J Child Fam Stud (2014) 23:1073–1080

DOI 10.1007/s10826-013-9764-8

ORIGINAL PAPER

Mother, Father, or Parent? College Students’ Intensive

Parenting Attitudes Differ by Referent
Holly H. Schiffrin • Miriam Liss • Katherine Geary •

Haley Miles-McLean • Taryn Tashner •

Charlotte Hagerman • Kathryn Rizzo

Published online: 17 May 2013

Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Abstract Although intensive parenting is considered a Keywords Intensive mothering ideology
Parenting

dominant ideology of child-rearing, the tenets have only Father involvement
Sex differences
Family roles

recently been operationalized. The Intensive Parenting Intensive parenting attitudes scale
Attitudes Questionnaire (IPAQ) was designed to assess the
prescriptive norms of how people should parent and
includes scales assessing the ideas that parenting is ful- Introduction
filling, but challenging, and should be child-centered,
involve intellectual stimulation, and is best done by Society in many ways dictates what it means to be a mother;
women. The original IPAQ refers to parents, rather than it tells mothers what they should do, what the ‘right’ way to
mothers or fathers specifically, and was developed and parent is, and what is and is not acceptable behavior (Aren-
validated on both women who were and were not mothers. dell 2000; Choi et al. 2005; Hays 1996, 1998; Johnston and
The current investigation was designed to determine Swanson 2003; Tummala-Narra 2009). The desire to become
(a) whether women hold stronger intensive parenting an emblem of perfect motherhood and to live up to these
beliefs than men and (b) whether answers on the IPAQ ‘supermom’ standards has led to the development of a par-
would vary depending on whether the referent was a enting ideology known as intensive mothering (Hays 1996).
mother, a father, or a parent. Participants included 322 This ideology has grown out of decades of cultural pressures
male and female college students who were randomly placed upon mothers, pressures that only increased when
assigned to receive one of three versions of the IPAQ more women began to work full-time while raising young
referring either to mother, father, or parent. A main effect children (Choi et al. 2005; Johnston and Swanson 2003).
for sex indicated that female students held more intensive Hays (1996) identified three central themes of intensive
parenting beliefs than male students. A main effect for mothering: childcare is primarily the responsibility of the
version indicated that referring to fathers led to more mother, parenting should be child-centered, and children
intensive attitudes than referring to mothers on the Child- are sacred and delightful. Other conceptualizations of
Centered and Fulfillment scales, but parenting was rated as intensive mothering include the notion that one should
more Challenging than fathering. Whether the emphasis on intellectually stimulate children to ensure appropriate brain
father involvement found in the present investigation will development (Wall 2010). Intensive mothering ideology
translate into actual paternal involvement once participants has been explored through a variety of qualitative studies
have children is discussed. (e.g., Hays 1996; Guendouzi 2005; Johnston and Swanson
2006) and has been described as the dominant discourse of
mothering (Arendell 2000). Intensive parenting beliefs
were recently operationalized, through the development of
H. H. Schiffrin (&)
M. Liss
K. Geary
H. Miles-McLean
the Intensive Parenting Attitudes Questionnaire (IPAQ), to
T. Tashner
C. Hagerman
K. Rizzo
help researchers gain a better understanding of the pre-
Department of Psychology, University of Mary Washington,
1301 College Avenue, Fredericksburg, VA 22401, USA dictors and consequences of holding intensive parenting
e-mail: hschiffr@umw.edu beliefs (Liss et al. 2012).

