Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1986

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Human Ecology

Major Professor

Priscilla White

Committee Members

Schuyler Huck, Jan Allen, Gary Peterson

Abstract

The major purpose of this study was to identify the sources of satisfactions and dissatisfactions with parenting. An interview was conducted with 9 mothers and 6 fathers whose preschool-age children attended a small southeastern university lab school program. Each parent was asked to think about the following two questions before the interview was conducted; (1) think about a time when you were most satisfied with being a parent; and (2) think about a time when you were most dissatisfied with being a parent. Each interview was tape-recorded and transcribed by the author.

An existential phenomenological methodology was used to interpret the data that emerged from the interviews. The data reduction process consisted of three steps: (1) identification of satisfaction and dissatisfaction protocols; (2) clustering of protocols into sources surrounding the satisfactions and dissatisfactions with parenting; and (3) identification of parenting schemas.

Twenty-five significant protocol statements describing the times in which the subjects were most satisfied and 21 significant protocol statements describing the times in which the subjects were most dissatisfied with being a parent were extracted. These statements were then clustered into 9 sources surrounding these satisfying and dissatisfying times.

The final step of the project was to identify the parenting schemas. These schemas were the author's subjective evaluation of the subjects' perception of the parenting experience. These schemas were: (1) parenting is having someone to love and someone to love me; (2) parenting is an important part of my life; (3) parenting is my life; (4) parenting is the most fulfilling thing I do; (5) parent ing is a job; (6) parenting is not what I expected; (7) parenting fits into my life; (8) parenting is a process; and (9) parenting is affected by divorce.

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