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INTERGENERATIONAL FAMILY PATTERNS OF TEEN MOTHERS
ASSOCIATED WITH SUCCESSFUL VERSUS NOT SO SUCCESSFUL
MOTHER-INFANT ATTACHMENT/INTERACTION ‘

BY
Mary E. Mittelstaedt

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Family and Child Ecology

1994

ABSTRACT
INTERGENERATIONAL FAMILY PATTERNS OF TEEN MOTHERS
ASSOCIATED WITH SUCCESSFUL VERSUS NOT SO SUCCESSFUL
MOTHER-INFANT ATTACHMENT/INTERACTION
BY
Mary E. Mittelstaedt

The relationship between a parent and a child is
crucial to the child's development. This study addresses
two areas of adolescent parenting in which there exists a
paucity of research: (a) teen mothers who are successful in
developing a supportive relationship with their children
versus those who are having difficulty and (b) the
intergenerational family influences on the mother-child
relationships of these teen mothers.

This qualitative descriptive study used a synthesis of
styles and methodologies to explore the similarities and
differences in the intergenerational families of teens who
have a supportive relationship with their babies and those
who do not. A standardized mother-child interactional
instrument was used to score the quality of mother-child
videotaped interactions between 106 mothers and children
, participating in a mid-Michigan adolescent parent program.
Five participant families (a teen and one adult from each
family) were then selected from each of the score
distribution extremes to participate in an interview. In

the interview, each family told their family story and

constructed a family genogram. A constant comparative
analysis of the interview transcriptions and genograms
identified three core categories: family frame, family
characteristics, and family function. Differences between
the two groups of family participants pointed out several
persistent intergenerational stressors that appear to
influence the ecological system of these families: family
size, family spacing, generational compression, cultural
origin and mobility, socioeconomics, housing, religion,
relationships, perceptions of family status, role of the
rule makers and breakers, and daily routines. These social
stressors experienced by several generations seem indicative
of intergenerational distress. The greater the amount of
intergenerational distress expressed in the family stories
of the informants, the more difficulty the teen appeared to

have in forming a supportive relationship with her baby.

DEDICATION

In memory of my mother, Loretta Smith

and

my mother-in-law, Ethel Mittelstaedt.

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to express my gratitude to all who have shared
themselves with‘me throughout these years of study. The
encouragement provided by so many people has made it
possible to successfully complete this dissertation and all
of the other requirements for the doctoral degree.

I am grateful to my advisory committee, Drs. Tom
Luster, Linda Nelson, Lawrence Schiamberg and Linda Beth
Tiedje. They have offered the intellectual stimulation,
encouragement, assistance and friendship that provided the
support for these years of study to reach fruition.

I offer a very special thanks to Dr. Linda Nelson who
was always there! Through hours of discussion, through the
tedium of reading and rereading the reams of written
materials invested in the writing of this dissertation, her
support remained and her encouragement helped to make even
the most difficult of passages easier to navigate. Her
standards of excellence, her linguistic and intellectual
precision, her humor and her meticulous attention to detail
were essential to the quality of this investigation.

A tremendous vote of gratitude to all the friends and

professional colleagues who have listened to and encouraged

my thinking and study over the years. I owe first thanks to
Dr. B. Kay Campbell. It was through my work with Dr.
Campbell, that I initially became interest in parent-child
relationships. Thanks to all of my colleagues in the School
of Nursing at Oakland University. Dr. Diane Wilson and Jean
Mohan, were the first to hear the original
conceptualizations for this study. They have provided me
with enormous emotional support along the way. Thanks,
also, to Frances Jackson, Nancy O'Connor, Darlene Schott-
Baer, Kate Vincent, and Carol Zenas for the many hours
around the lunch table listening and giving me heart that
this was all possible. Thanks to long time colleagues like
Kathy Sims and Kathryn Gordon, who know the importance of
our every day work with teen parents and their children. It
was through memories of my work and conversations with these
women and their staff that my sometimes diminished energies
were refueled.

I would like to acknowledge the support of a faculty
research grant from Oakland University - Rochester,
Michigan. These moneys allowed for the transcriptions of
audiotapes to the hard copies needed for the analytical
portion of this study.

I am grateful to the mid-Michigan health care program
that provided access to the families with whom they work and

for the support of their family advocates and staff.

vi

In addition, I am tremendously indebted to the families of
the program who participated in this study. I thank them
for sharing their relationships with the babies of their
families, for their time and their family stories. The
information and experiences they have shared about their
families have been invaluable. .

And, finally I thank my family. My father, Raymond
Smith and my sister, Pat Lijek. I now promise to "come
visit more often and stay longer" than I have been able to
do for the last few years. My husband, Ty Mittelstaedt, who
had become a PhD widower for the last few years. He has
been exceptionally supportive and patient with my immersion
in the computer, the tapes, and the diagrams. He always had
faith that "This will be over one day, won't it?" I thank
my children, Amy and Michael, who have provided me with
tremendous insights into mother-child relationships over the
years. The people they have grown to be and the love they
give are what it is truly all about!

You are all a part of these pages. Thank you for your

wisdom, encouragement, love and support.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABIIESOOOOOOOOOO00000000000000.00000000LOOOOOO0 Xi
LIST or FIGURES.:...................................... xii
CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTION

9

Statement of the Problem.....................
Significance of the Study....................
Ecological Conceptual Model..................
Purpose......................................
Research Question............................
Definition of Terms..........................

Level of Mother-Child Interaction.......

co \lO‘OtUtuFNH

II. ATTACHMENT LITERATURE REVIEW

Relationships Established Between Teen Mothers
and Their Children...................... 12
Personality/Psychological Well-Being

of the Teen Mother................. 13
Maternal Age of the Adolescent Mother... 14
Adolescent Maternal Attitudes, Beliefs,

and Knowledge...................... 14
Characteristics of the Baby............. 15
Context of the Social Support........... 16
Socioeconomic Status of the Teen

Mother............................. 18
Number of Children Born to the Teen

Mother..............-.............. 19
Sociocultural Heritage of the Teen

Mother............................. 19

viii

III. METHODOLOGY 21

Obtaining Informants......................... 22
Ecological Setting From Which Informants
Were Selected...................... 23
Community.......................... 23
Program.0....OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. 28
Participant Selection................... 35
Nursing Child Assessment Teaching
Scale - NCATS...................... 36
Selection procedure................ 39
Description of selected participants. 41
Data Collection Techniques.............. 44
Semistructured Observation.............. 44
Interview and Genogram.................. 45
Participant Observation................. 46
Validity and Reliability..................... 48
Data Analysis and Synthesis.................. 52
Quantitative Analysis................... 52
Qualitative Analysis.................... 53

IV. EMERGING FAMILY FRAME 57

Family Size Across Four Maternal Generations.. 58
Family Size Pictured Within the
Genogram........................... 63
Family Spacing Pictured Within the
Genogram........................... 64
Compression of Generations................... 66
Marital Links................................ 67
Paternal Presence............................ 70
Life Line Mirroring.......................... 72

V. GENERATIONAL FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS 74

Family Cultural Origins and Mobility......... 74
Education.................................... 81
Work and Economic Status..................... 83
Immediate Living Environment.................' 85
Reported Religion vs Practiced Religion...... 87

VI. FAMILY FUNCTION 90

Close Relationships or Friendships........... 90
Happy and Sad Experiences.................... 93

Expressions of Feelings................. 96
Family Rule Makers, Breakers, and Enforcers.. 101
Family Feuders and Peacemakers............... 106
Daily Routines............................... 108

ix

VII. INTERPRETATIONS

Human Ecological Lens........................
Family Frame.................................
Similarities Between Groups.............
Differences Between Groups..............
Family Characteristics.......................
Similarities Between Groups.............
Differences Between Groups..............
Family Function..............................
Similarities Between Groups.....}.......
Differences Between Groups..............
Distress.....................................
Basic Social Patterns of Distress.......
Additional Social Patterns of Distress..
Summary.................................
Effects of Intergenerational Distress........
Intergenerational Family Spiral.........

VIII. IMPLICATIONS AND SUMMARY

Summary......................................
Implications for Theory......................
Implications for Research....................
Implications for Practice....................
Conclusion...................................

APPENDIX A Nursing Child Assessment Teaching
scale-NQTSOOOOOOOOOOOO0.......0...O.

APPENDIX B Letter of Introduction....................
APPENDIX C Consent Forms.............................
APPENDIX D Teen Parent Questionnaire.................
APPENDIX E Other Family Participant Questionnaire....
APPENDIX F Interview Question Guide..................
APPENDIX G Sample Genograms..................... .....

BIBLIWRAPHYCOOCCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOIOOOOOOOOO

112

113
116
117
120
121
121
122
129
129
135
140
142
146
151
153
153

161

161
168
169
171
176

177

‘184

185

188

192

196

204

207

TABLE
1.

2.

LIST OF TABLES

Ages Of InfomantSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOIOOC.0.0 43
Years of Education Completed by Teen Mothers..... 43
Reported Ethnic Heritage......................... 44

Maternal Family: Average Number of Children Born in
EQCh GeneratiODOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 64

Spacing Between First Two Pregnancies............ 66
Mother's Age at the Time of First Pregnancy...... 67

Similarities and Differences in Subcategories of
Family Frame Core Concepts................... 118

Similarities and Differences in Subcategories of
Family Characteristic Core Concepts.......... 123

Similarities and Differences in Subcategories of
Family Function Core Concepts.................... 131

xi

FIGURE
1.

2.

4.

5.

LIST OF FIGURES

Intergenerational family spiral.............,....

Relationship of the core concepts on a
distress/wellbeing continuum........ ...... ...

Symbols used in genograms........................
sample genogram A0...0............OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Sample genogram B........ ........................

xii

154

159
204
205

206

CHAPTER I .' INTRODUCTION

Attachment between a child and his or her primary care
person is a unique relationship that is believed to endure
through time (Bowlby, 1969). It is recognized as a primary
mechanism of survival for the young. It is a critical
component for insuring eventual optimal development of the

person.

Statement of the Problem

Experts in the area of attachment contend that
interaction with and attachment to the caregiver is crucial
to the child's eventual ability to learn in school (Sroufe,
1983). They also believe that early positive attachment
helps insure the child's capability to form interpersonal
relationships throughout life (Bowlby, 1969). Approximately
a half million infants are born to teen parents every year
in the United States (Armstrong 8 Waszak, 1990). According
to these tabulations, this yearly birth rate indicates that
almost 1.5 million American children live with 1.1 million
teen mothers (Dryfoos, 1981). Studies consistently indicate
that the teen mother offers her child far less stimulation
than an adult mother (Darabi, Graham, Narerow, Philliber, &
Varga, 1984: Garcia-Coll, Hoffman, & Oh, 1987: King &
Fullard, 1982: Schilmoeller & Baranowski, 1985). Sandler

(1980) and Field, Widmayer, Greenberg and Stoller, (1982)

found adolescents to be less vocal, less contingently
responsive, and less likely to engage in playing and in
face-to-face interaction with their infants than adult
mothers. There is very little in the literature
distinguishing characteristics between those adolescents who
are able to develop a supportive relationship
(interaction/attachment) with their infants and those who
have difficulty in doing so. Even less in known about the
relationships within the families from which these teen
parents evolve and the connection between these family
relationships and the subsequent mother-child attachment of
the teen mother and her offspring.

This researcher is interested in knowing if there are
intergenerational family patterns which appear to be
associated with the relationship that a teen mother
establishes with her infant. Therefore, this study
addresses two areas of adolescent parenting in which there
exists a paucity of research: (a) teen mothers who are
successful in developing a supportive relationship with
their children versus those who are having difficulty and
(b) intergenerational family influences on the mother-Child

relationships of these teen mothers.

Significance of the Study
As noted earlier, most of the parenting research has

tended to compare the parenting of teens with that of adults

3
(Luster & Mittelstaedt, 1993). Literature reviews conducted
for this study have provided only a meager number of
references regarding intergenerational studies related to
teen parenting (Burton & Dilworth-Anderson, 1991: Hagestad &
Burton, 1986: Wilson, 1984). Present literature suggests
that parenting practices are multiply determined with
differences among the teens due to characteristics of the
teen mothers, characteristics of their children, and the
contexts in which the teen and her child live (Belsky,
1984). This researcher believes that all of these
characteristics are very much influenced by the
transgenerational context within which the teen mother's
family exists. Findings from this study will add to both
nursing and family ecological knowledge about the
intergenerational family patterns, e.g. patterns within the
multigenerational family history, structure, function and
~development, of teens who are able to develop a successful
attachment with their children versus those who are not
quite so successful.

Knowing and understanding the factors that distinguish
teens who provide relatively supportive parenting and those
who give less supportive care is vital to clinicians working
with teen parents. New knowledge in this area would greatly
lend to the accuracy of their assessments and the

effectiveness of their interventions. Finally, the findings

4
that emerged from this study can serve as a basis for future

research and theory development.

Ecological Conceptual Model

The family ecological perspective proposes that human
beings are interdependent creatures. Not only are they 1
interdependent through interaction with each other but also
interdependent with their environment. A person's
environment is the sum total of the physical, biological,
social, economic, aesthetic, and structural surroundings
(Bubolz, Eicher, & Sontag, 1979: Bubolz & Sontag, 1993). A
study of the family incorporating such a systematic model
must identify these interdependencies. Bubolz, Eicher, and
Sontag as well as Bubolz and Sontag identified three
conceptually distinct interrelated environments with which
the human is interdependent: the natural physical-
biological environment, the social-cultural environment, and
the human built environment.

In the past, this researcher's focus of interest has
been the maternal-child interaction/relationship within the
dyad. This study expands on this area of interest by
examining the mother-child interaction in the
intergenerational family context in which the dyad exists.
This perspective would seem to conform to the family theory
discussed, primarily because of the space-time dimension

discussed in family theory. In a space-time dimension,

5
there is interaction and interdependence between the three
environments and simultaneously these environments are also
interdependent and interacting with the past, through the
present, and into the future.

Although the researcher was interested in hearing each
family's story in relation to all three of the environments
identified by Bubolz and Sontag (1993), the focus is on the
interactions and interdependence within and between the
intergenerational socio-cultural environments across
multiple generations. The socio-cultural environment is the
environment of human beings in which their biological,
psychological, and social behaviors occur. This environment
is vital to the human for meeting biological and physical
needs as well as social and psychological needs for love
relationships, communication, knowledge, and self—
fulfillment. Having all of these needs met is necessary for

existence beyond survival (Swenson, 1973).

Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore: (a) the
patterns of the intergenerational family structure, family
development, and family function of a teen mother's kinship,
as reported by her and one other member of her family and
(b) the relation between these patterns and the mother-Child

interaction of these mothers and children.

6
Research Question

This study has two major aims: (a) to provide baseline
qualitative data concerning the description of the
intergenerational family histories of teen mothers and
(b) to quantify the distribution of these patterns_within
two subgroups, i.e. those teens who are developing a A
successful relationship with their infants and those who are
having difficulty. Thus the overriding research questions
directing the study are:

1. What patterns or themes exist in the
intergenerational family histories of teen-mothers, as told
by these teens and one other family member?

2. What are the similarities and/or differences in the
patterns or themes of teen mothers who have developed a
successful mother-child relationship/interaction with their
infants versus those who are having difficulty developing

such relationships/interactions?

Definition of Terms
Most of the variables of this study were generated
within the qualitative portion of the study as the study
identified and described family patterns of the teen
mother's intergenerational family context. These variables
are identified as the concepts that emerged from the data.
The mother-child interaction within each mother-child dyad,

however, was measured and used to identify those teen

7
mothers who have been successful versus those who have not
been so successful in developing an attached relationship.
WW

Interaction is a mutual reciprocal action or influence.
Maternal-child interaction is a mutual reciprocal giving and
responding to verbal and/or nonverbal cues between a mother
and her infant. Operationally, this variable was measured
using Barnard and Eyres' (1979) standardized observational
scale, Nursing Child Assessment Teaching Scale-NCATS,
developed at the University of Washington-Seattle
(Appendix A).

Based on filmed observation of the mother teaching her
child a simple task, the researcher scored the dyad on the
presence or absence of specific behaviors within the
teaching period. The maternal measures of this scale
consisted of four subscales: maternal sensitivity to
child's cues, maternal response to the child's distress,
maternal fostering of child's social-emotional growth, and
maternal fostering of the child's cognitive growth. The
child's participation was measured on the basis of two
subscales: the child's clarity of cues and the child’s
responsiveness to the mother. A sum of the scores of the
six subscales was used to give a total score of the variable
of mother-child interaction. (See Appendix A for a sample

of the NCATS instrument).

CHAPTER II. ATTACHMENT LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter will discuss information obtained in a
preliminary literature review related to adolescent parent-
child relationships. In a qualitative study literature
related to the findings is determined during data analysis.
Literature related to the emerging themes of this study is
discussed in Chapter VII.

Attachment theory as it is presently recognized is the
result of the work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. John
Bowlby used concepts from ethology, cybernetics, and
psychoanalysis to form the basic outlines of the theory. He
looked at not only the relationship between a mother and
child, he also looked at the effects of a disruption of this
relationship through separation and deprivation. Mary
Ainsworth is noted for having translated the basic tenets of
attachment theory into empirical findings. Her work helped
to further expand the theory. She has contributed two major
theoretical conceptualizations: the explanation of the
individual differences in attachment relations and the
concept of the caregiver as a secure base (Bretherton,
1987).

Attachment is accepted as being a bond related to
affection and interaction that exists between most mothers
and their children. It is a unique relationship that is

believed to endure through time. It is a primary mechanism

9
of protection and survival for the young. Bowlby (1969)
holds that children who have been able to form secure
attachments grow to be adults that have strong egos, basic
trust, and mature dependence. Conversely, he writes that
disturbances in the formation of early attachment may
explain many forms of emotional distress and personality
disorders, including anxiety, anger, depression, and
emotional detachment. He believes that the experience that
a child has with parents has a causal relationship with the
later capacity to make affectional bonds like marital and
parent-child relationships.

Very early studies approached attachment as being
unidirectional and noninteractional. Deutch (1945) and
Winnicott (1960) viewed the infant as a passive agent having
only visceral sensations. Ainsworth (1969) discussed the
infant as an individual ready to be shaped by the
environment. She believed that this shaping was the result
of the mother's response/nonresponse to the infant's
behaviors.

Bowlby (1969), a contemporary of Ainsworth, unlike the
psychoanalytic theorists and behaviorists of the time, was
the first to view the newborn as having a relatively
organized, independent behavioral system that emerges
developmentally as a result of different specific stimuli.
He was the first to contend that these behaviors form the

infant's input into a reciprocal relationship with the

10
mother. As a result of Bowlby's work, attachment theory has
gradually grown to be recognized as a theory of
interpersonal relationships (Bretherton, 1987).

These early parent-child relationships are believed to
influence other affectional bonds that emerge across the
life span of an‘individual. Erikson's (1950) work in
conjunction with that of the attachment theorists provides
possible insights for how this may occur. Erikson was a
developmental stage theorist, who indicated that the human
progressed through multiple stages of development as the
individual progressed from infancy to adulthood. During
each of these stages he believed the individual was faced
with a developmental conflict. He believed a resolution of
each conflict was necessary at each developmental stage. An
unsuccessful resolution he believed impacts negatively on
future developmental stages. Thus, in the early life
experiences of infancy where the infant is faced with the
developmental conflict of trust vs mistrust, primarily
established within a relationship with a caregiver, the
outcome of the resolution is likely to influence later life
experiences of social relationships. These social
relationships might include one's relationship with one's
own parents, friendships, sexual/marital relationships and
how one relates with one’s own Children. Kennell and Klaus
(1976) seem to concur with these beliefs when they indicate

that a mother's part in the interaction with her infant is

11
highly influenced by many of her own life experiences, for
example, her relationship with her own parents, with the
father of the child, and the circumstances of her pregnancy,
labor, and delivery.

Other researchers have found parental perceptions to be
an additional influence on the relationship that develops
between a parent and a child. Moss and Robson (1968)
related that a mother's acceptance of her nurturing role and
the degree to which she positively perceives her infant are
highly correlated with her responsiveness to the child.
Broussard and Hartner (1970) found that maternal perceptions
were important to the relationship that exists between a
mother and child. In their studies, maternal perceptions
were predictive of a child's psychological development.
Helfer (1974) found negative parental perceptions of the
child significantly associated with child abuse.

Perceptions are often influenced by one's previous personal
experiences in life.

Researchers like Greenspan (1981) and Sroufe (1983)
have found that a compromised parent-child relationship
directly affects the young child. Greenspan has seen
inevitable deterioration of infant functioning among
constitutionally healthy and robust newborns delivered to
families where limited interaction with the infant occurs.
Sroufe indicated that the quality of the relationship with

the parent has no effect on the Child’s level of

12
intelligence, but has an exceptionally negative effect on
the child's ability to learn and to relate with others.

In summary, the concept of attachment has moved slowly
from being seen from a noninteractional perspective to being
recognized as a reciprocal interactive process between
mother and child. As this literature review indicates,
attachment appears to be influenced by and to influence many
parent and child life experiences. Most studies done in the
area of parent-child attachment tend to be quantitative
studies of the adult mother-child relationship.

Relationships Established Between Teen Mothers
and Their Children

Research that has looked at mother-child interactional
behaviors of teen mothers, more often than not, does so in
relation to what is known about how adults interact with
their children. When teens are compared with adult mothers,
researchers have noted that teens provide less supportive
environments for their infants, are less emotionally and
verbally responsive, are more restrictive, more punitive and
less involved with their infants than older mothers. Luster
and Mittelstaedt (1993) reviewed a number of studies that
report mature mothers exhibit more positive affect when
interacting with their babies. On the basis of these
comparisons, some might speculate that teen mothers and

their infants are at risk for relationship difficulties.

13

However, comparisons of adolescent and adult mothers
tend to mask the fact that there is great variability in the
quality of parenting provided within each group. Factors
which distinguish between adolescent mothers who are
providing relatively supportive parenting for their children
and those who give less supportive care need to be examined.
There is significantly less research in this area. Most of
these studies relate to the personal characteristics of the
teen mother or her infant, to the immediate context of their
relationship, or to the supports they receive from
significant others (Luster & Mittelstaedt, 1993). A few
studies from this review are related below.

;.,. -: ,. .2 a e q-;-g,. .7 g,- g--, ,. ,-

Reis and Herz (1987) were interested in the influence
of mental health on parenting behaviors of teens. They
found, not surprisingly, that depressed teen mothers were
less involved with their infants. Luster and Dubow (1990)
found a positive correlation between self-esteem and the
quality of home environment the teen mother offered her
baby. They found that maternal intelligence was also
correlated with the quality of the home environment, but the
relationship was reduced to nonsignificance when other
factors, e.g. financial resources, were controlled. Spieker
(1989) also reported a positive correlation between IQ
scores of teen mothers and scores on the HOME and Barnard’s

teaching scale. Unger and Wandersman (1985) found that

14
mothers who perceived themselves as having considerable
control over events that affected their lives provided a
more supportive environment to their children. Contrary to
the results of the Unger and Wandersman study, however,
Stevens (1988) found no relationship between maternal locus
of control and quality of the home environment.
W

The results of several studies suggest that there is a
modest relationship between the maternal age of teen mothers
and the parenting competence they demonstrate (Epstein,
1980: King 8 Fullard, 1982: Reis 8 Herz, 1987: Ruff, 1987:
Spieker, 1989). In comparison to the younger teen mother,
the older teens provide a more supportive home environment,
engage in more verbal interchange, hold their babies in the
en face position more frequently. These findings on
maternal competence are congruent with a study done by Dubow
-and Luster (1990) who found that school-age children who
were born to very young teen mothers are at somewhat greater
risk for academic and behavioral problems than children who
were born to the older adolescent mother.

n.- ‘: '1 ya '11-. : -0.” i; - : {IQ no. ‘20-—

Reis and Herz (1987) found that the younger teen
mothers provided a less supportive home environment for
their children and were more punitive in their discipline of
the children than older teen mothers. Luster and Rhoades

(1989) found that the teens who provided a more supportive

'15

home environment for their children differed from their less
supportive peers in terms of their childrearing beliefs.
The more supportive parents believed that it is important to
talk to infants and they believed in giving their babies the
freedom and opportunity to explore their surroundings. They
also found that the supportive teen parents believed that a
parent has considerable influence on a child's development.

The extent of a parent's knowledge about child
development was also found to be related to the home
environment provided by a teen parent (Johnson, 1990). Ward
et al. (1988) found that the more knowledgeable teen mothers
were more sensitive and responsive to their 4 month olds
than the less knowledgeable mothers. However, knowledge was
unrelated to the same parenting measures when the infant was
8 months.
W

There are very few studies related to infant
temperament in the adolescent parent literature. Several
studies failed to find a relationship between infant
temperament and the parenting behaviors of teen mothers
(Crockenberg, 1987a, 1987b: Luster 8 Rhoades, 1989: Ward et
a1., 1988). In one study, infant irritability was
associated with more positive interaction between the mother
and baby during feeding (Wise 8 Grossman, 1980). Luster,
Boger, and Hannan (1990) did report that they found infants

born to older adolescent mothers who demonstrate a more

16
cheerful affect tended to come from a more supportive home
environment.

There are even fewer studies examining the effect of
having a biologically at-risk infant on the parenting
behaviors of teen parents. The studies that have_been
conducted point‘to the adolescent having a great deal of V
difficulty dealing with such conditions. Field (1980) found
that teens from low socioeconomic status (SES) with preterm
babies demonstrate a number of inadequacies in their
parenting behaviors. They were less vocal and less involved
with their newborns than other teens or adult mothers of
preterm infants. Studies by Wise and Grossman (1980) and
Bolton and Belsky (1986) concurred when they found that teen
mothers interacted more positively with infants that were
heavier and healthier at birth.

Qontext_9f_fiesial_§unnert

The effect of social support on parenting has been
extensively studied among both adult and adolescent
parents. Most of these studies give evidence that social
support is positively related to the quality of care the
mother provides her infant. Crockenberg (1988) found that
mothers with a high level of emotional and instrumental
support from their families responded to their babies’ cries
more quickly than mothers without such support. Frodi et
a1. (1984) found that the mother-infant attachment was more

secure when the mother had a support network and if her own

17
mother helped with the child care. Teens with inadequate
support systems were found to reject their infants more
often than teens who were well supported (Colletta, 1981).

Crockenberg (1988) cautions that it is possible that
some of the studies relating social support and parental
behavior could possibly be spurious. She points out that
women who have had childhoods characterized as rejecting
continue to lack family support. Their poor parenting
behaviors in these cases are more likely to be a result of
their developmental history rather than their current level
of support.