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The IPAQ is a 25-item scale that assesses intensive anticipated (Dew and Wilcox 2011; Twenge et al. 2003).
parenting attitudes across five domains. It has demonstrated Many women may desire to continue working full-time
good reliability as well as concurrent and discriminant after having children. However, endorsing intensive par-
validity when compared to other measures of parenting enting ideologies may make it difficult to combine full-
beliefs including the Parental Investment in Children scale time work and parenting. This belief may be especially
(PIC; Bradley et al. 1997) and the Parental Sense of problematic for young women if the intensive parenting
Competence Scale (PSOC, Johnston and Mash 1989). It ideology (1) is held more strongly by women than men and
was initially developed and validated among a group of (2) is seen as primarily applicable to mothers.
mothers and was cross-validated and also found to be The goal of the current project was to expand research
reliable in a group of women who were not mothers (Liss on the IPAQ by determining (a) if there would be sex
et al. 2012). differences in the internalization of intensive parenting
Several of the components of intensive mothering as ideology and (b) if endorsement of intensive parenting
conceptualized by Hays (1996) are measured by the IPAQ. beliefs would differ depending on whether questions were
The IPAQ scales represent prescriptive norms for parent- asked about a mother, father, or parent. We were also
ing, emphasizing what parents should do or feel. The scales interested in whether male and female college students
include (1) Essentialism, which emphasizes that mothers differed with respect to their preferences for whether they
make the best parents; (2) Fulfillment, the belief that par- intended to work or stay at home after having children
enting should be delightful and completely fulfilling; (3) (Schroeder et al. 1993). These questions are important
Stimulation, or the idea that parents should continually because examining college students’ expectations can help
engage their children in intellectually stimulating activi- us better understand how the next generation may approach
ties; (4) Challenging, the belief that parenting is very dif- the task of parenting.
ficult; and (5) Child-Centered, the belief that parenting Although this is the first study to determine whether
should focus on the needs of the child more than the needs there are sex differences in intensive parenting beliefs,
of the parents. In the original validation study, the sub- prior research on the expectations of non-parents has sug-
scales of the IPAQ were written with ‘‘parent’’ as the ref- gested that young women may endorse these beliefs more
erent for all scales except for Essentialism, which strongly than men. Research has suggested that both men
specifically refers to the idea that mothers are better at and women advocate equality in theory. However, both
childcare than fathers; and Challenging, which contains predict that when they do have children, the mother will be
some items referring specifically to the idea that mothering primarily responsible for the children, and the father will
is challenging (Liss et al. 2012). continue to work full-time with little interruption in his
Mental health outcomes of holding intensive parenting career (Schroeder et al. 1993; Stone and McKee 2000;
beliefs were investigated in a sample of mothers (Rizzo Zhou 2006). Another study found that both men and
et al. 2012). It was found that certain intensive parenting women ideally wanted to divide childcare almost equally;
beliefs were detrimental to maternal mental health. Even however, while men expected that childcare would actually
after controlling for family social support, belief in be shared equally, women anticipated doing almost 70 %
Essentialism was related to lower life satisfaction and the of the childcare (Askari et al. 2010). A possible reason that
belief that parenting is Challenging was related to higher women may have anticipated greater participation in
levels of depression and stress. Furthermore, endorsing the childcare than men is that they more strongly endorse the
belief that parenting should be Child-Centered was corre- ideologies of intensive parenting. Thus, the first goal of this
lated with lower levels of life satisfaction. investigation was to examine whether there were sex dif-
Young men and women who have yet to become parents ferences in the endorsement of the IPAQ.
may harbor idealized beliefs about parenting. The act of Our second goal was to determine whether intensive
becoming a parent can change a person’s beliefs about parenting beliefs are the same thing as intensive mothering
parenting and about men and women’s relative roles. beliefs and whether these beliefs are held more strongly
Specifically, both men and women generally begin to hold than intensive fathering beliefs. Historically, studies of the
more traditional views about parenting after the birth of a effects of parental involvement on child outcomes have
child (Katz-Wise et al. 2010). However, understanding generally ignored the contribution of the father, suggesting
what young men and women expect is important because that many researchers may conceptualize a parent as a
when expectations are violated, perceptions of unfairness mother (Cassano et al. 2006; Phares and Compas 1992). In
increase and marital satisfaction decreases (Dew and Wil- addition, it has been argued that even when the term par-
cox 2011). This dissatisfaction becomes particularly enting is used in guides and manuals, it is clear that the
prominent when women find themselves being more targeted parent is the mother (Friedman 2008). In relation
responsible for childcare than they had hoped and to intensive parenting specifically, Hays (1998) criticized

