levels of motherhood motivation suggesting that a more traditional feminine sex role identity contributed to higher levels of motherhood motivation while participants’ higher scores on masculinity predicted a significantly lower score on positive values of children suggesting that participants with a higher score on masculinity valued children less positively. Future research is necessary to explore whether there are other predictors of a woman’s desire to have children and whether motherhood motivation is better examined, not on its own, but as a part of a larger scale measuring a woman’s life goals.