Young mothers seem to benefit from living in the same
household with their own mothers. Furstenberg and Crawford
(1978) found that teens who lived at home with their parents
for the first 5 years of their children’s lives were more
likely to complete their high school education. They also
-found that this living arrangement seemed to have a positive
influence on the cognitive development of the children. At
a 17 year follow-up, however, Furstenberg, Brooks-Gunn, and
Morgan (1987) found that the children of teens who continue
to live with their grandparents showed a poorer attainment
and adjustment than their peers. Furstenberg believed that
the difference between his 5 year and 17 year follow-up
studies is possibly due to the fact that the least capable
teen mothers may be the ones who remain in a dependent

relationship with their own parents for extensive periods.

18

The benefit for a teen mother of living with her parent
is probably that she is less likely to have to shoulder the
entire care of her infant alone. Epstein (1980) found that
teen mothers who provided the most favorable parenting care,
i.e. authoritative style of rearing, toward their_infants
tended to be teens who were able to share childrearing A
responsibilities with their own mothers or the baby’s
father.

Epstein (1980) and Field, Widmayer, Stringer, and
Ingatoff (1990) question, however, whether this kind of role
sharing is as beneficial to the infant as it is to the teen
mother. The studies of both have found that teens who have
access to a situation where they are able to share their
parenting role with someone else are less responsive to
their infants than their peers who assume full care
responsibilities for their babies.
MW

Although, measuring the SES level of teen parents
presents a myriad of methodological problems, several
studies have effectively linked both the SES of the teen's
family of origin as well as her current SES level to the
quality of care she provides her infant. Using data from
the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), Luster and
Dubow (1990) found that early childbearers living in a state
of poverty where only the minimum of resources are

available, provide relatively nonsupportive environments for

19

their school-age children. When the SES level of the family
of origin was used to determine the influence of
socioeconomics on adolescent parenting, a relationship was
found between the educational level of the adolescent's
father and the quality of care she provided her child (King
8 Fullard, 1982: Luster & Dubow, 1990).
W

Very little is known about the effect of family size on
the child-care practices of teen mothers. Luster and Dubow
(1990) indicated an inverse relationship between the number
of children the mother has and the quality of the home
environment. Several studies have linked large family size
to poor developmental outcomes for the children of teen
mothers (Dubow 8 Luster, 1990: Furstenberg et al., 1987).
Polit and Kahn (1986) believe that rapid repeat pregnancies
limit the life options of the teen mother and the time they
can devote to a given child.
WW

There are very few studies examining the influence of
sociocultural background on adolescent parent behavior. It
is likely that there are differing beliefs about appropriate
child care among various cultures and ethnic groups. These
differences possibly contribute to differing approaches to
childrearing (Brooks-Gunn 8 Furstenberg, 1986: Ogbu, 1981).

Field, Widmayer, Adler, and DeCubas (1990) did compare

20
Cuban-American and African-American teen mothers from a
similar SES level. They found that the Cuban-American teens
were more likely to talk to, read to, look at, touch, and
smile at their babies during play. Field’s team pointed out
that they believe these differences are due to the basic
differences between the ethnic groups in their Childrearing
beliefs and expectations. Cuban-Americans appear to have a
more indulgent view of childrearing while African-Americans
appear to have a more restrictive and punitive style of
parenting. Field’s team also believed that this is true of
the African-American parent because of their fear of
spoiling their children and the fact that they are more
likely to expect early autonomy of their offspring.

This researcher has been unable to identify any
qualitative studies related specifically to how the
adolescent mother perceives herself relating with her
intergenerational family nor any ecological perspectives
that look beyond the immediate family context as anything

other than a means of emotional and tangible support.

CHAPTER III. METHODOLOGY

Dissatisfaction with positivistic philosophies of
science has produced an explosion of interest in other
methodologies (Guba, 1990). This has resulted in
qualitative methodologies gaining recognition as a valid
scientific approach for the study of the human experience
from a holistic perspective. Major academic disciplines
such as education, family studies, nursing, psychology,
social work, and sociology have begun to show greater
interest in qualitative methods. Those who study the family
acknowledge that positivistic methodology is often
inadequately responsive to the complexity of family
phenomena. Researchers in these fields are realizing that
qualitative data collection methods such as unstructured
interviews, observations, diaries, and letters allow
participants to tell their experiences in their own
language, in their own environments, and according to their
own comfort in disclosing.

Family research is defined by Gilgun, Daly, and Handel
(1992) as research with a focus on experiences within
families as well as between families and outside systems.
They see the data for such studies as words or pictures that
are best conceptualized, collected, analyzed, and
interpreted qualitatively. They describe the participants

as persons who mutually describe themselves as family, in

21

 

 

22

committed relationships, having a shared sense of personal
history, usually but not always having a legal or biological
bond. Since this study was designed to explore and identify
intergenerational family patterns of teen mothers' kinship
and to determine if the patterns identified relate to the
level of interaétion/attachment that a teen mother develops
with her infant, qualitative methods were chosen for this

study.

Obtaining Informants

The family ecosystem conceptual framework was
considered as informants were selected for this study. A
family ecosystem is described as being comprised of a given
family system interacting and interdependent with the
environment in which it exists. The concepts of the theory
were applied in examining the interrelationship of families
headed by adolescent parents and the context within which
they exist. The study explored not only the immediate
context of the teen family, but it also explored what these
teens and their families perceive as their intergenerational
family context. The environment in family ecological theory
has been conceptualized by Bubolz and Sontag (1993) as
having three interrelated components: natural, human built,
and social-cultural. The natural environment is conceived
as the unaltered physical and biological components as they

exist in nature. The social-cultural environment is

23

described as an environment which includes other human
beings and abstract cultural constructions like rules,
beliefs, cultural ideologies, neighbors, and friends. The
human built environment is one in which there are
alterations of the natural-physical environment to meet
specific needs or ends of the families involved. These
could include the houses in which they live, their churches,
and transportation. Through a transformation of matter,
Lenergy, and information within the environment, families
satisfy their needs to sustain the family and the
environment in which they exist.

. 92 . - 11- g on Wh, , .-ogugg ~ W-A- - e ‘2

This study was conducted with teenagers and their
families who live in a mid-Michigan city and participate in
a local adolescent parent program. The following
information about the community and the agency provide a
description of the general context of the area.

Community. The community is a mid-Michigan city of
approximately 149,000 people that grew out of what the
Convention and Visitors Bureau (1993) describes as a rather
dramatic past history. Most know it as a factory town. It
was originally a river crossing along one of a network of
Indian routes that criss-crossed the Michigan wilderness.
The first recorded name for the area was Muscatawanogh, a

Native American word, meaning an open burned-over plain.

24
The Seneca tribe called the area surrounding the city
"beautiful valley".

The earliest settlers to the area were farmers, for the
most part from New York State. In 1855, the economic
activity shifted from farming to lumbering. The logging
boom created a need for two-wheeled log-hauling contrivanCes
called katydids, road carts, and wagons. The area like many
areas of Michigan became a center for motorless carriages
and wagons. This reputation later led to its involvement
with the manufacturing of carriages of the horseless
variety.

The grandson of a lumber baron, after hitching his
first ride on a two-wheeled horse-drawn road cart, became so
impressed with the vehicle that he bought all rights for
manufacturing the cart. He contracted with the best
carriage builder in the area and in 1900 built the largest
company of its kind in the United States at that time.

In 1903, this young entrepreneur interested in
horseless carriages began manufacturing engines for farm
use. Within a year, his company was building the first
automobiles. Rapidly, many other companies producing
related auto supplies and products developed as well in the
area.

Late in 1936, sit down strikes began in the auto plants
throughout Michigan. In February, 1937, after long battles

of will between union organizers and the auto companies, one

25
of the large auto companies agreed to recognize the UAW as
bargaining agent for hourly employees (Foner 8 Lewis, 1989).
These early moves made many Michigan cities the leaders in
unionized labor.

During World War II, auto companies turned to military
production. Women were hired and worked most of the
factories taking the place of men who had gone to war.

As soon as the war ended, women were released from their
positions in favor of the returning soldiers. The auto
companies were expanding so rapidly that they were
soliciting workers from all over the United States. Many of
the African American workers who came to the area from the
late 19303 through the early 1950s were enticed by auto
companies in the North to leave the South. They quickly
became involved in the unions (Foner 8 Lewis, 1989).

For almost a century, this city has maintained its
financial dependence on its original early auto industry
relationships. Through the years the auto companies have
brought the area a roller coaster economy. In good times,
the city has had the highest per capita income in the
country. However, in bad times, as in the 1990s, the city
has suffered more than most. Auto companies in the United
States in the 1990s are experiencing the most difficult
competition of their history.

The following demographics for the city and the

surrounding county were provided by a regional planning

26

program out of the University of Michigan (Chapleski,
Marston, 8 Molseed, 1992) and the marketing services of the
local newspaper (1994). From 1940 through 1960 both the
Black and White populations of the area continued to
increase. Then in 1960, not unlike other metropolitan areas
of the country,‘the city in which this study was conducted
began to experience changes in racial composition and
socioeconomic status. The White population dropped from
approximately 95% in 1940 to less than 50% in 1990. In the
same period the Black population had gone from 4% to almost
50%. By comparison, the surrounding county area looks very
different in its racial composition. In fact about 80% of
the total White population of the county lives in the
surrounding suburbs while 80% of the Black population
resides in the city. As the 19603 and 19703 encouraged
racial integration of schools and neighborhoods, racial
discrimination on the part of Whites and their economic
advantages are believed by regional planners to be the
reason for their fleeing to the suburbs. As the middle
class White population left the city, there was a resulting
overall decline in the population and the economic
conditions of the city were badly affected.

Data kept since 1980 indicate that the city has also
experienced an increase in the percentages of the "never
married" and the divorced as well as a decrease in its

married population. The result has been an increase in

27
nonfamily households. There has also been an increase in
the number and proportion of female-headed households with a
concurrent increase in single parent households.
Approximately 75% of the single mothers are living in
poverty while 57% is the national average. These changing
family and household statuses and Changing economic
conditions have led a trend toward a greater number of
rental homes and fewer owned properties.

The median income of the surrounding county, $31,000,
is about the same or slightly better than the 0.8. as a
whole, $30,000. However, the lower income segment of the
population is overrepresented in the city. Over 35% of the
city dwelling families make less than $15,000, meaning that
over 33% of all families with children in the city are
living in poverty, compared with 13% of the suburban
families.

The future appears bleak for this city. The economy
continues to be based on automobile production. Employment
in this area continues to decline as the companies downsize
and move to new technology. The only way out of the
economic decline would seem to be education and retraining
of the population of the city. However, educational
attainment over the last decade has been problematic.
Almost a third of the population 25 years old or older do

not have a high school diploma.

28

A3 dismal as the future appears, the community seems to
realize both its strengths and limitations. It is
recognized that the dramatic social, demographic, and
economic changes of the last few decades have profoundly
influenced the lives of the families of the area 'f
especially the Iives of the children. This acknowledgment
has resulted in the community developing a constructive
response by establishing a variety of community-based
collaborative efforts for problem solving. A more
ecological perspective of the needs of the community and its
families is being considered. There is a growing
perspective that communities must help families grow
stronger for the sake of the children and the future of the
community. One of the collaborative ventures is an
adolescent parenting program, developed by a social service
and health care agency and Michigan State University.

Ezggmgm. This adolescent pregnancy and parenting
program was developed as a result of the recognition that
the community has a major problem with early childbearing.
Approximately 17% of all births in the county are to
adolescent mothers. In 1988, 3.76% of all births was to a
teen mother between 15-17 years old (Saunders 8 Associates,
1990). This is considerably above the birth rate of 2.86%

for the State of Michigan for the same age group.

’29

The center which houses the teen parent program is
easily accessible to most of the community. It is nestled
within one of the community's neighborhoods. The building
is a large four story brick structure which sits on the
corner of two quiet tree lined streets. Although the
facility is institutional in its external appearance, the
architects and interior designers have used bright primary
colors throughout the interior decor providing an inviting
environment, especially for children. ‘

The center houses a number of community physical,
social, and mental health services. The adolescent parent
program is on one of the upper levels of the building:
administrative offices are on one side of the building, and
activity and program rooms are on the other side. Although
most visits with teens and their families are conducted in
the family home, the activity rooms are the most likely area
for the teens and their children to meet with staff or to
participate in one of the various group activities offered.
These rooms are comfortably decorated with a homelike decor,
couches, tables, chairs, cupboards, refrigerator, and
kitchen sink. The rooms are also filled with toys and books
appropriate for babies under the age of 2 years old.

This teen parent program has served parenting teens and
their families since June 1991 when 142 first time mothers
between the ages of 13 and 19 years old (x = 16y/o) who had

not completed high school were selected from 12 area school

30

districts and were randomly assigned to one of two sections
of the program, the treatment or the control group. Both
groups are eligible for the services of the agency in which
the program is housed, however, the treatment group receives
regular social support of seven agency advocates: a
description of the advocate role will be given later in this
Chapter. The ethnic make up of the teens admitted to the
program reflects the ethnic background of the same age group
in the city -- approximately 60% African-American, 30%
Caucasian and 10% other (Chapleski, Marston, 8 Molseed,
1992). All of the teens are at 150% of poverty level. They
are referred to the program by various county agencies.
Approximately 18 to 20% of the total group are not in school
and have no interest in returning. The original treatment
group consisted of 72 teens and the control group numbered
70. At the time of this study, approximately 63 (88%) of
the original treatment group and 64 (91%) of the original
control group remain in the program. Attrition is believed
to have been a result of families moving from the area, a
lack of response by the teens, or the program's inability to
locate the teen after multiple attempts (Luster, Perlstadt 8
Sims, 1991).

Michigan State University in collaboration with the
adolescent parent program has initiated a longitudinal study
to determine the interventions and experiences that most

effectively meet the needs of these teens and their

31
families, and also to identify factors other than
intervention that influence the life-course of these teens
and their babies. The initial data presented by Luster,
Perlstadt, and Sims (1991) have recognized the teens as
being an at-risk population of adolescents. In response to
an initial questionnaire, 42% indicated they had experienced
either sexual or physical abuse. Although 80% indicated
they were likely to finish high school, 56% were at least
one grade level behind because of having repeated a grade at
some point. Almost two-thirds of the teens had mothers who
were single parents and many of these mothers had been teen
mothers themselves.

The research teams identified two encouraging facts. A
large number, 68%, of the teens had received prenatal care
in the first trimester. The group also seemed to have high
educational aspirations, since 57% indicated that they
-expected to achieve some schooling beyond high school.

Through a collaboration of services with other programs
at the agency housing the adolescent parent program, teens
and their children receive health care from medical and
nursing staff, new baby care education from maternal-child
nurses, dental education from dentistry staff, behavioral
counseling from behavioral psychologists, and child
development guidance by early Childhood specialists. A
major teen health center in the school district provides the

teens with health education on human sexuality,

32
contraception, sexually transmitted diseases, nutrition, and
self-esteem.

The adolescent parent program provides social supports
to the teens and their families in the treatment group
through seven staff members called ”family advdcates". The
advocates are women from the community who were hired by the
program to work specifically with the teens, their infants,
and their families. The advocates receive ongoing training
in parenting, parent-child relationships, and child
development within the program. They meet regularly for
supervision with one of the two social workers in the
program. The goal of the advocates is to establish a strong
and supportive relationship with the young mothers and their
families. Once this has been established, they are able to
help the teens to identify and utilize services available to
young families in the community. The six advocates working
with the treatment group have approximately 10 - 12 families
on each of their caseloads. There is only one advocate
assigned to the control group as they receive a less
intensive program.

The teen program has set four objectives for treatment.
These include: (a) helping young mothers adjust to their
new role during the transition to parenthood, (b) supporting
the teens in offering high quality care to their children,
(c) assisting the young mothers in their efforts to complete
school and get a job, and (d) helping the children to

33
accomplish appropriate developmental tasks during the first
5 years of life.

The teens in the control group receive a wide array of
services offered by the associated health care agency.
Although they are likely to receive more services than other
teens in the community not involved with the program, they
receive fewer services and supports from the family advocate
than do the teens in the treatment group. The teens in the
treatment group visit with an advocate several times per
month to discuss family issues, relationships, child
development, and parenting. The teens in the control group
do not receive these regular planned contacts. They are
sent reminders of services and given referrals through the
one advocate assigned to their group of approximately 60 -
70 clients.

Data at the time of delivery of the infants did not
identify significant differences between the infants born to
the two groups of teens (Luster 8 Perlstadt, 1993b).
However, an agency record giving a 6 month outcome report
indicated that 93% of the treatment group of children were
within normal limits on their Denver II, while 86% of the
control group were assessed as being within the normal range
for the same test. Physical assessments of the children
indicate that the children of both groups were at the 35th
percentile of height for their age, between the 44th and
49th percentile in weight for height, and had head

' 34

circumferences between the 513t and 56th percentile. Known
protective service referrals seemed to differentiate the two
groups: 10% of the treatment group had been referred while
only 2% of the control group had been (Luster 8 Perlstadt,
1993a). This may reflect a detection bias, the treatment
group has more frequent contacts with the advocates which.
allows them to more readily determine a need for a referral
to Protective Services.

One other test for the blood lead levels gives some
indication of potential environmental problems for the
children in both groups of this study. Laboratory blood
screens found that 10 - 11% of the children in both groups
had elevated blood lead levels. Such results have
traditionally been associated with children living in older
homes and ingesting old flaking paint from their hands as
they crawl around the floors of the houses. Michigan
Department of Public Health has recently begun to question
the water source for children living in older sections of
cities (D. Dooling, Oakland County Health Department,
personal communication, September, 1993). It is now
suspected that very old, never replaced water and sewerage
infrastructures of cities and old plumbing in older homes
might present as high a risk as flaking lead based paints in
older homes. Much of the very old plumbing was constructed
with lead pipe and lead solder to secure pipe joints. These

pipes and solder are now believed to be leaching lead into

35
the drinking water of the families living in these old
sections of towns.

The research team also found that the teen mothers of
both the treatment and the control group had comparable
levels of depression when tested with the CES-D (Luster 8
Perlstadt, 1993a). The teens who recalled a poor
relationship with their own mother or a troubled emotional
climate in the home while growing up did measure higher
levels of depression at 6 months post delivery. Their
relationship with their own fathers seemed unrelated to
their psychological well-being. However, emotional and
financial support rather than instrumental support from the
father of the baby and the support of other friends did seem
to result in lowering the level of depression. Level of
depression is important as it was found to be related to the
appropriateness of the mother's response to her baby.
Anecdotal information provided by advocates indicated that,
in addition to measurements of depression, they noted that
teens who lived in supportive neighborhoods had what they
evaluated as high level of self-esteem, were able to problem
solve well, had fewer crises, and provided their Child with
the most supportive care.

WW

Participants for this study were chosen from this mid-

Michigan health care agency's adolescent parent support and

research program. The disadvantaged teen mothers of this

36

progam live in school districts surrounding the agency. The
program services 142 teen mothers who were between the ages
of 13 and 19 years old at the time of admission and their
children. The agency had videotapes of 106 of the teens
performing the specific teaching interaction task of
teaching the 12‘month old babies to turn the pages of a
book. The individual filming of the teens and babies in
this program was originally set up and conducted by the
health care agency and a Michigan State University research
team in anticipation of using the Nursing Child Assessment
Teaching Scale-NCATS (Barnard and Eyres, 1979) to score the
quality of interaction that exists between the mothers and
babies in both their control and treatment groups. This
researcher, certified in the use of the scale, observed and
blind scored all of the films that the agency had conducted.

MW. The
NCATS is a highly respected quantitative interactional
scale. It is a binary, i.e. yes-no, observational scale
consisting of 73 empirical behaviors divided into six
subscales. Possible score range for this tool is 0-73,
higher scores indicating a more supportive parent-child
interaction. The instrument was chosen as it is an
interactional scale that can be administered easily and
unobtrusively during the observation of mother-baby
interaction. The NCATS was first tested among 922 mother-

infant pairs. The majority of the maternal subjects in

37
these studies were Caucasian and their average age was 25.44
years old. The mean maternal score among the 922 mother-
infant pairs tested with the NCATS was 41.0 (range a 7-50)
and SD n 5.8. The children's mean score was 15.3 (range a
3-23) and SD - 4.0.

The original longitudinal studies related to the
instrument found that the scores were related to the
developmental outcomes of the children studied. A cohort
made up of every seventh subject admitted to the study was
used to test the reliability of the instrument. The data
revealed that items in each category were positively
correlated.

Original test-retest reliability on this tool was
reported as being positively correlated but not
statistically significant. Barnard and Eyres (1979) said
that they believe that this reflects the developmental
changes of the child rather than unreliable measures. They
point out that while the infant scores were not consistent
over time, the mothers' scores were consistent from one
period to the next. Original interrater reliability
coefficients were determined by correlating observer
responses of nurses making dual home visits (r = .745).
After conducting the specified number of assessments and
establishing the level of rater reliability set by the

Nursing Child Assessment Satellite Training Project (NCAST)

38
from the University of Washington, this researcher has been
certified to conduct the NCATS.

An interrater reliability percentage score was also
obtained for this study using the calculations suggested by
the Barnard and Eyres’ NCAST Project (1979). Five randomly
selected films from the total group of agency films were ‘
concurrently observed and independently scored with one of
the agency staff who has also been trained in the use of the
tool. The scoring of all five instruments by both
researchers was compared item by item. Items on which the
raters disagreed were counted and subtracted from the total
number of 73 items. These results were then divided by the
total number of items to achieve an interrater reliability
percentage score. These scores ranged between 93% and 99%,
averaging 96.4% for the five films scored.

As a means for validating the NCAT scales, Barnard and
Eyres (1979) used outcome scores of the Bayley Scale of
Infant Development, including the MDI and the PDI (Bayley,
1977), the HOME Observation for Measurement of the
Environment (Caldwell, 1978), the Sequenced Inventory of
Communication Development-SICD (Hendrick, Prather, 8 Tobin,
1975), McCarthy Scales of Children's Ability (McCarthy,
1972), and the Stanford Binet Intelligence Test (Terman 8
Merrill, 1960). Using multiple regression, the NCATS at
1 month old was found to correlate highly with expressive

language at 36 months (r=.71). At 4 months old the teaching

39

scale correlated positively (r=.76) with expressive language
at 36 months. At 8 months old the NCATS correlated with the
Bayley MDI and PDI at 12 months old (r=.66). At 12 months
old the scores correlated with the Bayley MDI (r=.67).
Maternal scores were found to be higher among married
mothers. However, there was no significant difference in
the scores between the children of married and unmarried
mothers.

Recognizing the score range for this instrument is.
0 - 73, the dyads’ scores of the 106 participants in this
agency's catalog of films ranged from 29 to 62 (x = 47.32).
The treatment group's scores ranged from 32 to 62 (x -
48.21): while the control group's range was 29 to 62 (x a
46.58).

fielegtign_pxggedure. Ten participants were chosen from
the treatment group of the already established program of
research at the agency by the following procedure. The
NCATS scores of the treatment group were placed on a
frequency distribution curve. Five mother-infant dyads from
each of the distribution extremes were then purposefully
selected starting with the highest score in the right
extreme and selecting five dyads and then selecting the
lowest score and choosing five dyads from the left extreme.
The five high scorers had scores ranging from 57 to 62. The
scores of the five low scorers ranged between 32 and 38.

All five low score dyads selected for this study scored

'40
below what the Nursing Child Assessment Satellite Training
Programs (1994) at the University of Washington, Seattle,

now considers as the 10th percentile cutoff point for this

teaching interaction instrument (Caucasian = 47, Hispanic
44, and African-American = 42).

In addition the mother-infant dyads selected to
participate also had to meet the following criteria:

1. The teen mother had to be a first time parent.

2. The teen was to be between the ages of 15 and 19
years old at the time of the baby's birth.

3. Only mothers of a full term healthy newborn could
participate.

4. At the time of the filming, the baby was to be no
younger than 12 months and no older than 15 months plus 30
days.

5. The teen mother was expected to give her own
informed consent to participate in the study with her
infant.

6. For teens not of age, the teen's parent/guardian
was requested to give consent for the teen's participation
Emancipated minors signed consent for themselves.

The selected teens were then asked during one of the
initial contacts to invite one of their family members to
participate in the study with them. This researcher
originally planned to offer each interview participant a
token gift (key chain, stationery) for their participation.

41
However, the health care agency from which the participants
were selected chose to change their incentive for teen
participation in their programs. Their incentives
significantly outweighed my original intent of a token gift,
making it necessary for me to offer a $25 gift certificate
at a local mall‘to each family member who participated in
the interviews. Eight of the 10 young mothers were able to
find a family member willing to take part in the study.

Only 1 dyad of the original 10 selected from the
distribution extremes did not meet all of the criteria
established for this study. The teen and infant had scored
high on the NCAT, but the baby had been born prematurely
after a complicated labor and delivery. This one dyad was
substituted by moving to the sixth dyad from the right in
the right extreme of the distribution curve. The sixth dyad
did meet the criteria indicated.

MW. A11 10 teen
mothers identified were initially approached through their
assigned health care agency advocates to request their
willingness to participate in this study. All five of the
teens in the low score group required multiple attempts such
as phone calls, home visits, and planned agency appointments
to make these first introductory contacts. In contrast, the
five teens in the high score group required only one attempt
to arrange for a first time meeting. Once the study was

described to the teens, all consented to participate.

42

During the first contacts, the teens began to discuss
which family member they would ask to be with them. A
letter of introduction to the study (Appendix B) was sent
home with the teens to be given to the person they indicated
they wanted to be with them during the family interviews.
All in the low end of the score distribution voiced a I
reticence to ask their mothers to be with them. However,
all five of the teens in the upper score end of the
distributions talked about how nice it would be to have
their maternal figure with them: ultimately, seven of the
teens chose their mothers to participate. Among the low
score group, four chose their mother and one chose an older
adult sister. In the high score group, three chose their
mother and two were unable to find any adult in the family
willing to take part in the study. The two without an adult
participant were both orphaned during early adolescence.
-One teen's mother died 2 months prior to her 14th birthday:
the other had lost her maternal grandmother, who had raised
her from birth and whom she called mother, just after her
14th birthday. These other family informants chosen by the

teen ranged in age from 23-52 years old (See Table 1).

 

 

43
Table 1 - W
___Inf_emant ' REBEL Mean_
Teens at time of delivery 15-19 . 17.4
Teens at the time of interview 16-21 18.7

Other family informants at the

time of interview 23-52 40

 

All of the teen informants are receiving some form of
state assistance and food program subsidies. The average
completed education for the group was 9.9 years (See Table
2). All five of the low score group have dropped out of
school. In the high score group, two have completed a high
school education or the equivalent: two are continuing their

education: only one has dropped out of school.

Table 2 - WW3:

 

 

NQAI Group Rangers MEAD.
Low Score Group 8-11 9.4
High Score Group 8-12 10.4

 

The ethnic heritage of the teen informants selected for
this study reflects the ethnic make up reported by the teen
parent program from which they were selected (See Table 3).
During the interviews, however, it was interesting to note
that many of the informants reported their heritage as

African-American or Caucasian, when in fact, many have

44
Native American heritage as well in their background. The
informant who identified herself as Hispanic indicated she

was of one half Hispanic and one half Polish descent.