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the authors of the PIC (Bradley et al. 1997) for setting very others were recruited through their dormitories and offered
high standards for child involvement and endorsing inten- candy for participating.
sive mothering beliefs. In rebuttal, Bradley (1998) noted
that the items on the PIC referred to the ‘‘parent’’ and not Materials and Procedure
specifically to the mother and, thus, did not set unrealisti-
cally high standards for mothers per se. Given the pre- The IPAQ is a 25-item measure comprised of five scales
scriptive nature of intensive parenting beliefs and the fact capturing unique, but interrelated elements of Hays’ (1996)
that its pressures are generally directed at mothers (Tum- intensive parenting ideology (i.e., Essentialism, Fulfill-
mala-Narra 2009), the term parent in this context may ment, Stimulation, Challenging, and Child-Centered). The
automatically be assumed to be mother. However, there is Essentialism scale was designed to measure the partici-
currently no research specifically investigating whether pants’ beliefs about whether or not women make innately
intensive parenting beliefs vary based on whether the ref- better parents than men (e.g., ‘‘Although fathers are
erent is a mother, a father, or a parent in general. important, ultimately children need mothers more’’). The
There were two major hypotheses for the current Fulfillment scale measures beliefs of how satisfying and
investigation. First, we hypothesized a main effect of sex of joyous parenting should be (e.g., ‘‘Being a parent brings a
participant on the scales of the IPAQ such that females person the greatest joy they can possibly experience’’).
would more strongly endorse intensive parenting attitudes Stimulation measures the participants’ beliefs about the
than males. In line with this, we also expected male par- need to intellectually stimulate and interact with children
ticipants to anticipate less interruption to their careers after (e.g., ‘‘Finding the best educational opportunities for chil-
the birth of a child than females. Second, we hypothesized dren is important as early as preschool’’). The Challenging
a main effect for referent (i.e., mother, father, or parent). scale measures how difficult the participants believed
Specifically, we hypothesized that when the referent was parenting to be (e.g., ‘‘Parenting is exhausting’’). Finally,
mother or parent, intensive parenting attitudes would be the Child-Centered scale measures beliefs about the extent
more strongly endorsed than when the referent was father. to which the child’s needs should be put before the parents’
Given the pervasive cultural assumption that mothers are needs (e.g., ‘‘Children’s needs should come before their
the primary parents (Hays 1996; Tummala-Narra 2009), we parents’’). Participants rated each item on a scale of 1
did not expect any differences when the referent was (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). Mean scores were
mother versus parent. We also did not expect a significant calculated and higher scores indicated greater endorsement
interaction between sex of participant and referent because of intensive parenting beliefs. In the original investigation
we believed both male and female participants would Cronbach’s a on the non-mother sample were .91, .83, .57,
accept the cultural norm that mothers should be the primary .72, and .83 for the Essentialism, Fulfillment, Stimulation,
parent. Finally, it should be noted that the versions of the Challenging, and Child-Centered scales, respectively (Liss
instrument only differed substantially for the Fulfillment, et al. 2012).
Challenging, and Child-Centered scales; so, we only To gain a better understanding of the life goals of our
expected the main effect of referent for these three scales. participants they were administered the Lifestyle Prefer-
ences Scale (LPS; Schroeder et al. 1993) in which partic-
ipants indicated their ideal future life path (e.g., graduation,
Method full-time work, marriage, children, stop working until at
least youngest child is in school, then pursue full-time job).
Participants Eight life paths were described and participants were asked
to select the path they hoped to follow after graduation
The study consisted of a convenience sample of 322 par- (see Table 1).
ticipants (47.4 % male, 52.6 % female) between the ages After giving informed consent, participants completed
of 18 and 24 (M = 19.29, SD = 1.86). Approximately demographic information, the LPS (Schroeder et al. 1993),
73.8 % of the participants identified themselves as Cau- and were randomly assigned to receive one of three ver-
casian, 10.3 % Hispanic, 7.8 % African-American, 7.2 % sions of the IPAQ. In all three versions, the wording of the
Asian-American, 0.6 % American Indian, and 0.3 % Essentialism scale remained the same because the scale
described themselves as ‘‘other.’’ All participants were captures the belief that the mother should be the primary
undergraduate students from a small, public, liberal arts parent. In Version A, all questions were worded so that
university in the mid-Atlantic region and were treated in mother was the referent for all items. In Versions B and C,
accordance to the ethical guidelines of the American Psy- questions (other than those in the Essentialism scale) were
chological Association (2001). Some participants received worded to refer to father and parent, respectively. It should
partial credit in General Psychology for their participation; be noted that several items on the Challenging scale were

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Table 1 Ideal life plans by sex

