Effect of Cumulative Maternal Childhood Abuse on Intergenerational Maltreatment and Role of Parenting Attitude

Purpose: There has been extensive research conducted on the intergenerational continuity of child maltreatment, however, due to the dearth of longitudinal studies, the links between maltreatment of mothers in childhood and pathways leading to their perpetration of maltreatment as adults are not well understood. Guided by the concept of resilience, this study first investigates the relationship between experiences of multiple types of maternal childhood abuse and frequency of perpetration of child maltreatment in adulthood. Additionally, the study examines whether parenting attitude predicts child maltreatment and mediates the relationship between maltreatment history and maltreating one's own children.

Methods: The study used a sample of 477 high-risk biological mothers followed till target child age 8 in three sites from The Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN). Specialized multivariate analysis with controls for education, receipt of AFDC, age at child's birth, race, marital status, history of domestic violence, and site was used to investigate the research questions. Information on maternal history of childhood abuse (i.e. sexual and physical) and history of domestic violence was measured using the Caregiver's History of Loss and Victimization self-report instrument. CPS report data was collected through a project developed instrument to capture CPS reports, both substantiated and unsubstantiated, for the target child from birth to age 8. Parenting attitude was measured using the Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory. Other socio-demographic characteristics were gathered using a LONGSCAN project developed instrument. A count of the number of types (i.e. 0, 1, 2) of maternal childhood abuse suffered by the mother was used as the primary predictor. A count of CPS reports on the target child from birth to age 8 was used as the outcome variable for the first study question. Given the count nature of the first outcome variable and the inflated number of cases with no reports (71%), zero inflated negative binomial regression was used. For the second study question, given that AAPI information was collected at child age 4, a dichotomous dependent variable measuring the existence of a post-4 CPS report was used to test for mediation, and logistic regression was utilized.

Results: Results revealed that multiple types of maternal childhood abuse were significantly associated with increased frequency of perpetration of child maltreatment in adulthood, ÷2 (11, N = 477) = 24.41, p = .01. Maternal childhood abuse was associated with a 124% increase in CPS reports; thus, each one-unit increase in type of maternal childhood abuse was associated with a 124% increase in CPS reports holding other predictors constant. Tests for the mediating role of parenting attitude between maternal childhood abuse and perpetration of child maltreatment in adulthood failed to show significance.

Implications: The results support the mounting evidence demonstrating that cumulative co-occurrence of different types of childhood abuse may lead to greater difficulty in parenting. Additionally, the lack of any mediation effect by parenting attitude begs the question of whether parenting attitude is a strong predictor of perpetration of child maltreatment.