Table 3- Wings

 

 

Ethnicity ‘ Teen Parent Informants Additional
Program Heritage_
African-American 58.2% 60% 3 of 6 are N-A
Caucasian 32.8% 30% 2 of 3 are N-A
Hispanic/Latino 3.8% 10% 1 of 1 is Cauc.
Other 5.2% 0%

 

N-A: Native American

Cauc: Caucasian

Data Collection Techniques

This study has used a variety of methods to access the
family stories of the participants. In this section the
data collection techniques used will be discussed.
W

The collection of data actually began with the
semistructured observations and blind scoring of all the
agency films of the teen mothers and infants in the
parenting program using the NCATS (Appendix A) as already
described. As described, it was the score distribution of

these films that directed the selection of informants.

'45

111W

The first person to person contact with one of the
teens was on Wednesday, June 30, 1993. Visits were then
scheduled in the informants’ homes or at the agency and
continued through Tuesday, September 21, 1993.‘ The
locations for the interviews were determined with the agency
advocates and the selected participants. Due to the safety
issues in some of the neighborhoods, the advocates advised
the researcher to see two specific teens and their families
at the agency. Four families asked to meet at the agency
and four invited the researcher to come to their homes for
the interviews. During the first visit introductions were
made, the study was described, and consents were signed
(Appendix C). Information obtained during this first visit
also included names, ages, and birth dates of all household
members, and the schooling, work, income, financial aid,
ethnicity, religion, and marital status of each of the
informants (Appendices D 8 E). During future visits the
data were gathered with an intensive semistructured
intergenerational family history (Appendix F) and the
construction of an intergenerational family genogram
(Appendix G) using qualitative interview methods. The
initial question presented to each family was "How would you
describe your family’s history to someone who is interested
in knowing about your family?" Most of the informants were

not quite sure what the researcher was seeking with this

46
first question. The second probe was always more helpful:

I am interested in knowing about all the relatives you

ever knew of or heard about. I am interested in the

stories you have to tell about them, who they were,

where they came from, where they lived what they did,

what the family called them and had to say about them.

I will try to put their names on the branches of this

tree as you talk about them.

These materials‘were designed to assist the process for
gaining information about the family tree and the
intergenerational histories of these families.

The genogram approach was chosen for collecting data as
it displays family information and relationships graphically
in a way that produces a quick gestalt of complex family
patterns (MCGoldrick 8 Gerson, 1985). The probe questions
used in this study were modeled after the family assessment
questions constructed by the Calgary Family Assessment
Model-CFAM (Wright and Leahey, 1984). With the permission
of both the client and the agency, client records and
discussions with the agency advocates working with the teens
were also used to augment data collected directly from the
family.

W119}:

In qualitative research the primary research instrument
is the researcher. In this case, this researcher's 28 years
of maternal-child nursing practice focusing on teen parent
families has given the investigator cause to believe that

the teen and her family have a great deal to share with

professionals about their family experience. This

47
researcher believes that the difference between the teen who
is able to develop a supportive mother-child
relationship/interaction with her baby and the teen who has
difficulty in doing so is in the story that the teen and her
family have to tell about their intergenerational_family
experiences.

For this study the investigator took the role of
participant-observer. All families agreed for their
interviews to be audiotape recorded. These recordings
greatly facilitated the construction and labeling of the
complex family trees presented by these families. Several
families discussed various modes of dress, hair styles,
family pictures, and previous family trees that had been
made by other members of the family. Observations were made
of the interaction patterns between family members including
interactions with the babies. The investigator had provided
- snacks for each interview session. For those families who
chose to eat and talk, the snacks seemed to provide a
relaxed environment within which to talk about family
experiences and stories. A few chose not to have the snacks
until after the visit, but all voiced being pleased with
treats brought to the session.

The original choice of the researcher was for the
interviews to occur and the genograms to be constructed in
the presence and with the assistance of both the teen mother

and one other family member that the teen had chosen to be

48
with her. This approach was preferred over the alternative
of collecting the information individually from family
members. The investigator believes that concurrent
interviews increase reliability and provide an opportunity
to compare various family perspectives. This approach also
supported the researcher's observations of family
interaction and communication. McGoldrick and Gerson (1985)
refer to this as a way of accessing the Rashomon effect. It
is a way of seeing the events of the family from the
perspective of a number of different family members. The
approach was possible for 8 of the 10 families. As
indicated, two teens were unable to find another adult
family member to participate with them. Both of these teens
had no difficulty presenting their family history alone. In
9 of the 10 families the babies were present for the
interviews which provided further observations of the
mother-infant interaction: in 7 families the presence of the
babies provided additional information about how other

family members interact with the babies.

Validity and Reliability
Validity and reliability are measured differently in
qualitative research than they are in quantitative studies.
Denzin (1978) notes that to handle a threat to validity, the
researcher must demonstrate that the cases studied are

representative of the class of units to which

49
generalizability is made. The external validity rests on
the internal variety. Chenitz and Swanson (1986) indicate
that the greater the range and the variation sought through
sampling, the more certain one is of the generalizability of
the results of the study.

In this study issues of validity were addressed by
observing the following guides. Teens in the adolescent
parent program of the health care agency were admitted to
the program and randomly assigned to either a treatment or
control group. Only the treatment group was used as a pool
from which the final informants for this study were
selected. This was done to avoid any possibility of the
interview having a therapeutic effect with the control
group, thus contaminating the group. The methods described
earlier for selecting informants for this study resulted in
a group of informants that reflect the age, socioeconomic
status, and ethnic make up of not only the program from
which they were selected but also the community in which
they live. Information collected during interviews
evidenced that the families are typical of families who
migrated from the South to the industrial North and now
comprise the majority of the population of the area
surrounding the agency.

Glaser and Strauss (1967) have indicated that for
grounded theory to be valid it must "fit" the phenomena

under study, have "grab", and "work". For theory to be

50
grounded it must be intimately linked to the data. ”Fit"
means that the categories that are generated must be
indicated by the data and apply readily to the data. "Grab“
implies that the theory speaks to or is relevant to the
social or practice world and to persons in that world.
"Work” refers to the usefulness of the theory to explain or
interpret a phenomena. ‘

The variety of methods used in this study also
provides evidence of validity. Data acquired during the
construction of genograms were compared with the data
obtained during the interviews. The presence of two
informants in the majority of the interviews provided for
the validation or not of family information shared with the
researcher. The two teens who were without the support of
another family member during the discussions validated the
information they shared with notes taken from other family
-members before the interview and with phone calls they made
during the interviews. Data obtained from the families were
compared with that of other sources such as program records
and conversations with both agency supervisors and advocates
who work consistently with the teens and their families.
Objective data gathered by way of observations of
interactions and activities were compared with the outcome
scores on the NCATS and with the subjective data obtained

from informants. Tape recordings were used to assure

51

accuracy of interview information. All of these methods
lent to the validity of the research findings of this study.

Leininger (1985) indicates that reliability is present
when patterns or themes can be documented with data.
Comparable findings within families, across multiple
families, and aCross the high and low score extremes are
considered to have established the reliability for this
study.

Reliability was also enhanced with the use of an
interview guide (Appendix F). The qualitative questions
included in the guide were developed around major categories
of the Calgary Family Assessment Model (Tomm 8 Sanders,
1983) which has been recognized as an effective family
assessment instrument used successfully in Canada and the
United States. The guide provided as much consistency in
data gathered as appropriate for a qualitative study.

Although replication of a qualitative study is often
problematic, this researcher attempted to minimize any
potential for observer effect, thus increasing the chance
that another researcher could replicate this study. Field
notes were transcribed verbatim, objective quotes were noted
and differentiated from subjective data in an effort to

avoid bias.

52
Data Analysis and Synthesis

Although this study is predominantly qualitative, both
quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis were used.
Qualitative data analysis was conducted independently from
the quantitative data of the NCAT scores and socioé
demographics.
W3

A three phase analysis of the quantitative portion of
the study was conducted. First a descriptive analysis of
the NCATS data including an analysis of the distribution of
scores among the mother-infant pairs in the health care
agency's teen parent program was done. As indicated
earlier, these distribution data were used to determine
which families would be asked to participate in the
interviews and construction of genograms. Second, a
quantitative descriptive analysis of the socio-demographics
of the teens and the families participating in the
interviews was executed. Finally, a quasi-statistical
(Polit 8 Hungler, 1991) tabulation of the frequency with
which certain patterns or themes occurred in the qualitative
data from the interviews and genograms was performed. These
tabulations include, where possible, the frequency with
which patterns presented in the total group and the
frequencies that appeared for the family groups in each of

the extremes.

53
Wis

The intent of this study was to explore and describe
patterns or themes that exist in the intergenerational
family contexts of these teens and their families and
determine if the patterns or themes that evolve relate to
the interaction‘that exists between a teen mother and her
infant. Interview data were collected, transcribed, coded,
and analyzed from the summer of 1993 through the spring of
1994.

The hallmark of qualitative research is that there is
an ongoing dialogue between data collection, identification
of themes, and subsequent coding and analysis (Bogdan and
Biklen, 1982: Denzin, 1978: Glaser, 1992: Glaser and
Strauss, 1967). Ideally these processes occur
simultaneously--in a pulsating fashion--over the course of
the research (Snyder, 1992). However, the bulk of the
analysis often actually takes place after the researcher
leaves the field and has more time to sift carefully through
the data. This was the case for this study. Some analysis
did occur in the field. For example, decisions regarding
what themes to pursue, the kinds of probes to initiate, and
when to diverge from the interview guide were all being
analyzed on the basis of what was emerging from observations
and from what the participants were sharing during the
interviews in the field. Each interview was audiotape

recorded. These recordings were later transcribed in the

54
grammatical style of each participant. No corrections were
made for any mispronunciations or grammatical errors.
Attempts were also made to transcribe the participants'
responses in the dialect of the participant.

The informants in the low score extreme of the NCATS
distribution and their families were identified as Family A
through Family E. Informants in the high score extreme of
the NCATS distribution were identified as Family V through
Family 2. Generations were labeled Gp for the present
generation/infant generation, G1 for the teen’s generation,
G2 for the teen's parents' generation, G3 for the teen's
grandparents' generation and G4 for the teen's great
grandparents' generation. Thus A/Gl is the lowest scoring
teen of the teen informants and Z/Gl is the highest scoring
teen of the informants. For the purpose of documenting this
study, many of the participant families' quotes were
assigned one of the family labels indicated. However, no
family label is used where this researcher believes that the
confidentiality of a participant is at risk if the quote or
experience is labeled as indicated above.

After data were collected and transcribed a discovery
process was used where insights and intuition were combined
with a strong knowledge of the data to conduct an intensive
inductive analysis. Several authors have indicated that
there is no blueprint for identifying themes and developing

concepts in qualitative analysis (Gilgun, Daly 8 Handel,

55
1992: Chenitz 8 Swanson, 1986: Taylor 8 Bogdan, 1984).
Mast, however, engage in a similar process. The
transcripts, notes, memos, and other materials are read and
reread carefully with the intent of identifying patterns and
themes in the collected data. The researcher keeps track of
themes, interpretations, and ideas that arise throughout the
entire process. .

A similar approach was taken for this study. A
constant comparative analysis using the audiotape
recordings, transcriptions of the tapes, genograms, notes
from agency records, and notes from discussions with program
supervisors and advocates working with the teens was
conducted. The initial analysis of the data took place
within each case. The analyst used margin coding in the
transcriptions and notes of the data collected and conducted
a line by line analysis of what was being discussed. The
researcher was later able to conduct this analysis on a
sentence by sentence or section by section analysis of each
participant family's transcription. Genograms related
directly to the content of the interviews. Codes in the
interview were compared with what was illustrated in the
genograms. All of these codes were categorized and labeled.
Extensive family by family memos were written speculating
how various categories were linked. Three emerging core
categories evolved through this process: family frame,

family characteristics, and family function, accompanied by

56
the emerging characteristics of each of these concepts.
Later a similar process of extensive memos was used within
the high and low score groups. This was done to identify
and interpret how each of the core categories was
experienced similarly and/or differently between the high
and low score groups. Analysis continued throughout the
writing stage. As themes emerged, the researcher returned
to examine the literature for clarification of what was
being found in the data and to ascertain any relation with
existing theory. During the interpretive stage of the
study, the researcher recognized that the differences
between groups on the three emerging categories seem to
point to the emergence of a distress/well being continuum.

This is discussed in Chapter VII.

CHAPTER IV. EMERGING FAMILN FRAME

A list of five general open ended probe questions with
a list of more specific associated questions (Appendix F)
was created for this study to facilitate the interview
process. This guide was never intended to be used as a
rigid format for questioning. Each family was asked to
describe their family history. Most of the participants
initially had difficulty getting started. When this was a
problem, the reseacher found the following probe helpful:

I am interested in knowing about all the relatives you

ever knew of or heard about. I am interested in the

stories you have to tell about them, who they were,

where they came from, where they lived, what they did,

what the family called them and had to say about them I

will try to put their names on the branches of this

tree as you talk about them.

Once the families understood the intent of the
interview, they all responded with apparent comfort in
telling the stories of their families. There were
similarities and differences found within and between the
family histories of the high and low score groups. All of
the informants discussed family composition and the sizes of
the various family units across four to five generations of
their families. They named members of the various
generations and discussed a myriad of relationships that
existed in the past or continue to exist between the family

members they were able to recall. They reminisced about the

maternal lineage of their family histories more easily than

57

58

they did about the family histories of the males of their
families. Often little and sometimes nothing was known
about the family heritage of their fathers or their mates.

The families were often exceptional in their abilities
to recall the order of births, deaths, marriages, and
divorces, easily relating the dates of these and other
important events in the family. This information allowed
the researcher to explore the generational density of these
families, the incidence of adolescent pregnancy over the
generations, who the single parents were, who married whom,
and what range of involvement each parent had with their
children. Throughout the process, the researcher was able
to compare some of the experiences of the present generation
of a family with the family stories of previous generations.

This researcher defines these data as the family frame.

Family Size Across Four Maternal Generations

Informants often reported the various generations of
their families as being very large and extraordinarily
complex. The families seemed to recognize themselves as
different from the norm and shared this awareness with the
interviewer. The low score families presented stories of
their families having large numbers of closely spaced
children over several generations.

The teen of this family is the oldest of three sibs.
She has two brothers.

'59

The teen's mother said that in her own family she was
the fourth of nine children. She had five sisters and
three brothers. She named each of her siblings and
struggled for over 30 minutes attempting to calculate
each of their ages. She indicated that her own mother
was the third of six Children, four girls and two boys.
(Family A)

Teen: "I have four brothers and one sister.' I’m the
youngest."

Mother of the teen: "I have 13 brothers and sisters.

I am the 9th of the 13." She laughs and then
continues to name her sibs and give their birth

dates. "My father's parents had 15 children." She knew
little about the family. Her mother was the third

of four sibs. The other three children were boys.
(Family B)

This teen is the middle child of three sibs, one older
sister and a younger brother. "I would like to know my
sister better, she lives down South with my
grandmother". The older sister has been raised by the
maternal grandparents from birth.

Mother of the teen: "I have seven brothers and four
sisters. I'm the oldest” she giggles. There are

12 of us. My Daddy’s family had 10 kids, 9 boys and
only 1 girl. My mama had only one brother and one
sister." She knew little about either side of her
family history: not even the sequence of the births.
(Family C)

Of the eight teens who were able to find an adult
family member to be with them for the interview, only
the next teen chose someone other than her mother to be with
her. She chose her older sister.
This teen is the youngest of five. She has two
sisters and two brothers. Her father is not the father
of the other four Children. "We're very close family,"
she said and then went on to talk about how she fights

with her sister and the problems in the family that she
blames on her siblings.

60

Sister of the teen: "My mother had five kids. One
died. She was out there takin' care of four children
by herself. It was rough for her and I know it because
I have three of my own and it’s rough on me now."
Neither she nor her teenage sister knew very much about
their family history prior to their own generation.

She spoke of her sister’s father, "Her daddy not my
daddy. She saw her daddy when she growin' up. I
didn't see mine that often." She talked of her own
father, "Well there’s 26 of us in all. It's like we’re
all spread around. He have about 26 kids all by
different mothers. I know probably only about five of
'em. He counted 'em for us one day. There was 24 when
he came to see us that year and there was a set of
twins on the way. So it would a been 26. It don’t
make no sense. He’s not takin' care of none of us.
None of us! But none of 'em! He and his wife now
goin' to get a foster child 'cause she can't have kids.
Well he have 26 of us out here floatin' around and the
man have refused to care for all of us. All of us, he
haven't taken care of none of us! None of us, and I
mean none! But he's gonna' go and get a foster child?
And here he is, he owes millions and millions of back
pay in Child support for, you know, for the ones really
here." She went on to explain that her father was one
of 11 kids. She knew only a few of their names and
had no idea of their birth sequence. She knew that her
mother was the older of two children. "My mother’s
brother's a half brother. When her mother married
another man, she had a son." (Family D)

This teen is the second of four siblings. She has
one sister and two brothers.

Mother of the teen: "I had lots of sisters and
brothers. I was the fifth. There were 12 of us.

I know most of their birth dates." She continued,
naming each and gave each of their dates of birth. Her
father was the second of four. He had two brothers and
a sister. Her mother was one of sixteen children.
There were nine girls and seven boys. (Family E)

The next five families are the families from the higher
sGore group. They also presented stories about large
farllilies. However, the children in their families were not

a8 closely spaced.

61

This teen is the younger of two children. "My
(maternal) grandparents had lots of children. Let's
see there was one, two, three, four.... There was six
children. My mother was the oldest. The youngest is
10 years older than my sister. I didn't know much
about my great grandparents, so I don't know how many
kids they had. My dad grew up with a stepfather. They
had four other younger children. He had two half
brothers and two half sisters." The teen continued to
struggle unsuccessfully to name her father's sibs.
(Family V)

The teens of the next two high scoring families were
only children. Families with only children were not found

among the lower score families.

This teen, an only child, allowed her mother to do most
of the talking about family.

The mother of the teen indicated that she has eight
siblings. She has four brothers and four sisters. She
gave all of their birth dates without difficulty.
Talking about her mother's family she said, "My mother
was the oldest of her brothers and sisters. She had
four brothers and five sisters." She, also, knew that
her father had two sisters and two brothers, but wasn't
sure of the sequence of their births. (Family W)

This teen, also an only child, insisted that we wait
for her mother to return from vacation before the
interview could take place.

Mother of the teen: Indicating that her oldest brother
was adopted, she said, "He was my father's nephew. My
mother had two miscarriages between my sister Betty and
myself, and then myself. She had a total of eight
pregnancies in nine years. That's a lot of babies!"
She talked of having five brothers and one sister. Her
mother was one of 10 children. She had four sisters,
one of whom was also an adopted child and five
brothers. "Her brothers all died as children." She
did not know the reason for their deaths. "My father
had one stepbrother and two sisters." (Family X)

The next teen was the only teen raised by her

62
grandparents. She considered her grandmother to be her

maternal figure.

This teen is the oldest of seven children by her
biological mother. However, she was raised from birth
as if she lived in a family of three children. Her
maternal grandmother parented her and the next two sibs
born to her mother as though they were her own
children. Talking of her grandparents, she said, "My
grandmother, she was my mother! I think of her as
mother. She had nine siblings. My grandfather had 17,
but unfortunately only four survived. They only lived
a couple months. It was kinda’ like they got

attached but they didn’t survive. You know back then
medical history, I guess wasn’t to ask why." Her
grandparents had raised four children of their own, two
girls and two boys. The oldest girl was born to her
grandmother while married to her grandfather, but the
child was not his child. Her mother was the last of
the four born. Referring to her mother, "Yeah! My
mother’s name is Ann. She is 38 years old. She has
brothers and a sister who are all older than she is."
Without hesitancy she named each and gave their birth
dates. She seemed sad and disappointed as she talked
of her mother, "My mother was pregnant every year until
she had DeDe." Her mother had had a total of 17
pregnancies of which there are now 6 living children.
She went on to say, ”I think her taking drugs has made
her act like she does and I think the drugs may have
caused my one baby brother to have died." While on
drugs, her mother had a baby born prematurely with
respiratory distress. The baby died within hours of
his birth. (Family Y)

This teen is the youngest of three children. She had
two older brothers. The oldest died, as an infant,
before she was born.

Mother of the teen: Attempting to help the
investigator understand the order of her siblings, this
mother described the rank and composition of her
biological family, "I have an older brother who I named
my son for. My oldest sister was outa’ my mother’s
first marriage. Then my sister, Mary, was outa’ my
mother’s second marriage. Then I came outa’ her third
marriage.... Well, I guess, not I came outa’ her
fourth marriage. She was married again, but she

didn’t have any kids. And then the fourth marriage, I
was born. And then her fifth marriage was to my

 

63
stepdad." She continued to talk of her complex family
structure: "My oldest sister’s daughter was raised as
my youngest sister. Now, my youngest brother was given
to my mother and my stepdad. The girl that had him had

him under my mother’s name. She posed as my mother
when she went to the hospital to have him." (Family 2)

It should be noted that, while talking of family
structure, the families of the low score group seemed to
know less than the high score group about their family
histories and the people who preceded their own generation.
By comparison, they stumbled through names and ages of
family members. Their focus on family seemed more directed
toward their own generation. However, it must also be noted
that their family sizes are considerably larger at each of
the preceding generations and the shear numbers of people to
be remembered may have been the cause for their hesitancies.
W

The genograms constructed for this study (Appendix G)
allowed for an analysis of actual family size across the
generations of each family and the calculation of the
average number of children born to the mothers of each
generation (See Table 4). These averages were then compared
between the low and high score groups.

The family size of both groups appears to have
decreased over the last four generations. However, each of
the last three generations of the low score group is notably
larger than the higher score group. In fact, two high score

teens (61) were raised as only children. The smallest

64
family of the low score group in the same generation was a

family with three children.

 

Table 4. 1 ° a e e o C 1
WM
_____Qenerati9nL____L9u_a29rs_Qr9uR___High_529rs_§reun_______
G3 6.8 9.2
G2 9.6 6.4
61 4.2 1.8
Gp 1.4 1.0
Gp: Infant’s generation, G2: Teen’s mother’s generation
Gl: Teen’s generation G3: Generation of maternal

grandmother of teen

A difference is again seen in the generation of the
-infant (Gp). All of the girls in low score group have had a
second pregnancy. Two have delivered and are raising a
second child and a third is presently pregnant and intends
to carry the pregnancy to term. Only one teen mother in the
high scoring group has become pregnant a second time. She
was near term at the time of this study and intends to keep
and raise this baby.
Eamil2_5Rasin9_Ei2tursd_flithin_the_§enesram

Determining the spacing of Children was only possible

in the generations where there appeared to be an accurate

 

65

report of birth dates. In most families this was only
possible back through the G2 generation. The spacing
between the first two children at each generational level is
reported in this section.

In the low score group, the spacing between children
over three generations ranged from 10 months to 13 years I
(See Table 5). There were no "only child" families in any
generation of this group. Two families in two different
generations had a spacing between the first two children
greater than 24 months. The spacing of 47 months reported
by Family A at G1 is questionable. The advocate believes
the mother may have had multiple abortions between her first
and second child. In Family D (G2) where there were 13
years between the first two children, the mother had one
child and did not have another until she married 12 to 13
years later. In the high score group, "only child" families
were reported in the Gp or G1 generations of four families
and in both these generations in one family. The spacing
between the first two pregnancies of families who had more
than one pregnancy ranged from 17 months to 9 years. There
was no indication in these families of abortions or
miscarriages between the first two children. Among the five
families reported over three generations, there were only
two incidents of the first two children being born less than
24 months apart. In one family the children were 17 months

apart in the other they were 18 months apart.

 

66
Table 5. SRasin9_Betxssn.£irst_122_2rsgnansiss'

 

 

 

_LQR_§Cere_Eamilies_
_____§gneration A B C D E
GZ 16m 24m 16m 13y 14m
G1 47m(?) 24m 20m 10m 13m
Gp 17m 21m 16m 21m _ 19m
_nigh_fieere_2amilies_
V W X, Y Z_
32 (?) 17m 5y 28m 9y
Gl 29m CC CC 34m 24m
Gp 0C 0C 18m oc 0C
m: Months y: Years OC: Only Child

Compression of Generations

A generation among humans is usually accepted to be
an average of about 30 years between the birth of the
parents and the birth of their offspring. Normally, one
would then expect approximately 60 years between the birth
of the grandparent and the birth of the grandchild.
When children are born to adolescent parents for a period of
generations, a generation compression seems to develop.
This compression of generations is noted in both the low and
high score groups of this study (See Table 6). The average
age of the first pregnancy in each generation of both groups
appears to be similar. However, the age of the mothers at
the time of their first pregnancies has notably decreased

with each generation.

67

 

 

_L91_§99re_Families_
Generatien___as B C D E______§enl_Axl
G4 20y - -» 20’s - 20.0y
33 20y 18y 28y 19y 14y 19.8y
G2 18y 19y 19y 18y 19y . 18.6y
31 15y. 17y 17y 15y 17y 16.2y
Family Av.: 18.3y 18y 21.3y 18y 16.7y
.Eish_§29rs_zamiliss_
Generation V W x9 Y sz______§sn1_Axl
s4 - - - - - -
G3 20’s 24y 14y 24y 20y 20.4y
32 20y 19y 23y 17y 18y 19.4y
Gl 18y 15y 17y 19y 15y 16.8y
Family Av.: 19.3y 19.3y 18y 20y 17.7y

 

Marital Links

Marriage in our society has traditionally represented a
commitment between a woman and a man to care and provide for
each other and for any potential children to whom they give
birth. During the last five decades this perspective on the
importance of a marital bond has been changing. When
problems arise in a marriage, couples are choosing divorce
more frequently than they did prior to the 19403. Some
women are choosing never to marry and to parent alone. The
number of children growing up in single parent homes has
increased in the last few decades. In 1960 fewer than 10%
of all children under the age of 18 years old lived with

only one parent: by 1989 almost a quarter of all children

68
lived with one parent (Carnegie Corporation of New York,
1994). Usually the parent they live with is the mother.
The families in this study reflect some of these societal
changes.

Across both groups, the few couples remembered from the
19203 and before were married and their marriages are
reported to have remained intact. During the late 19403 and
early 19503 the family stories and genograms begin to depict
increasing numbers of separations, divorces, and
remarriages. None of the marriages of the 19603 - 19703
remained intact.

One family’s history indicates that there has not been
a marital relationship between any of the parents of the
family for over four generations. Another family describes
a history of three generations of children raised by
multiple stepfathers because the parents of each generation
were unable to maintain a lasting relationship.

