Maternal Child Sexual Abuse Is Associated With Lower Maternal Warmth Toward Daughters but Not Sons

Mothers with a history of child sexual abuse report less warmth toward their children, but whether this association differs by child gender is unknown. We examined the association of maternal child sexual abuse and warmth across child gender, accounting for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of child sexual abuse Vol. 25; no. 8; pp. 813 - 826
Main Authors Cross, Dorthie, Kim, Ye Ji, Vance, L. Alexander, Robinson, Gabriella, Jovanovic, Tanja, Bradley, Bekh
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Routledge 16.11.2016
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

Loading…
More Information
Summary:Mothers with a history of child sexual abuse report less warmth toward their children, but whether this association differs by child gender is unknown. We examined the association of maternal child sexual abuse and warmth across child gender, accounting for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and child physical abuse. We verbally administered self-report measures to a cross-sectional sample of 154 mothers with a child between 8 and 12 years old. Eighty-five mothers based warmth responses on a son, and 69 on a daughter. We conducted a hierarchical multiple regression, including child gender, maternal child sexual abuse, child physical abuse, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and 4 two-way interaction terms with child gender. Maternal depression predicted decreased warmth, regardless of child gender, and maternal child sexual abuse predicted decreased warmth, but only toward daughters. Given previous research suggesting that maternal warmth predicts child well-being, the current finding may represent an important avenue of intergenerational transmission of risk in girls.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:1053-8712
1547-0679
DOI:10.1080/10538712.2016.1234532