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Objective: To develop and test a measure that comprehensively captures the concept of maternal gatekeeping.
Background: Maternal gatekeeping encompasses the ways in which mothers restrict or support father involvement with children. We proposed a three-dimensional (Encouragement, Discouragement, and Control) model of gatekeeping to describe the nuances of the maternal gatekeeping, but no measures have yet been developed that provide scholars with a way to empirically test the theoretical model.
Method: Data were collected from 256 mothers and 204 fathers of children between 3 and 7years of age. A panel of national experts and parents established face validity, and a 3-factor solution resulted in separate models for mothers and fathers.
Results: Correlations between the subscales and 2 established measures of gatekeeping and coparenting were examined to establish construct validity; the new measures correlated in expected ways.
Conclusion: The use of different items for mothers and fathers will allow scholars to account for differences depending on whether the reporter is engaged in gatekeeping or the recipient of gatekeeping behavior.
Implications: The new measure may be a useful tool for researchers attempting to measure maternal gatekeeping as a multidimensional construct.
Key Words: Coparenting, fathering, maternal gatekeeping, mothering, parenting.
Over the past 3 decades, literature has increasingly indicated that the involvement of both parents contributes to children's healthy development, and many studies have found a link between positive coparenting relationships and positive child outcomes (e.g., Bascoe, Davies, Sturge-Apple, & Cummings, 2009; Belsky, 1984; Doohan, Carrere, Siler, & Beardslee, 2009). Although coparenting-the ways in which parents work together to care for and rear their children (Feinberg, 2002)-clearly influences children, research explicating coparental relationships remains in its infancy. Even as policies and interventions continue to encourage cooperative parenting, a better understanding of coparenting processes is needed.
Coparenting is a multifaceted process comprising unique relationship dynamics and subject to a variety of contexts that make each parenting dyad distinctly different (Feinberg, 2002; Minuchin, 1974). Although scholars discuss coparenting as a complex reciprocal process (Jia & Schoppe-Sullivan, 2011), many recognize that due to historical trends in family life, mothers tend to have a primary influence on the ways in which fathers interact with children and participate in child-rearing (Doherty, Kouneski, & Erickson, 1998). Thus, maternal influence is an important starting place to...