At the G4 generation, 9 of the 10 women were married.
Eight of these marriages were reported to have remained
intact. Only one woman remained an unmarried parent and the
other divorced. Both of these women were in the low score
family group.

Among the low score families at the G3 generation,
there were three marriages that ended in divorce. Of the
five families, only one couple’s marriage remained intact.

One woman never married any one of the three men with whom

69
she had children. There were only two marriages at the G2
generation: both ended in divorce. All of the teens of the
low score group were born to single parents. Four of their
mothers were reported to have had multiple male
relationships throughout the time their Children were
growing up. Their daughters at the G1 generation are
behaving similarly. None of the teens are married and only
one is with the father of her baby. At the time of the
interview, she was expecting their second child. Two others
also have delivered a second baby and one has reported an
abortion since the birth of her first child. Four of the
five report having had sexual relationships with several
men, other than the father of their first child, since
having the first baby. All five describe themselves as
single parents.

In the high score group, only four families could give
information about the marriages in the G4 generation. In
all four cases the maternal great-grandparents were reported
by the informants as having had intact marriages. At the G3
generation four of the five families had intact marriages.
In the fifth family the maternal grandmother was married a
total of five times and had Children by each of the first
four husbands. At the 32 generation, two of the teens were
born to single mothers and three were born to parents who
were married at the time of their birth and later separated.

Four of the teens of this generation experienced more stable

70
environments with their mothers or grandmother than was
reported by the teens of the low score group. Even though
their mothers’ marriages did not remain intact, the children
did not experience the frequent Changes of male
relationships in their homes that were described by the
teens of the low score group. One of the teens did depict
her biological mother as drug addicted and grossly
promiscuous. However, this was the teen who recognized her,
maternal grandmother as her "mother". Her grandmother
provided her with a stability similar to that reported by
the other teens in the high score group.

Only one high score teen spoke of a childhood home
similar to that of the low score teens. Her mother was
married four times and had several live-in relationships
throughout the teen’s Childhood.

Unlike the low score teens at the Gl, three of the high
score teens are now married to the fathers of their babies.
The other two no longer have relationships with the fathers
of the babies. Only one has had a repeat pregnancy. She is
one of the married teens and is living with the father of
her baby. She was due to deliver within days of the

interview.

Paternal Presence
The intactness of a marital relationship between

parents in these families was frequently the determinant of

71
the father’s physical and psychological availability to the
children. Among the 10 families studied, only 1 biological
father lives with the mother of the teen. .They are not
married but have lived together for over 21 years. Although
he is physically present, the family does not perceive him
to be socially and psychologically available to them. The
other nine teens were unable to identify a paternal figure
with whom they felt close. Eight of the nine talked of
having had very infrequent contacts with their biological
fathers throughout their childhoods. Most live in the same
city within relatively short distances of each other. One
father has attempted a reunion with his daughter since his
wife’s death after their divorce, but the daughter detests
the man. She delineates no reason for her revulsion except
to say, "No one knows nor understands what my father and my
relationship has been. I want to have nothing to do with
him!" Another teen has never met her father. Both she and
her mother had extreme difficulty even recalling his name.
The mother indicates that her relationship with him was very
brief.

Most of the teens in this study know little more than
the names of their biological fathers. They rarely, if
ever, see the men or their families of origin. Only the
teen who expressed total contempt for her father was able to
talk of her paternal grandparents beyond just a recall of

their names.

72
Life Line Mirroring

Life line mirroring is a concept label created by this
researcher. The term represents the phenomena of family
behaviors or family incidents of one generation being
replicated or mirrored by members of the family in the next
generation at a similar point of family development. The
teens in this study often reflect back a faithful
representation of behaviors or experiences of the generation
that preceded them.

Four of the maternal grandmothers and all five mothers
of the low score teens were adolescent parents. For three
generations, most of the families of this group spaced their
first two children less than 24 months apart. All of the
marriages for the past three generations have failed. Like
their mothers, four of the teens of this group are
demonstrating promiscuous behaviors.

Mirroring is also evident in the families of the high
score teens. Three of the five mothers of these teens were
also adolescent mothers. However, most of their maternal
grandmothers were adults at the time they became pregnant
for the first time. Like the generations that preceded
them, the teens appear to be spacing their children further
apart than the low score group. Most of the families had
spaced the first two children more than 24 months apart.
The generations of this group also tended toward smaller

families, some having only one child. Marriages at the G3

‘73
and before remained intact. The first indication of failed
marriages appeared at the G2 generation. Unlike the
families of the low score teens, there was evidence of only
one mother of a high score teen being promiscuous and she
never parented the teen in the study: the maternal.

grandmother parented the teen from birth.

CHAPTER V. GENERATIONAL FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS

The family stories told by the women of this study
confirmed the uniqueness of each family’s history. However,
there were characteristics that they had in common with each
other. Their family cultural origins and mobility, past and
present education, work and economic status, living
environment, and religious practices seem to reflect the
culture of the community in which they are presently living.
The researcher terms these family characteristics and

presents them in the following sections.

Family Cultural Origins and Mobility

The reported cultural and ethnic heritage of the
interviewed families reflects the ethnic makeup of the
adolescent parent program from which they were selected.
There were 60% of the teens in the program who described
themselves as being African American, 30% said they were of
Caucasian descent, and 10% were registered by the program as
being of another ethnicity. Among the 10 families selected
to be interviewed for the study, 6 of the families initially
filled out a questionnaire describing themselves as African
American, 3 indicated that they were Caucasian, and 1 said
she was Hispanic (See Table 3).

During the interviews, more information about the

cultural ethnic background of these families was added to

74

75
the initial data. Only 4 of the 10 families were strictly
of the heritage they originally indicated. Their family
backgrounds were much more complex than what was captured by
questionnaire. Three of the African American families
talked of having Native American ancestors at er prior to
the G4 generation. The three Caucasian families indicated
that their heritage was some combination of German, Irish,
or English. Two of the three also identified earlier
generations as being of Native American descent. Although
her mother seemed reticent to talk about her daughter’s
father, one of the three teens proudly revealed that she is
half Native American, "My father is a full blooded Indian!”
She has never met her father.

The teen who initially said she was Hispanic was
actually half Hispanic and half Polish. Other than using
her father’s Spanish surname, she purposively has little to
-do with him. Her maternal great-grandparents were Polish
immigrants.

Among the low score families, four could definitely
trace their family heritage to some one of the southern
states of the United States: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia,
Kentucky, or Mississippi. Although the Emancipation
Proclamation was signed by President Lincoln in 1863, some
of these families talk of relatives born after 1900 as
having been slaves. They were probably poor migrant

workers, hired hands, or share croppers who worked the

76
fields of southern land owners after the abolition of
slavery. They lived in very meager conditions and received

little for their work.

Mother of the teen: ...my mother was brought up in the
South. I think she was born in Arkansas. She’d tell
us about workin’ in the fields and how they had to make
butter and‘how they had to sleep on straw on the floor.
The house would have holes. They could look up and see
the stars. They could see when it rained. They’d get
buckets to put on the floor and catch the rain in
different places. Her mother didn’ have too much. She
had to give my mother to relatives and she was then
passed around by the relatives a lot.

Teen: Our family first started and I know it was back
in slavery. The female that start us was a housemaid.
Some think that her owner, the slave owner, had sex
with her. That would be the cause of our good hair.
My great grandmother was a full blood Indian. You
could tell by lookin’ at her. Her hair was dark,
straight and real long: she could sit on it.

(Family A)

The teen and her sister referred the researcher to her
great grandmother’s obituary of 9—20-93. Haddie "Big

Mama" D. She died the day before our interview. The

obituary read that Haddie was born in 1900 in Georgia.
She had been a Michigan resident since 1923.

Sister of the teen: It was pretty rough. She was what
you would call a slave. She was born a slave back
then. It was like she was basically jes’... It was
jes’ comin’ outa the slave days. She was workin’ a
plantation. She talked about how hard it is to pick
that cotton. How it looks so easy to do but she said
it’s hard because you have to open somthin’ and you
have to dig in somethin’. You have to dig in there and
get your fingers poked or sumthin’. (Family D)

Mother of the teen: (Referring to her grandparents)
They talked about the horses and the plowin’ when they
in the South. But as a kid, I just thought they
kiddin’! Pickin’ cotton and stuff like that. They
then come up here to work in the shops. (Family E)

77

Each of these three low score group families reported
that their relatives had traveled a very specific route from
the South to locate in mid-Michigan. They described a
migration route during the 19403, that took them to Chicago,
later to Muskegan, and finally to their current location. A
fourth family came during the 19703 and did not take the
same route. They moved from Kentucky directly to

mid-Michigan.

This last family described a childhood in Kentucky:

Mother of the teen: All I know is about my
grandmother, my mama’s mother, she lived in the
country. Every Sunday, all of the cousins, aunts, and
uncles would go to her house. She lived in Kentucky.
We’d go there every Sunday. Play baseball. She had
chickens and pigs, horses. We lived the city part.
We’d go there for dinner. Sometimes we’d be there when
they slaughtered hogs. They’d kill the pig. I don’t
know we were little. They’d be out there killin’ the
pig and makin’ sausage. I was little. I wasn’t out
there. I couldn’t watch it. I didn’t like it.
(Family C)

A fifth family was unsure whether their family had any
southern origins:

Mother of the teen: I didn’t know my grandparents on

either side. My parents named ’em and that, but I

don’t remember. My Dad’s family were from Michigan on

a farm near Oskota. My Ma was from Illinois (possibly

came up from the South). They had a small farm when

they came here but sold it and moved to the city.

(Family B)

All of the families of the low score group talked of
their families at the G3 generation living on and working
farms.

Every family noted that those who migrated North left

their family and family supports behind. The mother of the

78
family from Kentucky related what the experience of leaving
parents, siblings, and familiar surroundings behind is like
for those who are forced to find jobs far from their family
base.

Mother of the teen: I hated it when I came here.

I miss my mother. She is my best friend. We don’t see
each other much, but maybe every so many years. She
just call somtimes and say, "I been thinkin’ ’bout ya’.
How ya’ doin’?" I miss her a lot! (Family C)

All of the families who migrated North left family and
support systems behind. They all came alone in hopes of
getting jobs and having better lives.

In the high score group, two other families also
originated from the South: Alabama and Mississippi. These
families migrated North during the 19403 and 19503.

Teen: My mother’s parents grew up in the South. Most
of them were raised up on farms. It was a large family
on both sides. My grandmother had nine siblings and
grandfather had 17, but unfortunately only four
survived. My grandmother was from Alabama. My
grandfather, I don’t know where he was from, maybe
Mississippi. They came up here for shop reasons. They
were paying well and they were hiring. I think they
may have come up sometime during the 19403. My great
grandfather, on my grandmother’s side, he owned his own
farm in the South. He was one of the first Blacks in
that town to own his own farm. He actually owned it!
He had cows and pigs. And there were nine of them
(children) to take care of the farm. He didn’t pick
cotton, because he owned his own farm. He was very
much hated. He was hated by the county people, I guess
because my great grandmother was an Indian. It was an
interracial relationship, so he was hated. My great
grandmother was murdered, because of that. I guess
owning a farm was like being rich at that time. And by
him being a Black man they were envious of that. It
was that and the fact that he was in an interracial
relationship. So my grandmother said they were pretty
well off. And people hated him for that. They even
sued him. They accused him of having a baby with
another woman, a White woman. He was actually set up,

79

so they could sue him. But he did finally get the farm
back. My great grandmother was killed in 1948.
Somebody, apparently, put something in her coke bottle.
When she drank it, it choked her. (Family Y)

Only one family in the high score group described their
ancestors taking a route North that was similar to the one
described by the low score families.

Mother of the teen: My mother and father were from
what was it? Mississippi and Alabama. My mother was
from Mississippi. I think they first stopped off in
Chicago, then Muskegan, then here. They came here so
that he could get a job in the shops. You know the
shops were booomin’ back then! They came from the
South to stop pickin’ cotton, my Mama said. My Mama
say she left Mississippi and leave it at that! I don’t
know if there was a bad story around that or what. You
didn’t ask her no more questions ’cause you goin’ to
get no more answers from her. I don’t know if she had
had a bad experience or what. (Family W)

Three of the high score group knew of no southern
family heritage in their ancestry. One family related that
the teen’s great grandparents lived in Chicago and that her
grandparents moved from Wisconsin to Michigan probably
during the mid-19503.

(Family reported being of German, Irish and English

ancestry.) Mother of the teen: I was born in Chicago.

We was in Chicago, until I was 11 years old. Then we

moved to Wisconsin until I was 13. Then we moved to

Michigan and we been here ever since. My mother and my

grandfather worked in the steel mill in Chicago during

World War II and my mother also drove a cab. My

grandmother was a homemaker and stayed home to take

care of us kids. (Family Z)

Two other families noted having European heritage.
Their ancestors came to the United States and immediately

settled in Michigan during the early 19003. By the 19403

80
they were also taking advantage of the job availability in
the research area.

Mother of the teen: My family always lived in this

area. My mother’s family was Irish and my father’s was

German and English. I don’t know when they came. I

never knew my grandparents on either side: they were

dead before I was born. My father had four different
jobs. He wprked at Fisher Body in paint repair, he
worked on cars in the driveway. He and a friend formed

a house painting job where they would go paint insides

and outsides of houses. He also cleaned a doctor’s

office once a week. My mother was a homemaker. She
tried to work at General Motors for about three months
and couldn’t handle it. I know one of my grandfathers
raised pit bulls during the Depression (Used dogs for
dog fight gambling.) He also used to put a nail on the
end of a stick and collect cigarette butts. He would
take them home and open them all up and sterilize it in
the sun and then reroll them and sell packs of

cigarettes. (Family X)

The teen who identified herself as being of Hispanic
I heritage said that her father’s family came from Mexico and
settled first in New Mexico. Her father has been the only
member of his family to move away from New Mexico. He came
to Michigan during the 19703. Her maternal great
grandparents immigrated from Poland in the early 19003.

They initially lived on a farm near Gaylord but the family
has since moved to an urban/suburban area of the research
community.

Unlike the low score group, only one family of the high
score group indicated that their family had a history of
share cropping or migrant work. Three families said that
their relatives at the G4 and the G3 generations owned their

own farms. Only one of the five families has no history of

81
farming: they have been city dwellers for the past four
generations.

Like Family C from Kentucky, one of the families in the
high score group also described the effects of losing family
ties when they had to move a distance from their family
supports: ‘

Mother of the teen: When I was a kid, every year, we

always went to Illinois, southern Illinois. It was a

family trek every year. It was just like a family

reunion, only nobody ever called it that. You know,
everybody bring their tents and everything. Family
would all get together, spend about a week together.

Everybody in the family was there. Nobody stayed out.

Everybody had to be there. We sort of separated from

the family when we moved up here. But, the uncles kept

comin’ to Mom. Mom was like the center point of the

family. (Family 2)

Education

The education level of these 10 families prior to the
G2 was minimal. The grade levels and ranges of education
for both groups were similar.

Among the low score families only one family of the G4
had had any schooling. The wife had attended approximately
four years of school and her husband had completed eighth
grade. At the G3, only one maternal grandfather had
completed a high school education. He did so through the
military. His wife had no formal education. None of the
other parents of the same generation completed elementary
school. The members of the next generation-G2, the children
born in the late 19403 and early 19503, were apparently

provided more of an educational experience than any prior

82
generation. Three of the mothers of the teens in the low
score group completed high school. One of the three has an
associate degree.

The trend of the G2 generation mothers, however, does
not appear to be continuing among the teens of the low score
group. All of the low score teens have dropped out of
school with no intent of continuing. Three have concluded
their schooling at the eighth grade and two others have
completed the eleventh grade. Four of the five indicated
that they had learning difficulties while in school,
however, there is no information regarding the etiology of
their educational delays.

Among the high score families no member of the family
at the G4 ever had an opportunity to attend school. At the
G3, not one maternal grandparent ever attended high school.
However, four of the maternal grandmothers did attend
elementary schooling: three were reported as having
completed the eighth grade. Like the low score group, the
late 19403 and early 19503 afforded the parents of these
teens better educational opportunities than their ancestors
had seen. In the high score group, four mothers completed
high school. Since high school, two of the women have
completed associate degrees and another indicates she has
completed a bachelor’s degree in business.

The high score teens appear quite different from their

low score peers. They have continued a trend of increasing

83
levels of education across the generations. Two of the teen
mothers have completed high school or its equivalent. Two
others are attending high school with the intent to
graduate: one is a freshman and the other is a junior.
Only one high score teen has dropped out at the eighth
grade. Althougfi there was no mention of learning
difficulties, she refuses to return to school. However, she
has married a severely dyslexic young man who graduated from

a high school special education program.

Work and Economic Status

Families that migrated to Michigan did so to take
advantage of what they perceived as a better economy in the
North. Those who came during the 19403 and 19503, the post
World War II boom, all got jobs in the auto industry. Later
generations of these same families and two other families
who first arrived during 19703 have not found the area to be
as prosperous.

Although the educational level of the G2 generation is
notably higher than that of the previous generation, the
parents of the teens are having difficulty finding
employment. Among the low score families, only two of the
mothers of the teens are working. One mother is a floral
assistant. She lives with a man who is a skilled tradesman
in the auto industry. This mother is the only one of the

five low score mothers not in need of state funds. A second

84
mother works intermittently as an office clerk. Finding
work has been difficult for her. She and the other three
families all receive federal and state benefits. None of
the teen mothers of this group is working: they all receive
some form of state or federal aid.

Although more of the high score group are working, the
same number are on some form of financial aid. One mother
of a teen was an auto company secretary before she died.

Two of mothers are working but not in the area for which
they have been educated. One, educated in business, is a
hotel desk clerk. The other, educated as a medical
assistant, is a nail technician. She lives with a man who
supports her. She is also the only one of the five not
receiving some state assistance. Two other mothers are not
working. One has an associate’s degree in office management
and has not been able to find employment for several years.
She has recently married a man who is working at a
nonautomotive minimum wage job. They were married out of
state and do not live together purposefully to avoid losing
her state assistance. A fifth mother of a teen in the high
score group is a severe substance abuser. She has never
worked other than selling drugs.

Three of the high score teens are married. All three
young husbands work at least two jobs as do two of the young
wives. Only one wife does not work: she is the teen who has

no intention of completing high school. Although, they are

85
working, their incomes are not sufficient to allow them to
be free of state subsidies. The two unmarried teens are not
working, but they are in school. They and their infants

live with and are dependent on their mothers.

Immediate Living Environment

In the next few paragraphs, the researcher will report
what the families revealed about the specific kinds of
housing accommodations and conveniences that have been
available to their families over the generations. Also the
accessibility and/or inaccessibility of various modes of
transportation and means of communication will be related
and how the availability or nonavailability of such
conveniences has influenced these families.

The families that had migrated from the South in the
19403 and 19503 were rural people who had worked the
farmlands of others while living in the South. Upon moving
to Michigan and getting a job they became urban dwellers.

All three low score families whose relatives migrated
from the South reported that their maternal grandparents had
rented homes when they came to Michigan. A fourth family of
the same group and generation was already settled in the
area in an owned home. All reported similar housing
conditions in the next generation. The fifth family which
migrated during the 19703 lives in subsidized housing.

86

None of the teens of the low score group live with
their parents. One lives in a house trailer provided by the
baby’s father’s family. The young father lives with them on
occasion. The other four teens live alone with their babies
is some form of rented or subsidized housing. Four of the
five teens have no phone in their home and all have no
personal means of transportation.

Although the mothers of these teens talk of having felt
safe in their childhood environments, three of the five do
not feel the same about their present living conditions.

The four teens living in the area all say they feel unsafe
in their homes. The teen who recently moved out of the area
to live with her boyfriend does not voice a similar concern.

Four of five maternal grandparents in the high score
group owned their own homes. The fifth, the family from
Wisconsin, rented a home in the area. During the next
generation, three of the mothers of the teens have lived in
rented homes as single parents. The other two mothers have
moved from house to house living with other than family
members.

Two of the three married teen mothers in this group
live with their husbands in rented apartments. The third
lives with her husband and inlaws in a crowded house owned
by the young husband’s parents. The two unmarried teens
live with their babies in their mothers’ homes. Unlike the

low score group, none of the women of this group indicated

87
feeling unsafe in their neighborhoods. Four of the five
teens in this group have a home phone and only one is
without the availability of a family car.

The environmental experience differs between these
groups and has changed over the generations. Earlier
generations of the high score group appear to have done
better than later generations as far as home ownership.
More recent generations of the low score group do not feel
safe in their homes. This group is also more likely to live
alone and feel unsafe in their neighborhoods in later
generations. By comparison to the high score group they

seem isolated by their lack of family phone or car.

Reported Religion vs Practiced Religion

All five low score families indicated the Baptist
religion as their religious preference on the initial
questionnaire. However, it became evident during the
interviews that not one of the teens nor their immediate
families were practicing a religion. One family reported
that they know of no one in the family who has practiced a
religion for the last four generations. In three other
families it was believed by the informants that the maternal
grandmothers of the teens in each family were the last
generation to practice a religion. In a fifth family the
last known adult member to attend church regularly was the

maternal great-grandmother. This same family has sent the

88
very small children of each generation to church on Sunday,
but the adults do not attend with the children.

Four of the five high score families indicated that
they practice a religion. In one family, the teen and her
husband are presently practicing in the African Methodist
Episcopal denomination. Her maternal grandfather and two
maternal uncles were preachers within other denominations in
the two generations that preceded her. These families speak
of their family rules and regulations being guided by
religion. Only one teen practices Catholicism. Her Polish
maternal grandparents were so insistent that the
grandchildren receive a Catholic education that they paid
for the children’s tuition.

The maternal great grandmother of a fourth family is
attributed with being a founder of a nondenominational
fundamentalist church and religion in the area. All of the
present generation of this family continue to attend the
church that she built.

Mother of the teen: Our church is a very small, close-

knit group of 28 people. It’s uh, very, very small.

The building is 130 years old. It’s the oldest

building in the township. The church was formed from

three families, my mother’s mother, the pastor and his
family and another family. These three families, we
are going into the fifth generation for this church.

My sister and her husband are very strong pillars

within the church. He’s the Sunday School teacher and

she’s the treasurer. (Family X)

As in the other families with a practiced religion,

this family says their religious beliefs influence how they

89
treat each other in their marriages and how they parent
their children. "All is done to serve the Lord!"

The fifth family is the least religiously involved of
the high score group. The mother of the teen practiced the
faith of the Latter Day Saints for a brief period._ "They
threw me out when they found out I was pregnantand not
married." She indicated that she is the only family member
for over four generations that reported having practiced any
religion. Neither she nor her children are any longer

involved in any faith.

CHAPTER VI . FAMILY FUNCTION

In addition to the family frame and family
characteristics, the families interviewed for this study
talked about the relationships and friendships that have
existed in their families. They talked of the happy and sad
times remembered by family. They referred to some of the
roles that members have played within family relationships,
like who were the feuders and the peacemakers, and who made
and who broke the family rules. They told stories
describing how various members of their family actually
conduct themselves with each other and about how the basic
daily routines necessary for the management of a family are
implemented. Some family researchers (Parsons 8 Bales,
1956: Tomm 8 Sanders, 1983: Wright 8 Leahey, 1984) have
referred to these behaviors as expressive and instrumental
functions of the family. For the purposes of this study,
the researcher labeled this core category family function.

Close Relationships or Friendships
Among the low score families, none of the mothers and
only one of the teens are receiving emotional or financial
support from the fathers of their children. Only one of the
five teens was able to identify a person to whom she would
turn for assistance if she needed some type of support. In

this one case, although the teen does not view her mother

90

91
and their relationship as positive, she said she would turn
to her mother for help. Teenagers typically are assumed to
have close friendships, yet none of the low score teens
spoke of having friends their own age. Thus none could
refer to an outside relationship for help.

Themes of rejection were common in the stories of the
mothers of the teens. Three of the mothers of the low score
group did express feeling isolated and/or rejected by their
families or their communities. When asked to whom they
would turn for assistance, two indicated that they would
turn to their mothers. For one of these women, this would
mean a long distance call to Kentucky to a mother whom she
is rarely able to visit because neither has the financial
resources to do so. Two other women said they would turn to
an older sister. Only one woman said she would turn to a
male member of the family, her stepfather, not because she
had a close relationship with him but because he had money.
She expected no emotional support from him.

Unlike the low score group, three of the five higher
score teens were receiving emotional and financial support
from the fathers of their babies. However, when asked to
whom they would turn for help if they needed it, only one of
the three indicated that she would turn to her baby’s father
for support. The other two said they would seek help from

their mothers. A fourth would ask the assistance of a

92
maternal aunt in Colorado with whom she has very little
contact. The fifth teen was the only teen of either group
of teens who said she would turn to someone outside her
family for help. Two of this group were so without family
support that they were unable to find a family member
willing to be with them for any portion of the interview.
Four of this high score group of teens did talk of having
friends their own age, but they did not say they would turn
to these friends in a time of need.

Among the maternal figures of these teens, only one has
received emotional and financial support from her mate. Two
of the women over their life time have consistently turned
to their own parents when they need help. In another
family, the mother of a teen says that she has a sister to
whom everyone in the family turns for support when in
trouble. A fourth woman relied totally on her son or on the
-granddaughter that she had raised for help if she needed it.
In this group only one mother expressed feelings of
rejection and isolation from family, similar to that talked
about by the three low scoring mothers. Unlike them,
however, she was unable to name one person to whom she could
turn for assistance if she needed it. It was this woman’s
daughter who said she will turn to others outside her family

if she ever needs support.

93
Happy and Sad Experiences

Three families in the low score group made no comment
as to what they perceived as the happy times in their lives.
One mother of a teen lamented that the happiest time of her
life was when she was a child. She said, "Those times were
worry free years!” She indicated that there have been no
happy times since then. Another teen said she was the
happiest when her mother, grandmother, boyfriend, and
cousins came to see her in the hospital when she had her
baby. However, she pointed out that it was not that she had
had a baby that made her so happy: it was the fact that her
family had come just to see her.

The sad times for the low score families were primarily
around experiences of loss. For three of the families, the
saddest time was when a member of the family died. Two
families talked of the death of a maternal grandfather as
being a terrible loss. In another family, the mother of one
teen talked at length about her sister being murdered. The
entire family had visited with the murdered woman the
evening that she was killed. They were awakened by police
in the early hours of the next morning to be told that the
sister’s boyfriend had killed her. Her siblings were left
with the responsibility of telling their parents of the
violence. The mother of the teen said that she and all of
her siblings believe that their mother took the death the

hardest. The mother died of natural causes within months

94
after the murder, but family members feel that her
daughter’s violent death contributed to her ill health. For
another family the loss was not to death, but a loss of
one’s health. The teen’s mother contracted breast cancer
two years ago and has had a total mastectomy. Even though
the incident had occurred two years ago, she and her
daughter talked and cried openly about the incident during
the interview. They have never had counseling nor the
benefit of a support group. Their story revealed that they
had not yet resolved all the fears and concerns that the
disease has brought upon the family.

For the high score group the sad times were not all
that different from those of the low score group. However,
the high score group talked about a greater number of varied
times of sadness. They were seemingly more open in telling
of their sadnesses. They pointed out the deaths of family
members. The most poignant story was told by the teen who
was raised from birth by her maternal grandmother. She told
of experiencing her grandmother’s death as the most
distressing time of her life. Her grandmother’s death was
actually a story of many losses for her. She was raised by
her grandparents from birth as though she was their child
because her mother was seriously drug addicted. When the
grandparents took her and the next two siblings into their
home, they unwittingly and without any other choice set into

place a loss that each of the children had repeated each

95
time they visited with or talked about their biological
mother throughout the years. Within a period of three years
this teen experienced three major losses. .When she was
eleven years old her maternal grandfather died of cancer.
Two years later her favorite maternal uncle was murdered by
his wife in Chicago. His death was a grave loss both for
her and her maternal grandmother who succumbed the following
year to cancer.

This teen looked very surprised at her own thoughts as
she was interviewed and said to the interviewer, "You know
you are White and my grandmother was Black of course, but
you remind me so much of her!" At that she sobbed and told
the story of how her grandmother’s children were mistreating
and stealing from her grandmother and how it was her
responsibility as a 14 year old to fight for her grandmother
while she was ill. She took off from school to be at home
with her during that last year and stayed with her night and
day at the hospital during the last few weeks. She said
that she believes that her grandmother provided for her and
it was her responsibility to care both physically and
emotionally for her while she was ill. Her grandmother’s
death was not the last of the losses. When she died there
was no one to come forward to care for the teen and her two
younger sibs. When it appeared that they would all be
turned over to her biological mother, the teen asked that

they be put into foster care. They were each placed in

96
separate homes. She felt that the time would give her an
opportunity to continue school and make decisions for
herself and the other children. She and her brother are now
living independently and a younger sister continues to live
in foster care. Although she never lived with her.
biological mother, she has experienced her mother’s
substance abuse as the loss of the mother and the family
that could have been.

A second teen sees her parents’ divorce and her
mother’s death as losses in her life. Her parents had
divorced when she was four years old. Her mother, as a
single parent, then raised her sister and her. The teen
relates another loss as she tells a story of having lost a
good relationship with her mother when she was about 12
years old. She is unsure why their relationship became a
problem, but she had started running with the wrong crowd
and had begun to drink and smoke marijuana. As a result of
frustration, her mother sent the teen away for a summer to
live with a maternal aunt in Colorado. Soon after she
returned home, her mother became ill and died. The teen
continues to blame herself for the mother’s death. Although
she was never told the cause of her mother’s illness, she is
sure that it was her behavior that contributed to the death.

3 s e '
When encouraged by the interviewer to explain how

members of the family were most likely to express their

97

various emotions, the low score group gave no indication of
how one shows happiness. They did, however, say that their
anger was revealed in a variety of ways: through yelling at
each other, hitting, throwing things, fighting, violent
behaviors, and in a few cases murder was ultimately
committed out of anger. One teen said, "Ya’ just know they
be angry by the way they be lookin’ at ya’." Soon after one
of the interviews, the police found symbols of the anger and
violence of the community in the home of one of the teens
participating in this study. They confiscated five rapid
fire guns and several magazines of ammunition from her home.

One low score teen did discuss how it felt to be sad or
afraid. She said that when she was sad she felt like
running away. From the researcher’s perspective, this same
teen was the most difficult teen with whom to make contact.
Agency records indicate that she is almost always not home
for her scheduled appointments. She also revealed that when
she experiences fear, she feels physically paralyzed. She
talked of a night that she was alone and while sitting on
the porch she thought that she saw someone in the bushes
outside her home. She was so frightened upon seeing the
shadowy figure that she could not move herself back into the
house to safety.

Unlike the low score group, every family of the high
score group could recall times of joy and contentment for

the family. Most referred to family get togethers and

98
reunions. They talked of holiday meals with grandparents,
anniversary parties, weddings and celebrations. Only one
teen, a high score teen, mentioned the baby and the
celebrations around the birth as a time of joy.

Although it appears that these families are struggling
for the basics in life, four of the five high score families
view times improving over the generations. The African
American women who see times improving base their opinion on
the fact that generations ago families of African American
heritage had decisions imposed on them. They believe that
in present times people of all heritages have more possible
choices.

One mother of a high score teen talked about how times
had improved and at the same time grown worse over the
generations. She agrees that families now have more
choices, yet she is concerned with the increase in violence
and crime. She has observed an increase of violence in her
community and a change in how families must now care for
their children over the generations and she believes that
the changes in both are related. She believes that with
mothers and fathers both having to work, sometimes several
jobs, to provide for their families, there is no one taking
care of the kids. She sees parents coming home from work
too tired to care for the children. She says, "The parents
have less time for the children. And the kids are really

raisin’ themselves! When this happens drugs and crime and

99
violence increase." This same mother sees adolescent
pregnancy as a problem that has worsened over the
generations. She confided in the interviewer,

When I was a girl, I only knew of a few who was

pregnant as teenagers. Now you see it all the time.

I’m only 37 years old, and if I was to be pregnant,

today, everyone would think it was strange.that this'

91d_1a§y was havin’ a baby. Hardly anyone looks at it
bein’ strange that a 14 or 15 year old is pregnant.

Times, they have changed! (Family W)

When the high score families were asked to talk about
how emotions are expressed in their family, they talked of
anger in a way similar to the behaviors demonstrated by the
low score families. They, too, showed their anger by way of
physical fights, running away, and screaming and yelling at
each other. In a few cases the anger had escalated to
result in murder. One family attributed the anger of some
members of the family to their having a "hair trigger"
temper. In another family, the father’s anger was blamed on
his childhood experiences with an abusive father. One teen
said, "I know I shouldn’t, but I hold my anger in and then
later I blow!”

Four of the high score families did describe how their
families show sadness. Two said that family members cry
when they are sad. A third woman said that she knew of
family members, including herself, who became depressed and

suicidal when they were sad. In the fourth family, the teen

said that since her mother died "everyone is sad but no one

100
talks about it." This is the same teen who talked about how
she represses her anger.

One mother of a teen is presently feeling very fearful.
Her present husband has become very violent. She feels her
only alternative in dealing with his behavior is to run
away. She plans to go and live with family in either the
South or the far West.

This group indicates that the families show their
happiness by laughing or simply telling others how happy
they feel. The teens say that they like to hang out with
others their age when they are happy. The adults talk of
partying or having a celebration.

There were similarities and differences between the two
groups as they talked about happy and sad times and the
associated emotions. Although the number of incidents of
anger reported by the low score group were fewer, their
experiences with specific types of anger seemed to parallel
the level of violence that culminated from anger. The high
score group seemed more open to talking about feelings.‘
They gave more examples of happy, sad, and angry times. The
high score group also seemed more competent in articulating
the feelings that they felt were associated with the

emotions they discussed.

101
Family Rule Makers, Breakers, and Enforcers

Five mothers of the teens of the low score group came
from childhood homes where their mothers, even when their
fathers were present, were the rule makers in the home.
None of their mothers worked outside the home.’ These women
also made sure that the rules they made were followed. The
mothers of the teens described their parents as having had
high expectations and as being very strict.

The next generation by comparison was quite different.
Four of the five low score teens did not perceive their
mothers as having imposed strict rules. In fact, one teen
said, ”My mother made lots of rules, but we usually got out
of ’em!” Another said that the rules in her house were few:
"Maybe it’s because my mom’s mother was so strict with them,
that she became easy on us." Her mother had grown up in a
house where music, dancing, and television were not allowed.
The children were beaten with a strap if they disobeyed.
The mother of the teen then admitted that she had no planned
rules for her children. Her daughter felt that the kids
were confused as to what was allowed and what was not. The
mother denied ever spanking the Children, but the daughter
corrected her saying, "Sometimes you got upset and beat us
with a ruler or stick!" In another family the teen said,
"There weren’t no rules. There was like an understandin’."
The understanding, however, seemed to be between the

children: "If I got in trouble, my brothers would beg mama

102
to leave me off groundin’. She always did!" The fifth teen
described a mother who was a single working parent who used
a reward system of candy when the children were good. Each
of the children were given daily chores to do. All had
curfews: "You be home when the street lights come on!" their
mother would say; There were major flaws, however, in this
family’s rules. Their mother had to work very long hours
and often the younger siblings were left to the care of the
older children. Essentially, they were often without adult
supervision. The fathers were missing from four of these
homes and in the fifth family the father was physically but
not emotionally available.

The low score teens have now created their own families
and are raising their infants alone. Not one of the teen
parents of the low score group could describe a rule that
they had developed for their own home. One of the teens
living alone in her own apartment has not been able to keep
family members from partying in her home. She was even
incapable of keeping her brother from moving into her home
for several weeks when she did not want him with her. Two
of the low score teens are unable to manage their own
household business. In both cases, someone else in the
family manages their bills and writes their checks. The
teens apparently have little to say about the management and

plans for their own homes.

103

In summary, among the low score families, the role of
rule maker and enforcer in earlier generations was that of
the mother of the home. However, the role.seems to be
disappearing over the last four generations. At the G3
generation, the rules were reported to have been very strict
and the mothers‘of the families were accepted as the rule
makers and rule enforcers of the home. In the G2
differences in rule development and execution became
evident. The mothers of the G2 remained the rule makers,
but were less effective enforcers. It should also be noted
that it was during this same generation that there was a
disappearance of fathers from the home. With fewer fathers
present, the mothers had less support in parenting and
caring for their children. All five of this group viewed
their siblings, not themselves, as being the rule breakers
in their home. Finally, at the G1, we see teens who had had
~ineffective parenting rules in their childhood homes now not
taking the responsibility for developing rules let alone
enforcing rules in their own homes.

Unlike the low score group, the G3 generation of the
high score group had three fathers who were reported as
participants in making and enforcing the rules of the home.
The rules in these homes were considered by the children of
these homes as having been very strict. In four of the five
homes the rules were described as bordering on physically

and/or emotionally abusive. Not one of these families

104
admitted to there being rule breakers among the children of
the G3. One woman indicated there were no rule breakers in
their home because "no one would dare not follow the rules
in the home for fear of the punishment” they would receive.
Only one mother of a teen described the rules created by her
parents as appropriate. However, she did indicate that her
mother had been an emotionally abused and parentified child.
She recognized that her mother had purposefully worked
toward avoiding a repetition of the abuse with her own
children.

At the Gl, four of the high scoring teens described
their mothers--Gz--as having strict but reasonable rules in
their childhood homes. In the fifth family the teen made no
comment, but the mother talked of her own abusive parenting
behaviors. As in the low score families, all of the women
but one were also without the support of a husband.

However, unlike the other group, these mothers were caring
for smaller families: three teens in this group were the
only children in their families. And, four of the five
mothers reported having had parents or siblings who were
supportive of them.

If rules were broken, three of the five high score
teens considered themselves the rule breakers. One of the
teens, although she was physically and emotionally abused by

her father, considers herself a very bad person. She is the

105
teen who believes that her preadolescent rebellious behavior
was actually the cause for her mother’s death.

Unlike the low score group, four of five of this high
score group of teens can articulate the rules they are now
creating for their homes. They have all established goals
for themselves.‘ Those who are married talk of what they
expect of their mates. They all speak of a part of the
rules in their home being a daily routine that accommodates
their work or schooling and the care of their babies.

In this group, four of these five families interviewed
spoke of the family rules being influenced by their
religious beliefs. Two mothers of the teens indicated that
this was true, but they see the family rules becoming much
less harsh than those of previous generations.

Among the high score families the role of a rule maker
and enforcer does not appear to be vanishing over the
generations. It does, however, seem to be changing. Where
in earlier generations the role was shared by both parents,
it is more likely today for the women in these high score
families to be establishing the rules of their family alone.
The mothers of these teens also tell us that they see that
the rules are becoming far less harsh from generation to
generation and they see this as good. It is not Clear for
this researcher as to why, but in the high score group even
with a disappearance of the paternal parent, effective rules

for the family seem to have been maintained. The teens all

106
recognized that there were rules and felt that the rules
were fair. All of the teens in this group accept the fact
that if a rule was broken, it was probably one of them who
broke the rule. They were not likely to blame rule
infractions on others in the family as the low score group
members tended to do. And unlike the low score group of
teens, this group of teens has begun establishing and

implementing rules within their own homes.

Family Feuders and Peacemakers

Every family of the low score group talked of family
members who were likely to start quarrels or fights. None
of the teens of the group were mentioned as being the
instigators. Three of the families attempted to excuse the
quarrelsome behaviors by indicating specific traits that
caused the persons to act as they did. One family
-attributed the unpredictable anger of a great grandparent to
her ethnic background: "She had Indian blood in her: that’s
why she acted like that, you know." Two other families felt
that the feuders of their families were mentally unstable or
mentally slow. At the G2 generation, the family feuds
culminated in the death of a baby in one family as her
parents fought with each other and later the husband of the
same family killed his wife. In the next generation, three
of the teens have violent siblings all of whom are involved

in substance abuse. One of these teens and her brother

107
traffic drugs and have been involved with street violence
associated with the drug world. Another teen in this group
reported having been emotionally and physically abused by a
boyfriend who was also involved with illegal drugs.

The low score group identified only one peacemaker at
the G3 generatioh. The other four named the members of the
G2, including one male, as the people who make peace when
others in the family feud. Most said that the peacemakers
talked with both sides and through authoritative methods
told those participating in the argument that their
behaviors were not acceptable and that they must stop
fighting. There was no indication of mediation or
negotiation being used with the feuders.

Like the low score families, all of the high score
group were able to point out the feuders of the family. One
family reported six family members at three different
generations who were likely to start fights and arguments in
the family. Two families talked of family members at the G3
who were likely to cause feuds. One group, the siblings of
a maternal grandmother, were labeled the "trouble makers".
Family members managed the dissident behaviors of these
members by avoiding contact with them. In another family,
it was a jealous maternal grandmother who was described as
incapable of getting along with anyone. Many in the family
have cut off relationships with her to escape her

argumentative ways. Most of the feuds seem to occur among

108

the members of the G2 generation. The feuds are usually the
result of family members being jealous of what others in the
family have or have been given. One of the families has
labeled the feuders as the "users". These are the family
members who take advantage of others in the family to get
what they want.‘ Only one mother of a teen recognizes
herself as a fighter and voices great pride in the verbal
and physical battles she has had. For her, losing a fight
is evidence of one’s weakness and vulnerability. Only two
of the high score teens felt that they were the instigators
of feuds in the family. Both are married and talked of
having arguments with their husbands. One talked of having
frequent verbal disagreements with her husband. The other
talked of both emotional and physical abuse perpetrated by
both the husband and the wife on each other. None of the
high score families associated substance abuse with the
behaviors of the feuders in the family.

Every high score family identified a family peacemaker.
At the G3, a maternal grandfather was described as a
peaceful, charitable, loving person. There was an expressed
fondness for this man and what he provides his family and
his friends. Four families mentioned family members of the
62 whom they look to as peacemakers. The peacemakers of all
but one of these families described using methods of
mediation and negotiation to bring calm. Most indicated

that the peacemaker settled arguments by calling those

109
feuding together to talk with each other. One teen said her
mother-in-law first talks to each side and then brings both
sides together to talk. Ironically, the mother of the teen
who recognizes herself as a feuder and uses abusive
behaviors to control others, also recognizes herself as a
peacemaker. She talked of the aggressive and violent
methods she uses for "making peace". In only one of the 10
families interviewed was peace making associated with
religious principles. A maternal aunt of the high score
group is said to "call upon the Lord" to help family members

to arrive at peace.

Daily Routines

In the low score group the mothers of the teens talked
easily about how the households of their childhoods were
managed. Four of the five maternal grandmothers were
attributed with having very strict daily routines which were
all arranged around the work schedule of their husbands or
the needs of the children. One of the mothers from a family
of 13 siblings pointed out, "With that many kids, you better
have a routine or nothin’s gonna’ get done!" Four of the
same women who identified their mothers’ strict routines
admitted that they had no routine set up to manage their
homes. Their teen daughters revealed that they also were
without a routine. Most said they filled their day with

sleeping in, watching television, and just "hangin’ out".

110
They had no scheduled family meals, no time for feeding and
bathing the babies, no consistent time for putting the
babies down for a nap or to bed at night. .Their lack of
routine has also caused all of the teens in this group to
have difficulties maintaining appointments as noted in
agency records.‘ Several are having extreme difficulty
managing their money and paying bills on time.

Like the low score group, four of the five high score
group maternal grandmothers--G3--of the teens were
attributed with having strict daily family routines. Three
of these women established their day around their husband’s
work schedules. The fourth was a working mother and
scheduled her day around her job and the needs of the
children. The fifth family accused the maternal grandmother
of being an extraordinarily lazy and negligent woman. Three
of their daughters in the next generation--G2--maintain a
regular daily routine. Two have set their routine up around
their own work and school schedules and the needs of their
children. Another set up a routine strictly around her
daughter’s and her granddaughter’s needs. The other two
women were totally without a recognized routine. One is a
drug addict and the other has been a single nonworking
parent and never felt a need for a routine until she
recently took a job. Four of the five teens described
thoughtfully planned days that are set up around the needs
of their babies, their schooling, and if married around the

111
work of their mates. The fifth teen lives with her mother
and depends on her mother to care for her and the baby. She
has a schedule, but it is set up totally around her own
needs.

Unlike the low score group, this group of teens does
not have major difficulties keeping appointments. Only
three of the five are faced with managing their own bills.
According to agency records, two of the three appear to be
managing these household responsibilities quite well. The
third intermittently has problems.

This researcher has noted that in both groups across
the generations, those families with members who are working
outside the home or going to school were more likely to have
a structured daily routine for their home. In those
generations where the children were not in school, and/or
the men of the family were not working or possibly not
present, and women were not working outside the home, no

routine was evident.

CHAPTER VII. INTERPRETATIONS

In this chapter, the study will move from a descriptive
to an interpretive mode. To accomplish this, it is
important first to revisit the original purpose of the study
which was to provide baseline qualitative data concerning
the description of the intergenerational family histories of
teen mothers and to determine if the patterns that evolved
are related to the interaction that occurs between a teen
mother and her infant. Using the NCATS scores, two groups
of teen mother informants were identified: one group, the
high scorers, having successful interaction with their
infants and the other group, the low scorers, having a not
so successful interactional experience. The teens
participated with other family members in telling their
family histories and creating genograms with the
interviewer. Using a line-by-line data analysis of the
informants’ family stories, three intergenerational family
patterns emerged: family frame, family characteristics, and
family function. Multiple subcategories were also
identified and have already been discussed as being linked
with these three concepts thus giving more specification to
the intergenerational patterns. A continuing review of the
literature is also incorporated in this chapter to show the
relationships of the findings of this study with other

112

113
published works and previously Cited work is mentioned again
if pertinent.

Human Ecological Lens

A human ecological lens, more specifically'the family
ecosystem perspeCtive proposed by Bubolz, Eicher, and Sontag
(1979) including later revisions in the framework (Bubolz 8
Sontag, 1993), provided valuable insights and
interpretations of the themes or patterns that emerged from
the stories told by the family informants of this study.
This family ecological framework not only provided a view
for what is occurring in the immediate generations of these
families: it also provided an indication that experiences of
previous generations influence and contribute to the
interactional quality that exists between the teen mothers
and children seen in the videotapes.

The interaction observed between a child and a parent
evidences the nature of the attachment that exists (Barnard
8 Eyres, 1979). The quality of such an attachment is
extremely important to a child’s physical, cognitive, and
social development (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, 8 Walls,
1978: Ainsworth 8 Eichberg, 1991: Sroufe, 1983).
Bronfenbrenner (1979, 1989) believes that the relationship
between a parent and child can only be understood if
examined in its broader context, because every human quality

is embedded and finds its meaning in the particular

114
environmental settings in which that human exists. Family
ecological theorists would concur with his beliefs.
However, a study guided by his theoretical framework would
perceive the developing child as the basic unit of analysis:
the family theorists identify the family as the basic unit
of analysis. For this reason, this study identified the
family ecosysten as a conceptual guide.

The family ecosystem has been defined by theorists as a
group of persons considered to be family in interaction with
their environment. Paolucci, Hall and Axinn (1977) defined
family as a set of independent and interdependent persons
who share common goals, resources, and are committed to each
other over time. These members of a family need not
necessarily be related, married, or even live in the same
dwelling (Bubolz, Eicher, 8 Sontag, 1979).

Bubolz and Sontag (1993) define the environment with
which the family members are interacting and interdependent
as the physical, biological, social, economic, political,
aesthetic, and structural surroundings of humans: a context
for their behavior and development. As indicated earlier,
they conceptualized three analytically distinct interrelated
environments: the natural physical-biological environment,
the social-cultural environment, and the human built
environment. The natural physical-biological environment
consists of the unaltered physical-biological components as

they exist in nature. Examples of this environment found in

115
the stories of the families interviewed for this study were
the geographic areas from where their ancestors had
originated, and the route they traveled in migrating north.
In the social-cultural environment the families spoke of
rules, laws, religious beliefs, cultural ideologies, social
and emotional support systems, socioeconomic status, their
schools and workplaces, their neighbors, friends, and
extended family. The human built environment of these
families consisted of their houses, the cultivated fields
they had worked, their Churches, their means of
transportation and communication. These environments were
perceived by these families as both stressors or "meliors".
The latter is defined by Boyden (1986) as ”experiences which
tend to to protect the individual against the effect of
stressors and promote well-being" (p. 17).

Bubolz and Sontag (1993) describe the major concepts of
family eological theory as an interrelationship of family
structure, process, and outcomes. They further describe
these interrelationships of concepts as families of diverse
characteristics with individual and family attributes
interacting in and with diverse environments to transform
matter-energy and information through engaging in a key
process of adaptation. Adaptation they propose is
accomplished through a variety of activities and processes:
perception, organization, communication, decision making,

management, use of technology, sustenance activities, and

116
human development. The goal of the process is to reach
human betterment and a sustainable environment.

Family frame, family characteristics, and family
function which are the three emergent patterns of this study
appear to be components of the ecological family structure
described by Bubolz and Sontag (1993). The patterns
identified describe characteristics and attributes of the
informant families and of the environments in which they
exist. However, what is not discussed by family ecological
theory, but seems to be occurring in this study, is the
apparent influence of the ecological contexts of previous
generations on the families of the present generation.

In the following sections, when similarities and
differences in how families experience each of the core
concepts is used again to examine the family stories of this
study, an intergenerational differentiation of family
experiences becomes even more evident between the low and
high score families. The ecological contexts of previous
generations appear to be influencing the ecological
experiences of present generation families whose members are

telling the stories.

Family Frame
In this section, the researcher presents specific

family frame similarities and differences that differentiate

117

the low and high score families. These are presented in
table form (See Table 7) and discussed.
W

All of the informants were women. They all confided
that they knew little or nothing about the families of their
fathers, their husbands, and/or their mates. All talked of
having come from families that were often large and complex
over the generations. Not unlike what the teen pregnancy
literature has pointed out for some time (Furstenberg
et al., 1987: Musick, 1993), the family genograms of this
study revealed that the teens were highly likely to have
been parented by a mother who was a teen parent. The family
stories in this study indicate that the teens were from
families where there were multiple generations of adolescent
parents. The average age of women in both groups at the
time of the first pregnancy was similar and with each
-generation the women were younger at the time they delivered
their first child. During the last four generations the
number of children born to these families has been steadily
decreasing. This observation seems to concur with what
Furstenberg et al. found in their longitudinal study of some
300 teen mothers. They reported in their 17 year follow up
that the mothers had not had as many children as they had
originally anticipated having. Not unlike national norms

for several decades (Carnegie Corporation of New York,

Table 7

1118

Similarities and Differences in Subcategories of Family Frame Core Concepts

 

 

Subconcepts Low Score Group Both Groups High Score Group
Informants had Informants had
difficulty recalling exceptional

. names and ages of memories for names
relatives. and ages of relatives.

Size Size of family was Family size is Size of family was
larger at each decreasing in each smaller at each
generation than was generation. generation than was
noted in the high noted in the low
score group. score group.

All five teen mothers- One of the five teen
G1 have had a mothers-Gl has had
second pregnancy a second pregnancy
since the birth of the since the birth of the
child focused for this child focused for this
study. study.

All informants knew

little about the male

members of their

families.

Spacing Spacing between the Spacing between the
first two children in first two children in
families of each families of each
generation tended to generation tended to
be less than 24 be greater than 24
months. months. '

Generation Generation

Compression

compression due to
high incidence of
adolescent
pregnancies in each
generation.

Age of mother at the
time of first
pregnancy is
decreasing with each
generation.

 

Table 7, continued

119

 

Subconcepts

Low Score Group

Both Groups

High Score Group

 

Marital
Links

Paternal
Presence

Life Line
Mirroring

All teens of G, were
born to single
mothers.

Incidence of
promiscuity appears
to be greater than in
high score group.

None of the five
teens have married
the fathers of their
babies.

Since late 19405-
19505, incidence of
separations and

divorce is increasing.

Teen mothers of G,
have had little to no
contact with their
biological fathers as
they grew up.

Teen mothers of G,
appear to be
mirroring family size
and spacing of
preceding
generations. They
also appear to
mirror marital and
promiscuous
behaviors of their
mothers.

Two of five teens of
G, were born to
single mothers.

Incidence of
promiscuity appears
to be less than in
low score group.

Three of the five teen
mothers have
married the fathers
of their babies.

 

120

1994), both groups of families in this study disclosed fewer
intact marriages in their families with every generation,
increasing incidences of divorce, greater numbers of single
mothers, and fewer fathers maintaining a relationship with
their children. No teen in this study has had a consistent
supportive relationship with her biological father after the
parents severed relations. A final fact related to the
similarities of these two groups is that the teens of this
study appear to be replicating or mirroring similar features
of the intergenerational family frame that preceded them.
Like the generations that preceded them, they are starting
their families while they are very young and they are
spacing their children in a manner similar to that of their
parents and grandparents.
MW

Although the family size of both groups appears to have
~decreased over the last four generations, the last three
generations of the low score group are consistently and
notably larger than the high score group. The spacing of
these children also seems to differ between the two groups.
When an analysis of the reported spacing between the first
two pregnancies of each generation was conducted, it was
found that the low score group was more likely to space
their children closer than 24 months apart, while the high
score group was more likely to space children further apart.

Spacing was also influenced by the fact that the raising of

 

121
an ”only child" occurred only among the mothers of the high
score group. The teens of this study seem to be following
this same trend. All of the teens of the low score group
have been pregnant more than once and three of the five were
raising two children at the time of the study. 'In contrast,
it was noted that only one teen of the high score group has
had a second baby. The high score teens were also more
likely to be with the fathers of their babies and not as
likely to be involved in the promiscuous relationships
admitted to by the low score teens and their mothers.
Experts in family and parenting have pointed out how all of
these factors--the intactedness of parents’ relationship,
family size, and the spacing of Children--highly influence
the financial stability of a family (Carnegie Corporation of

New York, 1994: Furstenberg et al., 1987: Musick, 1993).

Family Characteristics

Like family frame, there were also similarities and
differences in the family characteristics reported by the
participants that differentiated the high and low score
families (See Table 8).
mm

The educational level of all 10 families prior to the
G2 was minimal. Most had had less than an elementary school

education. However, the children born during the late 19403

122

and early 19503, the G2 generation, were apparently provided
more of an educational opportunity than the generations that
preceded them. Eight of the mothers of the 10 teens in the
study had completed high school. As the educational levels
increased over several generations, the work opportunities
appear to have lessened for the families of both groups.
Women of the earlier generations were not likely to have a
job outside the home: the men of these earlier generation
families had jobs and provided the income for the families.
Men of the G2 generation were less likely to be married and
living with their mates. All of the women of the G2
generation were interested in job opportunities for
themselves. They all find it difficult to acquire and
retain work in order to provide for their families. This
has resulted in a comparable number of G1 and 32 families
being on financial assistance.
111W

Cultural heritage reported by the 10 teen informants
reflects that of the adolescent parent program from which
they were selected. There were six teens who described
themselves as African American, three teens said they were
Caucasian, and one teen said she was Hispanic. When the
total group was divided between the high and low scorers on
the NCATS, the split of ethnic heritage was not even across
the two groups. There were four African Americans and one

Caucasian in the low score group. The remaining two African

Americans,

score group.

Table 8

two Caucasians,

123

and one Hispanic were in the high

Similarities and Differences in Subcategories of Family Characteristic Core Concepts

 

 

Subconcepts Low Score Group Both Groups High Score Group
Family Origins Ethnic heritage of
and Mobility the ten families

reflects ethnic
makeup of the
adolescent parent
program and the '
community in which
this study was
conducted.

Four of the five
families are of
African-American
heritage. One is
Caucasian.

Four of the five
families can trace
their family heritage
to a southern state.

All five families
indicated that G3 and
G, families were
farm families. Two
owned their own
farms. Three were
poor migrant
workers or share
croppers at G,.

Three of the four
families from the
South indicated their
families at G3
traveled north to
Chicago, to
Muskegan to mid-
Michigan.

Two of the five
families are of
African-American
heritage. One is of
1/2 Hispanic and
1/2 Polish heritage.
Two are Caucasian.

Two of the five
families can trace
their family heritage
to a southern state.

Four of five families
indicate that G, and
G, families were
farm families. Three
owned their farms.
One was a share
cropper at G,.

One of the two
families from the
South indicated that
their families
traveled north to
Chicago, to
Muskegan to mid-
Michigan.

 

Table 8, continued

124

 

 

Subconcepts Low Score Group Both Groups High Score Group
Education Level of education
increased from G,
through 6,.
None of the five teen Two of the five teen
mothers-G, have mothers~G, have _
finished their high graduated from high
school education. school.
None of the five Two of the five teens
teens are presently remain in school
in school nor do they continuing their
intend to return to education. One teen
school. has not completed
high school; she
does not intend to
return to school.
Four of five teen One of the five teens
mothers reported possible experienced
learning difficulties learning difficulties
in school. in school.
Work and Families who came
Economic to mid-Michigan
Status 19405-19505 all

acquired work in the
auto industry.

Two of the five
mothers of the teens
have jobs.

Later generations
have not been as
prosperous. They
are having difficulty
finding jobs.

All teens are on state
and/or federal aid.

Four of the mothers
of the teens are on
some form of state
and/or federal aid.

None of the five teen
mothers are working.

Two of the five
mothers of the teens
have jobs.

Two of the mothers
of the teens are on
some form of state
and/or federal aid.

Two of the five teen
mothers are working
two part-time jobs
concurrently.

All three husbands of
teen mothers are
working.

 

125

 

 

Table 8, continued
Subconcepts Low Score Group Both Groups High Score Group
immediate Four of the five Four of the five G3

Living
Environment

Religion

families migrated
from the South and
rented their homes
in mid-Michigan.

One G3 family from
the midwest owned
their home.

Four teens live alone
as single parents.
One teen lives with
the father of her
baby.

Four of the five teen
mothers feel unsafe
in their
neighborhoods.
Three of their
mothers feel
similarly.

Four of the five teens
are without a
telephone or
personal means of
transportation.

There has been no
practiced religion in
these families for
several generations.

All mothers of the
teens-G, rent their
homes/apartments.

families owned their
homes. Two of the
four were from the
South.

One G3-family from
the midwest rented
their home.

Two teens live with
their biological
mothers. Three
teens live with the
fathers of their
babies.

All five teens and
their mothers feel
safe in their
neighborhoods.

Four of the five teens
have a telephone in
their home and have
a family car available
to them.

Four of the five
families report a
practiced religion for
several generations.

 

126

This difference in ethnic makeup of the groups was
possibly responsible for there being a difference in the
cultural origin and mobility of the two groups and possibly
their economic stability for a period of time. Three of the
low score families, all African American, were able to trace
a family heritage back to some one of the southern states.
Each of these families reported their relatives during the
19403 traveling a very specific migration route that took
them to Chicago, later to Muskegan, and finally to mid-
Michigan. A fourth family came in the 19703 and did not
take the same route. These were poor families from very
meager backgrounds as share croppers, migrant workers, or
poor farmers. They all left family supports behind: they
had no family on whom they could rely for help in the North.
A fifth family was unsure of their early origins, but knew
they also had originally come from a farm family. In the
high score group there were two families who reported
relatives migrating North during the 19403: only one had
traveled the same migration route as described by the low
score group. Three families including the teen who
indicated that she was combination of Hispanic and Polish
heritage related that they had no knowledge of southern
family ties. Three of the families came from northern
Europe, two to Michigan and the other to Illinois during the
late 18003 or early 19003. The family that settled in

Illinois moved to Michigan during the 19503. The teen with

127
Hispanic heritage indicated that her father’s family was
originally from Mexico and later moved to New Mexico, but
she was unsure when. She did know that her father was the
only member of his family to finally settle in Michigan
during the 19703. Unlike the low score group, only one high
score family indicated that their early relatives were poor
migrant type workers. Three of the families in the high
score group indicated that their relatives at the G4 and G3
generation owned their own farms. A fifth family reported
no history of farming in their family. They have been city
dwellers for the past four generations.

Although the educational levels in both groups at each
generation through the G2 increased and seemed somewhat
comparable, at the G1 generation education notably
differentiates the two groups. In the low score group, all
of the teens have dropped out of school prior to graduating.
Four of the five reported having learning difficulties and
educational delays. The high score teens appear quite
different. They have continued the trends of their earlier
relatives by increasing the levels of education across the
generations. Two have completed high school or the
equivalent. Two others are presently attending high school
with an intent to graduate. Only one of the high score
teens has dropped out of school and refuses to return. No

learning problems were reported by this group.

128

At the G1 generation there is a difference in relation
to work and economic status. None of the low score teens
are working. They all rely on state and federal funds for
support. The high score teens are also in need of the same
source of funding: however, the husbands of the three who
are married are working and attempting to support their
families financially. Two of the married teen mothers are
also working. Even where both young parents are working,
some several jobs, they remain below poverty level.

Housing differed for the two groups for the last four
generations. Only one low score family at the G4 generation
is reported as ever having owned a house. All the other low
score families for four generations or more have had rented
housing. The high score group presents itself differently.
Four of the five high score families at the G4 owned their
own home. Even one of the families from the South had owned
their own farm before the family migrated to Michigan: upon
coming to Michigan they again bought a home. The next three
generations have not been as financially successful. All
have rented or they lived with other than family. Although
there are no reports of earlier generations feeling
uncomfortable in the neighborhoods in which they lived, more
recent generations of the low score group are more likely to
live alone and indicate they do not feel safe in their

environment.

129
Finally, differences between the two groups appear in
the area of religious practice. Although all 10 families
reported a religious preference, only four in the high score
group indicated that the family has actually consistently
practiced a religion over the last four generations. None
of the low score families reported a practiced religion for

several generations.

Family Function

Similarities and differences again exist between the
high and low score groups in family function (See Table 9).
SW

There were only a few similarities in family function
between the two groups. The mothers of the teens in both
groups lacked the support of the fathers of their children.
If they were to get help from others, the majority had to
rely on other family members for help. The family members
upon whom they said they would rely were similar. Many
indicated one of their sibs.

When asked to discuss emotions and the experiences
around those emotions, the researcher anticipated that some
families, especially the high score families, would relate
some of their happy times to their experiences with the

children of the family. Only one high score teen talked of

130
the joy her infant has brought her. No other family
interviewed for this study mentioned the babies. ‘In
relationship to sad times, both groups talked primarily of
experiences of loss. Most of losses discussed were losses
due to the death of family members. Both groups also said
that they experience feelings of anger in similar ways:
physical fights, running away, and screaming and yelling at
the person with whom they are angry. In both groups,
families admitted that in a few cases murder was a result of
the anger expressed by a family member.

When the families of this study were encouraged to talk
about the family rules, it was found that both groups
perceived the parenting of families at the G3 generation as
being more similar than the parenting during either of the
following two generations. In both groups, the mothers of
the teens discussed their own parents as having been very
strict disciplinarians. In both groups the mothers of each
generation were discussed as the primary person who
makes and implements the rules of the house.

Both groups also agreed that the same G3 generation of
women were more organized than the generations that have
followed. The mothers of the teens talked of their mothers
having established very strict daily routines.. In both
groups the maternal grandmothers were attributed with
arranging their day around the work schedule of their

husbands or the needs of their children.

Table 9

131

Similarities and Differences in Subcategories of Family Function as Core Concepts

 

Subconcepts

Low Score Group

Both Groups

High Score Group

 

Close
Relationships

Only one teen is
receiving emotional
and financial support
from the father of her
child.

All five teens initially
rejected their
mothers'participation
in the interview. Four
mothers participated.

Only one teen was
able to name a
person to whom she
would turn for help if
needed. She chose
her mother.

None of the teen
mothers spoke of
having friends of their
own age.

Themes of isolation
and rejection were
common in the family
stories of all five
families.

Mothers of the
teens are not
receiving emotional
and financial
support from the
fathers of their
children.

Three of the five teen
mothers are
receiving emotional
and financial support
from the fathers of
their babies.

All of the teens
immediately wanted
their mothers to
participate in the
interview. Three
mothers participated

All the teens named
a person to whom
they would turn for
help if needed. Two
of the five chose
their mothers. One
chose her husband.
One would turn to
someone outside the
family. One would
turn to an aunt.

Four of the five teen
mothers talked of
having friends of
their own age.

Themes of isolation
and rejection were
present in only one
family's story.

 

Table 9, continued

132

 

Subconcepts

Low Score Group

Both Groups

High Score Group

 

Sad and

Happy
Experiences

Group was reticent
to talk about their
sad experiences.

\

Group gave no
indication of happy
experiences.

Group was
pessimistic about
what they believed
family experiences in
the future would be
like.

Number of actual
angry family
incidents reported
were fewer than in
high score group.

No comments made
regarding how
happiness is
demonstrated.

Sad experiences
revolved primarily
around experiences
with loss.

Anger demonstrated
in both groups
through physical
fighting, running
away, screaming and
yelling.

Group was open and
articulate about their
sad experiences.

All could recall a
joyful time. Most
referred to family
get-togethers and
reunions as happy
times. Only one teen
mentioned
experiences around
her baby as happy
times.

Group was optimistic
about family and
what they believed
the family
experiences would

be in the future
generations.

Number of actual
angry family
incidents reported
were higher than in
low score group.

Happiness is
demonstrated by
laughing or telling
someone how happy
they are.

 

133

 

 

Table 9, continued
Subconcepts Low Score Group Both Groups High Score Group
Rule Makers, Women of the G3
Breakers, and generation were
Enforcers considered strict

rule makers and
enforcers in their
homes.

Four of the five
teens did not
perceive their
mothers as having
strict rules in the
family. One teen
said there were no
rules in her
childhood home.

None of the teens
could describe a
rule they had
developed for their
own home and
family.

Teens blamed other
family members not
themselves for
breaking rules.

Role of rule maker
and enforcer
appear to be
vanishing.

In four homes, rules
were so strict at G3
generation they
bordered on abusive.

Four teens perceived
their mothers as
strict but fair and
reasonable.

The three married
teens and one single
mother articulated
family rules they
have created in their
homes.

Mothers of the teens
felt rules in their
childhood homes
were so strict that
there were no rule
breakers.

Teens in this group
were likely to identify
themselves as rule
breakers.

Rules exist in these

families but over the
generations they are
becoming less harsh.

 

134

 

 

Table 9, continued
Subconcepts Low Score Group Both Groups High Score Group
Feuders and All identified family
Peacemakers members who were '
likely to be feuding,
quarreling, or
fighfing.
~ Most of the feuds
were identified at the
6,.
No teen mother was Two teen mothers
labeled as identified themselves
quarrelsome or a as likely to start
troublemaker. quarrels.
Violence, drugs,
physical and
emotional abuse
were more common
in these families.
All five families
idenfified
peacemakers. Four
identified members
of 62.
Peacemakers are Peacemakers are
likely to use likely to use
authoritative mediation and
methods for making negotiation to make
peace. peace.
Daily Routine Families at G3 likely

to have strict daily
routines in their
homes.

Families with
members attending
school or working at
jobs outside the
home were more
likely to have a daily
routine.

 

Table 9, continued

135

 

Subconcepts

Low Score Group Both Groups

High Score Group

 

Mothers of the teens
and the teen
mothers were likely
to admit they have
no regular daily
routines.

Teens are having
difficulty keeping
scheduled
appointments and
managing their own
finances.

Three of the five
mothers of teens
have a set daily
routine in their
homes. Four of the
five teens described
thoughtfully planned
days in their homes.

Teens are more
likely to keep
appointments and
manage their own
bills.

 

Differences Between Groups

The two groups were quite different in their

discussions of their experiences with friendships and close

relationships.

The low score teens both behaviorally and

verbally rejected any relationship with their own mothers

even when their mothers appeared to be offering support.

They did not talk of having close friends.

None of them

were receiving emotional or financial support from the

fathers of their babies.

Thus,

none of them had someone to

whom they could refer if they needed help. Their mothers

seemed to have similar relationship problems. Themes of
rejection and isolation were common in their mothers’
stories. They indicated that they felt unwanted by their

families. However, unlike their daughters each of them did

.136

name someone in the family upon whom they felt they could
rely for support if needed. The high score teens voiced a
very close relationship with their maternal figures. Their
mothers were not likely to talk of feeling rejected as the
low score group of mothers had done. On the contrary, they
were more likely to talk of how Close they felt to their own
parents and siblings.

Unlike the low score teens, the high score group
indicated that they valued their relationship with their
maternal figures. Three of the five were married to the
fathers of their babies and received emotional and financial
support from these young men. However, the high score group
of teens said they preferred the support from their mothers
if they should need help. Most of the group were able to;
talk of close friends other than family.

It appeared that the members of the high score group
were more open in discussing their emotions. Although the
themes of loss permeated the sad experiences of both groups,
it was the high score members that were more open and more
articulate in sharing what those experiences were like for
them. They talked of how sadness for some in their families
has led to depression, illness, or suicide. They also told
of times when sadness was just too difficult to talk about
for the family and how this negatively influenced
relationships in the family. Unlike the low score group,
every high score family could recall times of happiness,

137
joy, and contentment for the family. Most of their stories
were around family celebrations and get togethers.

In the perceptions of the researcher, it appears that
the generations of the infants, the teens, and the teens’
parents have progressively become more difficult. .Contrary
to this perspective, four of the five high score group of
families indicated that they perceived that times have grown
better for their families over the generations. The African
American women felt that generations ago African American
families had decisions imposed on them. They feel that
today families of all heritages have more possible choices
offered than ever in the past. This same group could also
speak to concerns about how times have also grown worse.
They voiced concern regarding increased violence, adolescent
pregnancy, and the parenting problems that exist in their
neighborhoods.

When the conversations turned to how parents discipline
and how rules are made in the home, the role of the rule
maker and enforcer begins to differ between the two groups
at the G2 generation of parents. As indicated previously
the mothers in both groups were the rule makers and the
enforcers of the rules. However, the low score teens were
more likely to perceive the rules set down by their mothers
as unfair, inconsistent, and ineffective. In a few low

score cases, rules seemed almost nonexistent. In contrast,

 

138
four of the five high score teens indicated that they felt
the rules of their childhood homes were strict but fair.

The two groups of teens also differed in perceptions of
whom they attributed as being rule breaker of the family.
The low score group of teens were more likely to accuse one
of their siblings. The teens of high score group more often
confessed that they were the rule breakers. The teens of
both groups differ again in who and how rules are made in
the families that they are now establishing. The high score
teen mothers talked of how they had already begun to develop
rules for their homes. None of the low score teens were
able to do the same.

The establishment of rules clearly differs between the
groups over the generations. It appears that the role of
rule maker is disappearing from the homes of the low score
families over the last four generations almost as though
there was an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness. Unlike
the low score group, the role of the rule maker appears to
have continued in the high score group, although the high
score mothers of the teens did note that they perceived the
rules becoming more reasonable with each generation and less
likely to be considered physically or emotionally abusive
when enforced. When the rules of the homes of the low score
group were poorly executed, the intensity and viciousness of
the violence of the feuding discussed by the families was

more prevalent than found among the high score families.

139

A difference between the peacemakers was also found.
The high score group of peacemakers used methods of
mediation and negotiation while the low score group seemed
more likely to use authoritarian approaches to stop the
feuders.

When each of the family members interviewed was asked
to talk about what she remembers a day during her childhood
being like for her mother and then to comment on how her own
day differs, a number of differences between the groups were
identified. Although, the maternal grandmothers of both
groups were perceived as having been very organized and
having strict daily routines, differences between the groups
were found at the next two generations. In the low score
group, neither the mothers of the teens nor their teen
daughters were able to relate to any daily routine in their
homes. Most agreed that their days were filled with
watching television, hanging out with friends until late at
night, and then sleeping in late the next morning. No low
score teen had made a sleep or feeding schedule for her
child. All were having difficulties maintaining
appointments with the agency staff. All five broke multiple
appointments for this study’s interview. Each would give
the interviewer a time convenient to meet the researcher and
then would either not show up for the appointment or not be
at home when the researcher came to visit. Most were also

having difficulties with managing their own money and their

140
bill payments. When the high score families were compared,
it was found that three of the five mothers of the teens
maintained a strict daily routine around their own work,
school schedules, or needs of their children. Four of the
five high score teens were able to describe thoughtfully
planned days. Their reasons for doing so were similar to
those of the mothers who had done similarly. They were also
having less difficulty maintaining appointments than the low
score teens. All five attended this study’s first interview
appointment. Only three of the five are faced with the
responsibility of managing their own bills. Two are doing
quite well based on the income and expenses they have. The
third is having difficulties similar to those of the low
score group. The two without the responsibilities for
managing bills are in school and living with their mothers.
The researcher noted that for over four generations, in
those families where there were members working outside the
home or going to school, the women were more likely to
indicate that there was a structured daily routine in the

home.

Distress
The process of determining these similarities and
differences of each pattern and the associated subconcepts
responded to the second of the original research questions.

The two groups were differentiated and several persistent

141
intergenerational stressors were identified that appear to
be influencing the ecological systems of these families:
family size, spacing of pregnancies, generation compression,
cultural origin and mobility, socioeconomic status, housing,
religion, interpersonal relationships, perceptions of the
family status over the generations, role of the rule maker,
and daily routine.

In addition to responding to the research question,
another important idea emerged at this stage of the
analysis. This researcher believes that the
intergenerational stressors which were identified in the
analysis of the emerging core concepts can be best
interpreted as intergenerational distress, the opposite of
the well-being sought by families. Psychological distress is
an unpleasant subjective state that takes two forms:
depression and anxiety. Both forms are attributed with
physical and psychological symptoms that are often
experienced concurrently. Depressed persons will often
complain of feeling sad, hopeless, worthless, and having-
trouble sleeping. They often feel that everything is an
effort. Anxiety is often associated with depression.
However, the anxious person talks of feeling tense,
restless, worried, irritable, and afraid (Mirowsky and Ross,

(1989).

142
Basic_S9cial_£afterne_9f_niefrees

Prior to the 19603 there was little known about how
patterns within a social context encourage psychological
distress or emotional well being. Mirowsky and Ross (1989)
indicate that during the last few decades community mental
health studies have confirmed such a relationship. They
point out that four basic social patterns of distress have
been established:

1. A few studies have found higher levels of distress
among women than among men in similar stressful situations
(Gove 8 Geerken, 1977: Gove 8 Tudor, 1973: Kessler 8 McRae,
1982: Rosenfield, 1980).

2. Married persons have been found to be less
distressed than unmarried persons (Gove, Hughes, 8 Styles,
1983).

3. Distress escalates as a person experiences greater
numbers of undesirable changes in their lives (Ross 8
Mirowsky, 1979: Vinokur 8 Selzer, 1975: Williams, Ware 8
Donald, 1931).

4. Socioeconomic status has an inverse relationship
with distress (Pearlin, Lieberman, Menaghan 8 Mullan, 1981:
Pearlin 8 Schooler, 1978).

Beyond these four basic patterns, other studies have
indicated that race is also related to the level of distress
experienced by people in the United States. Mirowsky and

Ross (1980) believe that Blacks experience higher levels of

143
psychological distress because on average they have a lower
level of education and income than Whites, in large part due
to the long history of discrimination in this country. More
recently, Kessler and Neighbors (1986) compared African
Americans and Caucasians of the same income leVel and found
that poor Blacks have a higher level of distress than poor
Whites. They believe that the reason for this is probably
that discrimination blocks upward mobility for Blacks
resulting in many Blacks feeling helpless, powerless, and
unable to control life.

None of these studies has examined distress from an
intergenerational perspective. However, the informants of
this study have told stories that seem to depict generations
of family distress. Possibly the three emerging concepts
and the associated subcategories of each identified in the
family stories of the participants of this study actually
influence the level of distress that a family experiences
from one generation to the next. For example, most of the
families in this study come from a long line of poverty.- A
few of the families tell stories of a brief break in their
socioeconomically disadvantaged status during the late 19403
and early 19503. Many had moved from the South where they
were poor migrant or dirt farmers to the North where they
hoped to acquire technical skills and job opportunities.
Although the Black workers’ incomes remained far below those

of the White workers in the same factories, they were making

 

144

more than they were in the South. The move possibly made
them feel as though they were gaining control of their lives
and their destiny. Foner and Lewis (1989).give some
indication of this new found control when they point out
that the Black workers who had come North to find jobs
joined labor unions in an effort to maintain what they had
gained and to improve their future status. The children of
those who moved North just after World War II reflect the
advantages of their parents’ increased incomes and possibly
their feeling of now having taken some control on the
direction of their lives. Their children experienced intact
families: their fathers were important to the home, because
they provided for the financial needs of the family. Most
of these children, now adult women, the G2 generation of
this study, remember the times as being good times. These
children were also more highly educated than the generations
that preceded them. On the whole many of the changes that
had occurred in the lives of these families during this
generation were ones that the adults had Chosen and were-
choices that they perceived as advantaging themselves and
their children. The stories seem to relate a period of
decreased distress and increased feelings of well-being.

Families already living in the North during the same
period did not appear to be as poor as those coming from the
South. MCst of these families were Caucasian. They were

more likely to own their own homes already and were more

145
able to take advantage of the job opportunities at the
earliest stages of the post war growth.

The period of well-being was not long lived. The teens
of this study and their mothers tell stories of their own
lives that seem to indicate increasing levels of distress.
Although the 32 generation was more highly educated than the
generations that preceded them, their lives and
opportunities have been greatly changed by several
recessions in the last few decades, the resulting downsizing
of large corporations, increased unemployment, and state and
federal laws regarding family subsidies that discourage men
from living with their families. These experiences appear
to have had a trickle down effect on the generations that
followed. The teens of this study grew up parented by
single mothers, mothers living alone in poverty without the
emotional and physical support of the men with whom they had
had a child. The changes and the choices in the lives of
these teens and their mothers are often dominated by the
socioeconomic situation in which they now find themselves.
Their infants, the Gp generation, are now a third generation
of poverty. The experiences of these three generations
depict distressed families (Mirowsky 8 Ross, 1980).

Prior to the adolescents’ generation, the four basic
patterns of distress discussed by Mirowsky and Ross (1989)
described many of the intergenerational similarities between

the two groups of families interviewed but did not seem to

146
differentiate the groups. As the teens start their own
families, one of the four basic social patterns of distress,
the pattern of marriage versus not married differentiates
the low score group from the high score group of families.
Only one low score teen mother has married while three of
the five high score teens have married the fathers of their
babies.
new

There are four additional social patterns of distress
more recently considered by many sociological researchers:
(a) parenting children, (b) practice vs. nonpractice of
religion, (c) the fit of one’s self-image with that of the
norm, and (d) age (Mirowsky 8 Ross, 1989). These are now
believed to be social patterns that also influence an
individual’s experience with psychological distress or well-
being.

When researchers attempted to correlate the presence of
children in a home with the psychological well-being of the
mothers and the fathers, they found that children did not
improve the psychological well-being of parents. Nonparents
were often better off than parents. In many instances
mothers were found to be more distressed than nonmothers
(Gove 8 Geerken, 1977: Pearlin, 1975). Researchers indicate
that distress is often greatest for the single, divorced, or
separated mother (Aneshensel, Frerichs, 8 Clark, 1981:

Kandel, Davies, 8 Raveis, 1985).

147

The number of Children reported in each of the
generations of the families participating in this study does
distinguish the low from the high score group. Although,
the average number of children has been decreasing every
generation, the low score group of families for three
generations has consistently had larger families than the
high score group. The more children in a family, the
greater the strains on family income. The chronic struggle
and worry of a parent to care, house, feed, clothe, and pay
bills related to their children’s needs becomes
overwhelming. The result is often a feeling that the future
is hopeless and that there is little in life to enjoy. The
lives of the families in this study have been further
compromised by the fact that the majority of the women of
the last two generations have been single parents. Single
mothers have, on average, been found to be poorer than
married mothers (Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1994:
Musick, 1993). They are often without physical and
emotional support or someone with whom they can share the
child care responsibilities (Crockenberg, 1981). The
distress level is further increased when, as in this study,
the low score single teen mother has less than a high school
education. Such conditions seriously jeopardize any
potential income for her family (Furstenberg et al., 1987).

The low and high score families participating in this

study are further differentiated by their practice or

148
nonpractice of a religion. All of the families reported
being of a specific religious persuasion. ‘However, the high
score families reported more generations of family who had a
practiced religion than did the low score group. There have
only been a few studies which have specifically looked at
the relationship between psychological well-being and
religion (Gurin, Veroff, 8 Feld, 1960: Lindenthal, Myers,
Pepper, 8 Stern, 1970). These researchers indicate that
people with very strong religious beliefs or those who
attend church frequently have lower levels of psychological
distress. They also indicated that the subjects practicing
a religion were found to be better adjusted, happier, and
worried less. In a related study, conducted by Redemptorist
Pastoral Communications (Neff, 1990), it was found that
although the overall divorce rate in the U. S. is
approximately 1 out of every 2 marriages, when couples
attend church together the divorce rate drops to 1 out of
every 50 marriages. If one accepts the basic tenet of these
studies, the family ecological researcher might consider-
religion a "melior" in respect to the stressors experienced.
However, the few studies done in this area did not answer a
very important question: Are religious practices
responsible for reducing distress, possibly through social
and emotional supports, or are people with high levels of
psychological well-being more likely to seek Church

activities as a means for socializing? Mirowsky and Ross

149

(1989) did study distress levels using survey data from the
Illinois Health Behavior Survey. In their study, they were
able to differentiate populations according to how religious
the subjects were: those who rejected religion, those with
weak religious belief, moderate belief, and strong belief.
They found that those subjects who had not made a
commitment, who belonged to a religion not out of choice but
out of indifference, had the highest distress levels.

Mirowsky and Ross (1989) also identified the
internalization of societal stigma as a third new pattern of
distress. Prejudices in our society often exist against
those who do not meet what some portend to be the accepted
norm. Some researchers and theorists have posed that those
toward whom predjudices are directed internalize these
negative evaluations (Cooley, 1964), leading them to low
self-esteem, devaluation of themselves, and depression. At
one time Blacks were believed to suffer higher levels of
psychological distress because it was believed that they
internalize the negative evaluations made of them by
Whites. Mirowsky and Ross (1980) indicate that the
internalization of negative evaluation given by the Whites
is not the problem for Blacks. They believe that the
experiences of discrimination and disadvantage are. Their
studies have found that Blacks are more depressed not
because they have a poor internalized self-image: rather

they are depressed and anxious because a disproportionate

1150
number are living in poverty in this country as a
socioeconomically disadvantaged group. This is further
complicated by the fact that during the last decade there
has been a dramatic increase of single-parent female headed
homes in this country (Burton 8 Dillworth-Anderson, 1991:
Farley, 1988: MCLanahan, 1988: U. S. Bureau of the Census,
1988).

The histories of the families in this study seem to
confirm Mirowsky and Ross’s findings. The daughters of
those who came North in the 19403 and 19503 remember those
times as "being good" and ”trouble free” possibly because by
comparison to their lives in the South: their parents were
feeling they had some control of their decisions, they saw
their incomes increasing, and they felt there was hope.

Age is believed to be a fourth new pattern of distress.
Using data from the Illinois Survey of Well-Being, Mirowsky
and Ross (1989) report that they found depression to be very
high among young adults, low among middle aged, and again
high among the elderly. This seems to mirror family income.
It assumes that as individuals grow older their income
improves. This has not been true for the mothers and teens
of this study. Most of the mothers are as poor as the
teens. Researchers believe that income affects the
depression experienced by way of perceived control (Mirowsky

8 Ross, 1989). For the families in this study, all of whom

151

are poor, the interaction of the other social factors seems
to differentiate the experiences of poverty even further.

All of the families of this study told stories of
financial struggles over the generations. It appears that
the economic hardships, however, may have been experienced
differently by the low score group. They consistently had
larger families to house, clothe, and feed by comparison to
the high score group. Their children were closely spaced
placing even further strain on the family at any one point
in time. The G1 generation of the low score group feels
even more compromised: their education level has not
prepared them for the job market. Their interpersonal
relationships result in minimal family and social supports.
Their stories tell how difficult the struggles are and how
much they want employment, but they are not even minimally
prepared for most of the available jobs. This researcher
believes that many of the families whose roots originated in
the South are again experiencing what their ancestors
experienced, a loss of control over their destinies. Such
feelings almost always are associated with distress.
SEEEQIY

The family histories over four generations of both
groups of families participating in this study are filled
with signs of a social context believed to be supportive of
psychological distress. In addition, the informants’

stories appear to indicate that the members of the low score

152
group lead more distressful existences. The subcategories
of the emerging concepts that distinguished the two groups
of families on the basis of distress, i.e. marriage, family
size, spacing of children, generation compression--age of
women in each generation with first babies, family.
economics--inclusive of education, housing, family origin
and mobility, and religion, concur with the
intergenerational ecological stressors mentioned earlier in
this chapter. The informants of the low score group seem to
speak for themselves and for their ancestors when they talk
of the feelings brought on by the social distresses they
were experiencing. Note that their personal stories related
feelings of alienation, powerlessness, limited control over
life, and being without physical and emotional supports.
Mirowsky and Ross (1989) identify these personal feelings as
psychological responses to the distresses met in one’s
-social context.

Research has been conducted in the past to indicate the
importance of social emotional support on the parent-child
relationship (Crockenberg, 1981: Homel, Burns, 8 Goodnow,
1987: Teitjen, 1985). There is also research that confirms
the negative effect of maternal depression on mother-child
interaction (Cohler, Gallant, Grunebaum, 8 Kaufman, 1983:
Cox, Puckering, Pound, 8 Mills, 1987). However, there is a
conflict between research presented by those who are

studying adolescent parents and those studying distress and

 

153
depression. Mirowsky and Ross (1989) believe that the
incidences of depression are highest among young adults and
adolescents because of their life context experiences:
however, Brooks-Gunn and Furstenberg (1986) were unable to
find evidence that adolescent mothers were more depressed
than older mothers in similar economic circumstances. In
this study, there is evidence of social and resulting
psychological distress among the teens. This appears to be
related to the mother-child relationship observed in the

videos.

Effects of Intergenerational Distress

Other knowledge gained in this study is that the life
experiences of the teen mother and her infant appear to be
related not only to the interaction and interdependence that
exist within their own life time ecosystem, but they also
appear to be associated with ecosystem experiences of
previous generations. Thus this researcher believes that
there are intergenerational patterns in the family histories
of teen mothers, possibly family experiences in which they
have had no direct involvement, that now affect the
relationship and interaction they are able to establish with
their babies.
WW

An illustration similar to the one pictured in Figure 1

is frequently used by a nurse researcher (Rogers, 1970) to

 

155
describe concepts of her own theory. The illustration has
helped this researcher to conceptualize the
intergenerational influences that are believed to be
occurring in the families of this study. Although very
little of Roger’s theory beyond the use of her "slinky"
illustration wiIl be used in this study, her theory does
appear to interface well with human ecological theory. Like
the human ecologists, she is consistent in her presentation
of the importance of the interaction between humans and
environments. Rogers used a toy slinky to demonstrate
theoretical concepts indicating the openness and rhythmical
nature of the life process. She discusses her principle of
reciprocy [sic] as a function of the mutual interaction of
and between the human field and the environmental field.
She believes, as does this researcher, that the human life
process evolves unidirectionally along a space-time
continuum having multiple dimensions.

For this researcher, human life is influenced by all of
our past, present, and potential future relationships with
space, time, and energy. The genograms and family histories
of the families in this study tell us that the experiences
of a present day family member are often influenced by
experiences that may never have been a part of that person’s
own immediate life.

This researcher uses the spirals of a toy slinky to

illustrate the unidirectional movement of life over the

_“

156
generations. Within the turns of the slinky note the
multiple spheres which represent the families within the
various generations. The turns in the slinky represent the
continuing influences of the past on the present and the
potential future. The spiral itself represents time in its
synchrony of movement and orientation in space. A spiral
like the slinky has flexibility: such flexibility has
energy. The spiral also can give an example of space as it
has boundaries within which it must remain. As the slinky
centers it falls back to its original shape and its turns
represent true links of past, present, and future. Although
the spirals are constantly directed forward, each turn in
the spiral reflects on the previous turns.

The toy slinky and the spheres within the curves give a
good illustration of how one might conceptualize interaction
between humans and environments within the present
generation of the family ecosystem and possibly how this
interaction continues through time and space across
generations. This researcher believes these interactions
continue through time and space often reflecting back on the
past as they spiral around and yet move forward. In the
stories of these families we see repetitions of behaviors
and experiences within a generation as well as within a
family’s history across generations. Thus, there appear to

be within this unidirectional movement of life an interface

157
and interaction of all environments at all times throughout
time and space, across generations.

If we are to believe that a person is continually
developing and striving toward personal well-being, then
within this proposed intergenerational ecosystem there are
continual efforts toward further human development which
produce as well as expend energy in the process. Again
using the toy slinky as an illustration, the energy to
propel the toy forward occurs when the sections of the
slinky are stretched within a specific range. When the
sections collapse on one another, a possible illustration of
generation compression or close spacing of children, energy
becomes limited or nonexistent. Likewise, there is no
energy when the sections of the slinky are stretched until
the coiled toy is straightened to a continuous length of
wire. Thus, the slinky and its potential energy can be used
as a metaphor for the human intergenerational family. When
the generations of the family are spaced too closely, the
energy from one generation to the next seems dissipated much
like the slinky collapsed upon itself. It is the
availability of resources and the ability to provide for
renewed energy at each generation within the entire
intergenerational ecosystem that influences the
developmental experiences and behaviors observed within the
present generation. Energy, resources, and supports seem

more readily available when there is a "fit" between when

158
one expects to be a parent or a grandparent and when one is
actually met with the role.

In the future, a similar strain on resources and energy
will possibly exist for those families in which the
generations are spaced well beyond the expected 30.years of
our culture. TeChnology today is now capable of allowing 50
and 60 year old women to become pregnant. Maybe like the
fully expanded slinky the time between the generations will
be so great that similar issues regarding resources, energy,
and supports will be a problem.

This researcher believes that the differences in the
the makeup of the family frames, family characteristics, and
family functions of the high and low family groups possibly
are associated with how intergenerational distresses are
experienced and reflected from one generation to the next.
Possibly, it is how these core categories are experienced
intergenerationally that determines where a specific
generation, family, or individual falls at any one point in

time on a distress/wellbeing continuum (Figure 2).

 

 

159

 

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Figure 2: Relationship of the core concepts

to a distress/wellbeing continuum

Wellbeing

Distress

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a.

160

The attachment/interactional behaviors viewed in the
videotapes of the teen mothers and babies and the family
stories of the people interviewed for this study do seem to
indicate that as the intergenerational distress increases
over the generations the teens have greater difficulty
forming a supportive relationship with their infants. This
researcher suspects that the intergenerational distress is
experienced by the teen mothers as depression and anxiety.
Such experiences likely rob a teen parent of the energy that

is needed to read and respond to a baby’s cues.

CHAPTER VIII. SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

Summary

Experts in the area of mother-infant attachment contend
that positive interaction with/attachment to a caregiver is
crucial to the child’s ability to learn (Sroufe, 1983).
Some believe that these early experiences have long term
effects on the child’s psycho-social health, influencing
the child’s capability to form interpersonal relationships
throughout life (Bowlby, 1969). Without early positive
attachment experiences the child is believed to be at
extreme social, emotional, psychological, and even physical
risks. It is believed that the risks for some children can
be life threatening.

Among teen parents and their children, studies often
point to relationships where the interaction between the
mother and child appear to be at risk. Some of these
studies have indicated that teens offer their children less
stimulation than adult mothers (Darabi et al., 1984:

Field et al., 1982: Garcia-Coll et al., 1987: King 8
Fullard, 1982: Sandler, 1980: Schilmoeller 8 Baranowski,
1985). They are often less vocal, less responsive to the
baby’s cues, less likely to engage in play and face-to-face
interaction with their infants. Such interaction is
believed to be necessary for attachment to develop and

flourish. Unlike studies of adult mothers, there is little

161

162
in the literature distinguishing the characteristics of
teens who develop a supportive relationship with their
infants and those having difficulty achieving such a
relationship. Less is known about the intergenerational
family context in which these relationships exist..

In an effort to learn more about the family context of
teen parents and about how the quality of parenting varies
within the teen parent population, this qualitative study
explored and described the similarities and differences of
the intergenerational family patterns that exist in the
families of teens who have developed a successful
attachment/interaction with their infants and those who are
having difficulty doing so. Informants were chosen from a
mid-Michigan adolescent parent support program. The program
services 142 teen mothers between 13 and 19 years old. The
agency had videotaped 106 of the teens in interaction with
their 12 month old babies. The individual filming of the
teens and babies was originally set up and conducted with
the anticipation of using the Nursing Child Assessment
Teaching Scale - NCATS (Barnard 8 Eyres, 1979) to score the
quality of interaction that exists between the mothers and
babies. This researcher, certified in the use of the scale,
observed and blind scored all of the films that the agency
had conducted within their treatment and control groups.
Five participants were then purposefully selected from each
of the score distribution extremes, the five highest and the

163

five lowest scores, of the treatment group of the program.
The five lowest scores were below the 10th percentile cutoff
point set by the Nursing Child Assessment Satellite Training
Programs at the University of Washington, Seattle (1994).
All 10 teens were then asked to take part in a semi-
structured family interview in which they and one other
adult family member they had selected were asked to tell
their ”family story" or history and assist in making a
family genogram. These interviews took place between
June 30, 1993 and September 21, 1993. Transcriptions of
these interviews and the genograms were analyzed using
constant comparative analysis which identified three
emerging categories: (a) family frame, which identified
patterns within the internal structural context of the
families inclusive of family composition, size, and birth
order: (b) family characteristics, which focused on patterns
that would typically be identified as the external structure
or the external context that the family encompassed, for
example, culture, religion, and social status: and
(C) family function, which included routine or mechanical
activities of daily living as well as some of the expressive
functioning and emotions expressed by the families.

When comparing the stories, the researcher identified
within group variability as well as multiple similarities
and differences between the family histories of teens who

had successful relationships with their babies and those who

1164
were having difficulty establishing the same. However, it
was the differences between the high and low score group in
how each of the patterns was expressed in the family stories
that pointed out several persistent intergenerational
stressors that appear to influence the ecological system of
these families.‘

The teens who were having the greatest difficulty
forming a supportive relationship with their babies came
from intergenerational contexts where the average age of the
mothers was declining with each generation. The average
number of children in these families has tended to decrease
over the generations. The spacing of Children has grown
closer from generation to generation among the families of
teens who have difficulty in relating with their babies.
These factors point to a generational compression.

The cultural backgrounds of the high and low score
groups were similar in some respects, yet in other respects
they were very different. In the low score group, families
in past generations were more likely to have come from the
poverty of migrants or share croppers of the South.

Although the educational level in both groups had increased
over several generations, none of the low score teens of the
present generation had completed a high school education.
All five had dropped out of school and all expressed they
had no intention to return in the near future. The low

score group was more likely to rent a home rather than own

165

their own home over the generations. And different from the
high score group, the last two generations of the low score
group indicated they did not feel safe in their present
neighborhoods. Another notable difference was that the low
score group of teens and their mothers reported being of a
specific religious belief: however, in the interviews they
all indicated that their families have not practiced a
religion for several generations. In the high score group
four of the five families reported being of a specific
religion and practicing that religion on a regular basis.

Each of the low score teens voiced a rejection for
their own mothers. They and their mothers indicated many
signs of isolation. Both generations of the group were more
likely to talk of feeling rejected and abandoned. None of
them had close friends. The high score group of teens, on
the other hand, indicated that they valued their maternal
relationships. Although three of the five were married they
preferred the emotional support of their mothers over that
of their husbands. Most of the high score group were also
able to talk of close friendships outside their family
relationships. The low score group members were more closed
to discussing their own emotions and feelings and those of
others in their families. They were not as likely to
perceive the present status of their families as better than
in the past. However, the high score group voiced optimism

regarding the Changes that have occurred for their families

166
over the past several generations. For the low score group
organization, planning, and the role of the rule maker seem
to be breaking down in more recent generations. Daily
routines and disciplining of children by parents have all
but disappeared from some of their homes. This was not so
for the high score group.

The family histories and the context of both groups of
families over four generations are filled with signs of
social distress. However, the informants’ stories appear to
indicate that the members of the low score group have led
more distressful existences. The informants of the low
score group seem to speak for themselves and for their
ancestors when they talk of the feelings brought on by the
social distresses they have experienced. Their personal
stories relate feelings of alienation, powerlessness,
limited control over life, and being without physical and
emotional supports. These personal feelings are most often
seen as responses to distress met in one’s social context.
These families report not just their own personal
experiences: they report intergenerational distress, the
distress of four generations. The family stories indicate
that the teens who have had difficulty forming successful
interactions with their children have come from families
that have led what appear to have been more distressful

existences over the generations.

167

Thus the research questions directing this study have
been acknowledged. In response to the first question,
relating to what patterns or themes exist in the
intergenerational family histories of teen-mothers as told
by these teens and one other family member, three major
patterns were identified in the stories of the family
participants. All of the families identified the
intergenerational structure of their families, they revealed
Characteristics specific to their family histories, and they
described the various family functions they have noted about
their families over generations.

In reply to the second question pertaining to what the
similarities and/or differences are in the patterns or
themes of the teen mothers who have developed a successful
mother-child relationship/interaction with their infants
versus those who are having difficulty developing such a
relationship/interaction, multiple similarities and
differences were found. It was the differences in the
patterns identified in the stories of the two groups that
revealed intergenerational experiences indicative of social
distress. As indicated earlier, the the teens who have had
difficulty forming successful interactions with their babies
seem to have come from families that appear to have led more

distressful existences over the generations.

168
Implications for Theory

Theory can be defined as a specific way of viewing the
world. Theories are abstract generalizations that present a
systematic explanation about relationships among phenomena.
The building blocks of theories are concepts. These
concepts are mortared together into an orderly pattern
allowing us to see and explain the way in which the world
and the people in it function (Polit 8 Hungler, 1991). A
theoretical perspective provides a way for organizing our
observations, focusing inquiries, and communicating
findings in both research and professional practice. In
practice, using a theoretical perspective for assessment
assists the professional to sort out and organize a large
amount of disparate data about a family, giving meaning to
the data in terms of identifying the strengths and
limitations of the family, and providing guidance for
setting goals and interventions with the family. Noting and
recognizing the potential for variability within family and
client groups presents tremendous implications for both‘
theory and pranctice. No one theory or perspective on
family will adequately address the behaviors, problems, and
needs of all families (Friedman, 1992).

1. This study has supported family ecological
theoretical conceptualizations of Bubolz and Sontag (1993).

2. The results of this study indicate that there is an

interaction between family and environment not only within

169
the immediate family context but also within the
intergenerational family context. The experiences of the
present generation appear to be affected by experiences of
previous generations.

3. The results of this study have also supported
theory regarding the social causes of psychological distress
(Mirowsky 8 Ross, 1989).

4. The data from this population of teens combined
with data from other adolescent program data may potentially
lead to a theory of intergenerational family distress/well
being.

Implications for Research

Research provides a link betweeen theory and practice.
It is through research that theoretical perspectives are
developed and empirically tested. Practitioners of all
professions need a base of knowledge from which to practice,
and the scientific knowledge gained through research
contributes to a particularly sound base. It is frequently
the practitioners who ask questions about specific phenomena
or issues they have confronted in practice. It is the
researchers who seek to answer such questions, solve
problems, and make sense of the various experiences. This
is not to say that the practitioner and researcher cannot be

one and the same. Often as in this study, although based

170
upon a small sample, the findings that emerged can serve as
a basis for future research.

1. New studies with the same focus using the same
methodologies could be conducted with (a) informants from
specified ethnic or multiethnic heritages, (b) informants
from middle and high socioeconomic backgrounds, (c)
informants from various religious beliefs and practices, (d)
informants from rural or metropolitan areas of the United
States, (e) fathers of the babies and the males of the
intergenerational family, (f) married teen parents where
there have been several generations of intact marriages in
the family, (g) an older group of primiparous mothers, for
example, mothers between the ages of 21 and 34 years old,
mothers between 35 and 45 years old, and mothers 50 years
old and older who are now having invitro fertilization
pregnancies. Qualitative investigations dealing with larger
samples of teen parents and families within a variety of
other contexts need to be considered.

2. Comparison studies could be conducted between
(a) informants of various ethnic, cultural or multicultural
heritages to determine if the cultural variations of family
structure, family characteristics, and family function
between various heritages influence the interaction that
occurs between the mothers and babies of the various ethnic
and cultural heritages, (b) informants of various religious

beliefs and practices to determine if differences in

171
religious preference and/or practice behaviors are
associated with how mothers interact with their babies, (c)
informants of various socioeconomic backgrounds to determine
if variations in socioeconomic status over the generations
have any affect on the interaction observed between mother
and child.

3. Research should be implemented to determine if the
family story and genogram methods for family data collection
and documentation actually do provide professionals using
such methods with a quicker, more effective method for
identifying family structural, developmental, and functional
patterns than the more typical methods of standardized check
off forms and narrative notes.

4. A study could be devised to test the effectiveness
of intergenerational genograms and family stories as methods
for family assessment, as a means of intervention assisting
teen parents to better understand their family experiences,
and as a method for helping them to make changes thus

avoiding a replication of past problematic family behaviors.

Implications for Practice
The purpose of interventions used with adolescent
parents is to provide for a positive parent-child
relationship that will nurture the physical, emotional, and
cognitive development of the child. For several decades the

172

focus of this intervention has been on providing social and
instrumental supports to the adolescent parent. Often this
approach is not a sufficient response to the problems that
teens experience as parents. Although many teen parent
programs view themselves as comprehensive, most concentrate
their efforts and support on one area of need (Musick,
1993). For example, some emphasize schooling or acquisition
of employment depending on the teen mother’s age. Other
programs might stress child care and child development.
Programs developed by medical care facilities often focus on
reproductive behaviors and family planning. Most center on
what they feel financially and structurally equipped to do
best. Professionals specializing in parenting recognize a
link of early mother-daughter relationships with later
childbearing and child rearing patterns. With this
perspective some teen parent programs have developed family
interventions, yet few of these programs have resources
allowing them the ability to examine and work with family
members beyond those living within the teen’s household let
alone work with family members across multiple generations.

The Clinical experience of this researcher agrees with
Horwitz, Klerman, Kuo, and Jekel (1991) that many
adolescents seem drawn to motherhood as a means of
compensating for what they failed to get from their burdened
and depressed family contexts. Others seem to be attempting

to adapt to family expectations which are so strong that

173
they feel as though they cannot move on with their lives
until they, through having a baby, prove they are like the
emotionally significant females in their lives (Hamburg,
1986). Musick (1993) believes that many of these teens feel
psychological pressures to validate the life style Choices
of others in their lives. They often seem driven to do so.
They appear to fear that to do differently will set them
apart from their mothers, sisters, and aunts. To be very
different from one’s family presents a risk of being
separated from the only family supports and security, as
poor as they may be, that one has known in life. It must be
very frightening for a teen who comes from a context of
psychological distress--feeling inferior, powerless,
isolated, alienated--to consider making the changes that
professionals are presenting them. Such interventions are
often created with a goal to make Changes in reproductive
behaviors, changes in spacing of pregnancies, changes in
parenting behaviors. All are changes that are likely to
make the lives of the teens different from the lives of
those who preceded them.

1. This researcher believes that no amount of social
or instrumental support will ever be adequate enough, unless
professionals working with these families understand and
emphasize the intergenerational and interpersonal
relationship context of these young parents. Until these

professionals and policy makers understand the importance of

174
the intergenerational context and interpersonal
relationships and the links these have with how young
parents behave, they cannot understand what drives the teen
nor can they create programs, interventions, or policies
which will provide the young person with potential for a
healthier future for themselves and their families.

Most teens tell us that they long to be good parents,
but the psychological distress experienced within the
families of so many seems to sap their energy, the energy
needed to provide even the basics of parenting. It seems to
drive them even more directly toward the life cycle choices
of previous generations.

2. To understand the meaning of the family context and
the relationships within these families, we must hear their
family stories. Their stories must be a part of our
assessments and our interventions. Their stories are the
key for understanding and constructing conditions in which
change can occur. Qualitative and clinical data are
essential to such an inquiry.

Clinicians and researchers believe that unresolved and
often unconscious issues from the past affect present
behavior and act as barriers to using new knowledge for
change (Fraiberg, 1980: Main 8 Goldwyn, 1984: Main 8 Hesse,
1990). When young girls compulsively repeat self-
destructive patterns of behavior in an effort to work out

the unresolved, some examination and interpretation of these

175
psychic ghosts seems warranted (Musick, 1993). These
unresolved ghosts are often found within the
intergenerational stories of their families. Burton and
Hagestad (1986, p. 483) believe that the French poet and
novelist, Victor Hugo probably put it best, "If you want to
reform a man (wdman), start with his (her) grandmother!"
Time is vital component when conducting intergenerational
interventions. However, it is this critical factor of time
that is often incompatible with the political attitude and
process to get fast results.

3. Genograms can provide insight into the needs of a
family which are often not readily obvious in the
appointment by appointment narrative notes of even the most
fastidious clinician. The genogram can then be used as a
blue print for constructing change (Lieberman, 1979).
Families can learn through their genograms the coping styles
and strengths of previous family members. When the
strengths are identified, they can incorporate those
strengths into their own attempts to cope with a current
problem.

4. Genograms can also be used as a method for
evaluation. Professionals interested in knowing the
effectiveness of their interventions within a family could
conduct comparative genograms as they progress through their
plan of care. For example, an initial assessment genogram

evaluating family relationships could be compared later with

176
an evaluation genogram overlay following a period of
intervention to determine if there has been a change in

family functioning (Ingersoll-Dayton 8 Arndt, 1990).

Conclusion

This study Concludes that within this small group of
young poor mothers there is a difference in the
intergenerational family patterns of teens who have
developed a successful interaction/attachment with their
babies and those who are having difficulty doing the same.
There are differences in the intergenerational family frame,
family characteristics, and family functioning of these
teens. The differences appear to be related to the level of
social and psychological distresses experienced by the teens
and the generations that preceded them.

Professionals need to be aware of not only the context
within which the teen presently exists but also the
intergenerational family context of these young people if
they hope to be able to provide these families with
effective interventions and family supports. Excellent
vehicles for acquiring this information are the family story
and the genogram: both function well as methods for

assessment, intervention, and evaluation.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

Nursing Child Assessment Teaching Scale - NCATS

NURSING CHILD ASSESSMENT TEACHING SCALE - NCATS

PERSON OBSERVED IN INTERACTION (circle) CHILD'S AGE:

 

mother father other
CHILD'S SEX (circle)
MAIOR CAREGIVER (circle) male female
yes no
DATE OF BIRTH:

 

TEACHING TASK:

 

BIRTH WEIGHT:

 

LENGTH or TEACHING (circle) MIN.
1 or less 2 3 4 5 6 or more DELIVERED BY: (circle)
C-Section Vaginal
SETTING (circle)
home clinic other COMPLICATIONS OF BIRTH:

YES NO

 

I. SENSITIVITY TO CUES

Parent positions child so child is safely supported

 

2. Parent positions child so that child can reach and
manipulate materials.

 

3. Parent gets the child's attention before beginning the
task, at the outset of the teaching interaction.

 

4. In nearly all cases parent gives instructions only when
the child is attentive (90%).

 

5. Parent allows child to explore the task materials for at
least 5 seconds before giving the first task related
instruction.

 

6. Parent positions child so that it is possible for them to
have eye-to-eye contact with one another during the
teaching episode.

 

7. Parent pauses when child initiates behaviors during the
teaching episode.

 

Parent praises child's successes or partial successes.

 

Parent asks for no more than three performances when
child is successful at completing the task.

 

10. Parent changes position of child and/or materials after
unsuccessful attempt by the child to do the task.

 

11. Parent does not physically force the child to complete
the task.

 

 

SUBSCALE TOTAL (No. of YES answers)

 

 

 

 

 

177

178

YES

NO

 

II. RESPONSE TO DISTRESS (indicate whether distress
occurred or not)

12.

Stops the teaching episode.

 

13.

Makes positive, sympathetic, or soothing
verbalization.

 

14.

Changes voice volume to softer or higher pitch (does
not yell).

 

15.

Rearranges the child's position and/or task materials.

 

16.

Makes soothing non-verbal response, e.g., pat, touch,
rock, caress, kiss.

 

17.

Diverts child's attention by playing games, introduces
new toy.

 

18.

Does not make negative comments to the child.

 

19.

Does not yell at the child.

 

20.

Does not use abrupt movements or rough handling.

 

21.

Does not slap, hit or spank.

 

22.

Does not make negative comments to home visitor
about the child.

 

 

SUBSCALE TOTAL (No. of YES answers)

 

 

 

179

YES

NO

 

III. SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL GROWTH FOSTERING

23.

Parent's body posture is relaxed during the teaching
episode (at least half the time).

 

24.

Parent is in the faceoto-face position with the child
during the teaching interaction (at least half the time).

 

25.

Parent laughs or smiles at child during the teaching.

 

26.

Parent gently pats, caresses, strokes, hugs, or kisses
child during episode.

 

27.

Parent smiles, or touches child within 5 seconds when
child smiles or vocalizes.

 

28.

Parent praises child's efforts or behaviors broadly (in

 

29

jeneral) at least once during the episode.

. Parent makes constructive or encouraging statement
to the child during the teaching interaction.

 

30.

Parent does not vocalize to the child at the same time
the child is vocalizing.

 

31.

Parent does not make general negative or
uncomplimentary remarks about the child.

 

32.

Parent does not yell at the child during the episode.

 

33.

Parent does not make critical, negative comments
about the child's task performance.

 

 

SUBSCALE TOTAL (No. of YES answers)

 

 

 

180

YES

NO

 

IV. COGNITIVE GROWTH FOSTERING

34.

Parent provides an immediate environment which is
free from distractions from animate sources (sibs,
pets, etc.)

 

35.

Parent focuses attention on child's attention on the
task during most of the teaching (60% of the time).

 

36.

After parent gives instructions, at least 5 seconds is
allowed for the child to attempt the task before parent
intervenes again.

 

37.

Parent allows non-task manipulation of the task
materials after the original presentation.

 

38.

Parent describes perceptual qualities of the task
materials to the child.

 

39.

Parent uses at least two different sentences or
phrases to describe the task to the child.

 

40.

Parent uses explanatory verbal style more than
imperative style in teaching the child.

 

41.

Parent's directions are stated in clear, unambiguous
language (i.e., ambiguous= 'turn,‘ 'reach;'

’ unambiguous= 'turn the knob toward me')

 

42.

Parent uses both verbal description and modeling
simultaneously in teaching any part of the task.

 

43.

Parent encourages and/or allows the child to perform
the task before intruding in on the use of task
materials.

 

Parent verbally praises child after child has performed
better or more successfully than the last attempt.

 

45.

Parent smiles and/or nods after child performs better
or more successfully than the last attempt.

 

Parent responds to the child's vocalizations with
verbal response.

 

47.

Parent uses both verbal and nonverbal instructions in
teaching the child.

 

. Parent uses teaching loops in instructing child (75%

of the time).

 

49.

Parent signals completion of task to child verbally or
nonverbally.

 

50.

Parent spends not more than 5 minutes and not less
than one minute in teaching the child the task.

 

 

SUBSCALE TOTAL (No. of YES answers)

 

 

 

181

YES

NO

 

V. CLARITY OF CUES

51

Child is awake.

 

52

Child widens eyes and/or shows postural attention to
task situation.

 

53.

Child changes intensity or amount of motor activity
when task material is presented.

 

Child's movements are clearly directed toward the
task materials or away from the task or task materials
(not diffuse).

 

55.

Child makes clearly recognizable arm movements
during the teaching episode (clapping, reaching,
waving, pounding, pointing, pushing away).

 

56.

Child vocalizes while looking at task materials.

 

57.

Child smiles or laughs during the episode.

 

58'.

Child grimaces or frowns during the teaching episode.

 

59.

Child dISplays potent negative cues during the
teaching interaction.

 

60.

Child displays subtle negative cues during the
teaching interaction.

 

 

SUBSCALE TOTAL (No. of YES answers)

 

 

 

182 .
, YES NO

 

VI. RESPONSIVENESS TO PARENT

61. Child gazes at parent's face or task materials after
parent has shown verbal or nonverbal alerting
behavior.

 

62. Child attempts to engage parent in eye-to-eye contact.

 

63. The child looks at the parent‘s face or eyes when
parent attempts to establish eye-to-eye contact.

 

64. Child vocalizes or babbles within 5 seconds after
parent's verbalization.

 

65. Child vocalizes or babbles within 5 seconds after
parent's gestures, touching or changing facial
expression.

 

 

66. Child smiles at parent within 5 seconds after parent's
verbalization.

 

67. Child smiles at parent within 5 seconds after parent's
gesture, touch, or facial expression changes.

 

68. When parent moves closer than 8 inches from the
child's face, the child shows subtle and/or potent
negative cues.

 

69. Child shows subtle and/or potent negative cues within
5 seconds after parent changes facial expression or
body movements. '

 

70. Child shows subtle and/or potent negative cues within
5 seconds after parent's verbalization.

 

71. The child shows subtle and/or potent negative cues
when parent attempts to intrude physically in the
child's use of the task material

 

72. Child physically resists or responds aggressively when
parent attempts to intrude physically in child's use of
the task material.

 

73. The child stops displaying distressing cues within 15
seconds after parent's soothing attempts.

 

 

SUBSCALE TOTAL (No. of YES answers)

 

 

 

183

 

ENTER TOTALS F OR EACH CATEGORY:

 

SENSITIVITY TO CUES

 

RESPONSE TO DISTRESS

 

SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL GROWTH FOSTERING

\

COGNITIVE GROWTH FOSTERING

 

 

CLARITY OF CUES

 

RESPONSIVENESS TO PARENT

 

 

 

TOTAL (No. of YES answers)

 

1. Were you uncomfortable during any part of the teaching due to the presence of the
camera? '

A. YES 8. NO
If YES, why?

 

 

2. Observer's comments:

 

 

 

 

_ q“, .
October 18, 1994, Nursing Child Assessment Satellite Training
Program gave permission for the use and printed enclosure of NCAT
Scale in this dissertation.

APPENDIX 8

Letter of Introduction

(September 10, 1992)
(Mr. and Mrs. R. J. Smith)
(555 Merrill Road)

(City, MI 48000)

Dear (Mr. and Mrs. Smith):

I am a doctoral student at Michigan State University and currently involved in a research
study concerning family stories. Some might refer to these ‘family stories' as their 'family
roots' or the history of their family. All families have a story or a history to tell. I am
interested especially in the family stories of young mothers. I believe these stories can help
us understand how mothers begin to interact with their children.

( Name ) is one of a small group of teens who might be asked to participate in this study
of teen parents and their family stories. She has been asked to have one or more adult
family members to help her remember and tell her family's history. She has indicated that
she would like you to be one of those family members. She will be asked to answer an initial
questionnaire regarding some personal information about herself. A similar form has been
enclosed for your use. If you should agree to participate with her, we ask that you answer
the questions indicated and return the sheet with both your signed personal consent form
and the parent/guardian consent form. Please return all three forms to me in the enclosed
posted self-addressed envelope. You can decide not to participate personally and yet give
permission for ( Name )to take part in the study by just signing the parent consent form
and not signing the personal consent.

We will be calling to make an appointment to meet with all those teens and family members
who have agreed to participate in this study. The appointment will be scheduled at (Name)
and your convenience. You are assured of the strictest confidentiality. Identification
numbers are to allow for matching forms only. Your family name will not be placed on any
of the forms. '

The results of this research will be used by the researcher as well as clinicians and teachers
working with teens and their families to better understand both the families of teens and how
young mothers begin to interact with their babies. If you would like a summary of the
results, please indicate on the enclosed postcard. Print your name and address for mailing
and return it separately from the consent forms and questionnaire.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at (313) 370-4077 or at the
address below. I would be very happy to answer any questions.

Thank you for your time and assistance.

Sincerely,

Mary E. Mittelstaedt

Family and Child Ecology - MSU
39214 Sunderland Drive
Clinton Township, MI 48038

184

APPENDIX C

 

Consent Form

 

186

Parent or Guardian Consent Form
The research project on the family stories/histories of teen mothers has been explained to
me. I understand that if I agree to allow my ( Name ) to participate in this study that I
will be agreeing to:

1. Allow Mary Mittelstaedt, doctoral student at MSU, to view the lnstitute's films of
( Name ) and her baby.

2. Allow Mary Mittelstaedt to review my daughter's records at the Institute with the staff.

3. Allow ( Name ) to answer a questionnaire regarding personal information about
herself (age, schooling, income).

4. Allow ( Name ) to talk with Mary Mittelstaedt about herself as a mother and
about her family history.

5. Allow the interview to be tape recorded. I understand that these tapes will be kept
in a secured/locked box and they will be retained until no further studies are
anticipated.

6. A previously scheduled home visit or an appointment at the health care facility with
Mary Mittelstaedt.

I understand that this study is to facilitate family clinicians and teachers working with teen
families to better understand both the families of teens and how young mothers begin to
interact with their babies.

I understand that my permission is voluntary. I understand that either of us, ( Name I
or myself, can drop out at any time. I understand that we need only talk about those things
about the family that we feel comfortable in sharing. I, also, understand that if( Name
_) does not participate it will in no way affect her future education or the health care of her
or her baby.

I understand that the information gained from this study might be published. If so, I
understand that neither my name, ( Name ) name, nor the name of any other family
member will be used in recording or reporting the results of this study.

I have been informed that if I have future questions or concerns, Mrs. Mittelstaedt will answer
these for me. I have a phone number and an address where she can be reached.

Signing this paper indicates that I have read and understand the description of the research being
conducted and that I give my permission for my daughter to participate in the study.

 

 

Date Parent/ Guardian Signature

 

Daughter’s Name

 

APPENDIX D

 

Teen Parent Questionnaire

 

Teen Parent Questionnaire

... . ‘7 ' ”C“. .
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I I Hello We appreciate your help with this study. - :21; f;~--_:-‘j..;=;

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When were you born?

 

month day year
Please circle the last grade level in school that you have completed.
K1234567891011
Are you presently in school? (Circle your answer.)

1. yes
2. no

12

Circle which of the following best represents your family's ethnic background.

African American
Asian American
Caucasian
Hispanic/Latino
Native American
Other (please specify)

P‘S’IPP’N?‘

 

Please circle which of the following best indicates your religion.

1. Catholic

2. Jewish

3. Protestant

4. Other (please specify)

 

Circle the answer that best describes where you live.

1. City

2. Farm

3. Suburb

4. Other (please specify)

 

188

 

189

7. Circle your present marital status.

1. Married (living with your husband)

2. Married (not living with your husband)
3. Divorced

4. Single

8. You currently are living: (Circle the best answer)

at home with your parent/parents/guardian
with your baby's father

with a friend

Other (please specify)

PWN!"

 

 

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(l) (2) l3) (4)
9. FIRST NAME RELATIONSHIP TO YOU SEX AGE

EXAMPLE x. Mary My Mother F 44

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

190

 

 

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10. Circle the answer that best describes your employment status.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

Full-time (over 35 hours per week)

Part-time (please specify the number of hours that you work per week):
Unemployed

School, full-time

School, part-time

PPP’N!‘

What is your job title? (please specify)

 

Describe your duties:

 

 

Circle the letter of the category that is closest to the amount your job pays per hour:

Under $1.99
$2.00 - $2.99
$3.00 - $3.99
$4.00 - $4.99
$5.00 - $5.99
$6.00 and over

9‘9“?!”[02‘

Do you receive regular financial assistance from your parent/parents?
1. yes

2. no

Do you receive regular financial assistance from your baby‘s father?

1. yes

2. no

Are you presently receiving any financial aid from the state of Michigan?

1. yes
2. no

 

16.

17.

191

If your answer was yes to question #15, please indicate the kind of state support you
are receiving:

 

Are you presently receiving assistance from the WIC (Women, Infant, and Children Food
Supplement Program)?

1. yes
2. no ‘

APPENDIX B

Other Family Participant Questionnaire

 

Other Family Participant Questionnaire _

 

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When were you born?

 

month day year
Please circle the last grade level in school that you have completed.
K 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Are you presently in school? (Circle your answer.)

1. yes
2. no

Circle which of the following best represents your family's ethnic background.

African American
Asian American
Caucasian
Hispanic/Latino
Native American
Other (please specify)

QWPP’N!‘

 

Please circle which of the following best indicates your religion.

1. Catholic

2. Jewish

3. Protestant

4. Other (please specify)

 

Circle the answer that best describes where you live.

1. City

2. Farm

3. Suburb

4. Other (please specify)

 

192

 

193

7. Circle your present marital status.

1. Married (living with your husband)
2. Married (not living with your husband)

3. Divorced
4. Single
8. Circle the answer that best describes your relationship to the teen mother who has

asked you to participate with her in this study. I am her:

Mother ‘
Grandmother

Father

Grandfather

Aunt

Uncle

Other (please specify)

Np‘SfiPP’NE“

 

 

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9. FIRST NAME RELATIONSHIP TO YOU SEX AGE

EXAMPLE x. Mary My Daughter F 1 6

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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10. Circle the answer that best describes your employment status.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

F uII-time (over 35 hours per week)

Part-time (please specify the number of hours that you work per week):
Unemployed ‘

School, full-time

School, part-time

5"?pr

What is your job title? (please specify)

 

Describe your duties:

 

Circle the letter of the category that is closest to the amount your job pays per hour:

Under $4.99
$5.00 - $5.99
$6.00 - $6.99
$7.00 - $7.99
$8.00 - $8.99
$9.00 and over

QWPP’NE‘

Are you presently receiving any financial aid from the state of Michigan?

1. yes
2. no

If your answer was yes to question #13, please indicate the kind of state support you
are receiving:

 

Are you presently receiving assistance from the WIC (Women, Infant, and Children Food
Supplement Program)?

1. yes
2. no

Do you provide regular financial assistance to the teen participating in this study?

1. yes
2. no

 

 

195

17. How often do you phone or see her?
1. daily
2. weekly
3. more often than once a week
4. less than once a month

18. The last time I phoned her was: (please specify)

19. The last time I saw\ her was: (please specify)

APPENDIX F

 

Interview Question Guide

 

interview Question Guide

The following questions have been developed to facilitate the interview process of this study.
Such questions are often referred to as probes. The guide is not meant to be a rigid format
for questioning. Probe questions will be selected by the researcher as necessary to
encourage the informant to talk freely and at length about their family story/history.

The guide consists of an initial general probe, five general open ended probe questions
(identified by *) developed around the major categories of the Calgary Family Assessment
Model (CFAM) (T omm & Sanders, 1983): family structure (internal and external), family
function (instrumental and expressive) and family development. Each of these general
questions is followed by more specific questions related to the same categories. If
assistance is required, the interviewer will move from general questioning to 'more specific
questions to facilitate the interview.

The researcher will begin the interview with an introduction to the interview and an
explanation of why the interviewer is interested in hearing the family story. All the interviews
will begin with the initial interview question found in the guide. The other general and
specific questions of the guide will be used only as the interviewer deems necessary to
encourage a free open sharing of the family story/history.

196

 

197

Introduction to the Interview and Interviewer

Several years ago, I was given the opportunity to develop my own family tree. I talked
with my father and several other older relatives. Together, we were able to write down our
'family story/history'. Some people might refer to these stories as their 'family roots'.
Whether we call it family roots or trees, the experience was so fruitful, so rewarding, that I
began to share it with others.

The latest with whom I have shared such an experience is a young student at the
university where I teach. She told me she never expected to learn so much about herself and
about her family. She, as I, thought she already knew all there was to know about her
relatives and their lives. She never expected that what she learned about her family's history
would have so great an effect on how she saw herself and the others in her family. She tells
me she now has a better understanding about the experiences of her childhood. She says
she also feels that learning her family's history has improved the family relationships and
communications, especially the relationship she has with her parents and grandmother who
helped her write down their story. She tells me that as a child, she didn't believe that her
parents and she understood each other and she didn't feel they were as close as she would
have liked. She feels that talking to each other about their family and reliving their stories
has drawn them closer together. For me, as well as for many others with whom I have
already shared in the writing of their family story, the increased understanding of the family's
history has given us a way of coping with some of the changes in our lives. Because I have
found the experience so rewarding, I would like to learn more about families by way of their
stories. I am especially interested in the family stories of teen parents and their families.

Thank you so much for agreeing to participate in my research on families. I hope that
you will feel very comfortable and Open in talking about your family. What you tell me about
you and your family story will remain confidential. If at any time you feel uncomfortable in

answering any question, you can choose not to answer that question. You need only tell me

198

what you feel comfortable in telling. If at any time, you do not wish to continue the interview,

just let me know and the interview will end immediately.

 

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- ~. -—_~ ...-4 ,...\.

;emmAL_G£NERAL paces...j;;;. i: a
M

How would you describe your family's history or story to someone
who Is Interested In knowing about your family/roots?

 

 

 

FAMILY STRUCTURE

Family structure looks at both the internal structure of a family and the external
structure. Internal structure is interested in who are the members of a family and what are
the connections between these members. Frequently, four subcategories are listed under
internal structure: composition, rank order, subsystem, boundary. Also, important to
understanding the family structure is knowing the structure in which a family is nested. Each
family system is embedded within and interacts with broader systems such as, a
neighborhood, region, country (Lytton, 1980, 270). These structures are often referred to
as the external structure. External structure includes: culture, religion, social class, mobility,

environment, extended family.

 

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lam Interested in knowing about all ofthe reiativesyou everlarewoforheard
about. Iarn interested inthestoriesyeuhavetotell about them, whothey were,
where they came from, where they lived, what they did, what the fernIIy called them
andhadtasayaboutthenr. IwilItrytoputtheIrnarnesonthebrundiesofthistree
asyeutalkaboutthern.

 

 

 

Internal Structure Specific Probes
Rank Order: Tell me about your brothers and sisters and your mother and father.

Tell me the same about grandparents, your aunts, uncles and cousins. Tell me back as far

_ 199

as you know anything about. In what order were these family members born? Tell me who
is married to whom and when they were married or divorced. Tell me about those who have
died in the family, or possibly if a baby was miscarried.

Subsystems: In some families, certain smaller groups of the family are expected to
do certain things. In my family the mothers and daughters did certain things together while
the fathers and their sons did certain things together. Sisters did things together while
brothers did other things. I am interested in knowing about any of these small groups in your
family.

Boundary: Every family has rules. I am interested in knowing what rules your family
has and if you know if and how these rules have changed from one generation to the next.

Tell me about how you see your family as being the same or different from other
families.

If you were feeling stressed, to whom would you turn for help.

Tell me with whom you share happy and or sad times? Tell me about when and if that
person has not been there for you. Would you or have you been there for them under similar

conditions?

 

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‘4. .~,.-.... -.-, -,-."_.. .

 

Every family exists in an envirenrnent. I am interested In the family stories about -
where these families might have come from and how they got here. Tell me about
what the family has said about where and how each of the families have lived.

 

 

 

External Structure Specific Probes
Quit—mg: America is a melting pot of many cultures and ethnic groups. Families
come from various ethnic and cultural groups. What stories do you know about your origins?
What has been the effect of the family's heritage/roots on their education, jobs, health and
friendships? Do you think the effect has remained the same from one generation to the next

or has it gotten worse or better over time?

200

m: Religion often influences what a family believes in and what they choose for
themselves. What stories does your family tell about its religious beliefs? Have these
religious beliefs changed over time and how?

Social Class and Mobility: What do you know of the family stories about the
education and occupations of the various members of your family? What have family
members said about their education/job? Tell me about whether you believe the education
and jobs of family members has effected where they live and how often they move and why
you think this happened.

Environment: People live in various environments. Some families live in cities, others
on farms, some in suburbs. The actual home they live in can also vary. Some live in
apartments, others in houses, some have no place they can call a home. Tell me what you
know about the homes and the surroundings of the people we have talked about. In your
own case, what conveniences, transportation, recreation and public services do you wish your
family could have but you don't know how to get for them?

Extended Family: Family can be more than just the parents who birthed us. Some
families consist of steprelatives, foster relatives, and adoptive relatives. Sometimes people
in the family raise or care for the children of others. It is not uncommon for a grandparent
or an aunt or uncle, sister or brother to raise us as children. These are often referred to an
extended family. Tell me about the extended family you are aware of within your family.
Who in the family do you feel closest to? How often do you hear from them: a visit, a letter
or just a phone call. Who visits, writes or phones who? Who do you never see? What
relatives do you know of in the family that seem very, very close? Tell me about the family

feuds and how long they last.

FAMILY FUNCTION
Family function is concerned with how individuals relate to one another. Parsons and
Bales (1956) indicated two major categories of family function: instrumental and expressive.

Instrumental functioning refers to to the routines or mechanical activities of daily living.

201

‘Expressive functioning refers primarily to communication, roles, problem solving, beliefs and
relationships within a family (Wright & Leahey, 1987). The family function data of this study

will be collected by way of interview and observation.

 

   

- 2’. ""41? 5:" Instrumenta iii-'unction'GenerekPreben-rv:'.~:-~, . "-

 

How would you describe what a day Is like at your house? How Is the routine the
same or different frem how you remember the home you lived In as a child.

 

 

Instrumental Function Specific Probes
Describe the routines of a normal day at your house? When do various people in the
family get up? What things have to be done everyday and who does them? When is everyone
able to get together in a day? When do the various members of the family end their day?

Do you remember the home of your childhood being the same or different and how?

 

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er ,. , 4. _

   

In many families there are people who seem to always be there for others. They are
the people you can always count on to share happy times, sad times, pod times and
bad. Tell me about those people and some of the situations where they were there.
Likewise, there are people that we rarely see or hear from. Tell me about those
people, as well. (Some of the expressive function will be evidenced within the data

I already collected. )

 

 

 

Expressive Function Specific Probe
Emotional Communication: Emotional communication refers to the range and types
of emotion expressed (Wright & Leahey, 1987). Every family has its squabbles. Tell about
the squabbles, arguments or feuds in your family. How long do some of these last? Who is
most likely to start them and who is most likely to come along to attempt to be the peace
maker? How do they go about trying to stop a feud. How do people in your family show

when they are very happy, very sad and/or very angry?

202

Verbal and Non-Verbal Commnication: (Verbal and nonverbal communication will
be observed within the family members present for the interview. A great deal of family
communication and problem solving is anticipated as the family attempts to tell their story.)

figle_s: Sometimes we give family members nick names like Baby Joey! or The Boss!
Can you tell me about any nick names in the family and how people got them? If there are
no nick names, do you have names you would like to call certain people?

§_e_li_e_fs_: What have been some hopes and dreams (goals) of your family? How are
these different or the same from those of your parents or grandparents?

fli_l_e_§: Every family has its own rules. Tell me about some of the rules in your family.
Tell me who enforces the rules and how. Who breaks the rules and how?

Alliances and Coalitions: (Alliances and Coalitions should become evident as a result

of collecting the other data.)

FAMILY DEVELOPMENT

'Fami Iy development refers to the process of progressive structural differentiation and
transformation over the family history to the active acquisition and selective discarding of
roles by incumbents of family position as they seek to meet changing functional requisites
for survival and as they adapt to recurring life stresses as a family system' (Hill & Mattessich,
1979, 174).

The family development data at this point primarily exist within the data already
collected. The collected data should give information about the attachments that exist
between family members. The story told should already point out critical events of the family
and the dates when these occurred. Dates of births, deaths, marriages and divorces should
give the information needed about both the stages of individual and family development. If

this information is limited the following questions could be used.

203

 

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- ‘6‘ 4 ' ’

‘ - ‘ ‘ » ‘.' ‘ r .4 ‘ , ~ -44.- « . “.
.. . .:- - .."Faml Deve ntGenerolProbe ‘ '

    

Every family experiences happy times and sad times, good times and bad times. Tell
me about some of the happiest or best times that you think your family has
experienced. Tell me also about the times you consider to have been the saddest or
worst times In your family's history. How have these times gotten better or worse
from one generation to the next?

 

 

 

Family Development Specific Probes

What do you know about how people in the family reacted to these experiences. Who
do you think was the happiest during the happy times? Who do you think took the bad times
the worst? Who just didn't seem to care? Why do you think they felt and acted as they did?

Tell me about who in your family history you believe has had the greatest influence
on you and others of your family? Is there a particular event that you heard about or actually
experienced that you believe had a tremendous effect on your family's history?

(The following question topics, I have saved until last. They are often very
emotionally charged. Some or all may have been answered within the other areas covered;
therefore, they would not need to be covered again. However, if it is noted that discussion
of certain family critical events have been avoided, the interviewer will need to create specific
questions related to these family history topics:

I serious physical or emotional illnesses-include alcoholism, addictions and

problems with the law

I economic hardships

I marital problems

I challenges in raising children-include discipline problems and abuse

Conclusion of the Interview
I appreciate your giving the time to take part in this study. Please accept this
token/small gift as a 'thank you' for your participation (i.e., MSU memorabilia: key chain,

cup, stationery).

 

APPENDIX G

Sample Genograms

Male : D Attachments :

 

Very Strong -

 

 

 

 

Female: 0 ‘ strong

Moderate
Marriage: D—O Negatively W
Relationship

Without Marriage : D. «.0

Children: DT—I—O
0

Death: 8

Divorce or

Separation: E-A—O

Unable to Name: ?

Figure 3. Symbols Used in Genograms

204

205

 

 

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Figure 4. Sample genogram A.

 

 

206

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