Schroeder life plans Males Females
for male and female college
(n = 148) (%) (n = 169) (%)
students
1. Graduation, full-time work, no marriage 4.1 3.6
2. Graduation, full-time work, marriage, no children 3.4 8.3
3. Graduation, full-time work, marriage, children, and continued 73.0 40.2
work with only minor interruption for childbirth
4. Graduation, full-time work, marriage, children, stopped working 6.1 14.8
but returned to full-time job before the youngest was in school
5. Graduation, full-time work, marriage, children, stopped working 2.0 5.3
but returned to part-time job before the youngest was in school
6. Graduation, full-time work, marriage, children, stopped working 4.7 10.7
at least until the youngest was in school, then pursued full-time work
7. Graduation, full-time work, marriage, children, stopped working 3.4 11.2
at least until the youngest was in school, then pursued part-time work
8. Graduation, full-time work, marriage, children, stopped working 3.4 5.9

originally written to reflect the idea that mothering, rather sex of the participant and referent (i.e., mother, father, or
than parenting, was challenging. Nevertheless, all referents parent) on the five subscales of the IPAQ. The interaction
in the Challenging scale were varied across versions (e.g., of sex and referent was not significant, F(10, 622) = 0.39,
mother, father, and parent). Furthermore, there was only p = .95, partial g2 = .01; observed power was 20.6 %.
one item in the Stimulation scale in which the referent was The main effect of sex was significant, F(5, 310) = 5.60,
mentioned (‘‘Mothers/Fathers/Parents should begin pro- p \ .001, partial g2 = .08; observed power was 99.2 %.
viding intellectual stimulation for their children prenatally, Univariate F tests indicated that the main effect of sex was
such as reading to them or playing classical music’’). The significant for the Fulfillment (d = .29), Stimulation
internal consistency for each scale in the current study for (d = .43), and Challenging (d = .42) scales but not for the
the mother, father, and parent version, respectively, were: Essentialism and Child-Centered scales. Women scored
Essentialism (Cronbach’s a = .77, .78, .85), Fulfillment significantly higher than men on all three scales. The
(Cronbach’s a = .77, .69, .79), Stimulation (Cronbach’s marginal means, standard deviations, and values for uni-
a = .67, .58, .60), Challenging (Cronbach’s a = .64, .47, variate F tests are presented in Table 2.
.60), and Child-Centered (Cronbach’s a = .61, .67, .73). The main effect of referent was significant, F(10,
622) = 4.79, p \ .001, partial g2 = .07; observed power
was approximately 100 %. Univariate F tests indicated that
Results referent differed significantly for the Fulfillment, Chal-
lenging, and Child-centered subscales but not for Essen-
We conducted a Chi square test-of-independence to tialism or Stimulation. Tukey post hoc tests were
examine whether lifestyle preferences differed by gender. conducted to follow-up the main effect of referent. Par-
Men and women differed significantly on the LPS, v2(7, ticipants rated fathers as being significantly more fulfilled
N = 317) = 37.33, p \ .001, Cramer’s U = .34 repre- by their children (d = .56) as well as more child-centered
senting a moderate effect. As expected, more women (d = .52) than they rated mothers. In addition, participants
anticipated interruption to their work schedule after having rated parents in general as having more challenges asso-
children than men. Among people who planned to have ciated with parenting than fathers (d = .40). No other
children (those desiring life paths 3–8), substantially more differences were significant.
men (78.83 %) than women (45.64 %) indicated that
children will only cause a minor interruption to their full-
time work. See Table 1 for percentages of each life path by Discussion
sex of participant. There were no differences in anticipated
life plans by referent group indicating that participants with The purpose of this study was to determine if there were sex
varied work and family plans were equally distributed differences in intensive parenting attitudes as well as whe-
among the groups through random assignment as intended, ther endorsement of intensive parenting attitudes varied
v2(14, N = 317) = 19.58, p = .14. based on whether the referent was a mother, a father, or a
A 2 9 3 between subjects multivariate analysis of var- parent in general. Our first hypothesis was supported.
iance (MANOVA) was conducted to evaluate the effects of Women more strongly endorsed intensive parenting

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Table 2 Marginal means, standard deviations (in parentheses), and F values of college men and women’s scores on the five IPAQ subscales by
version of the IPAQ (N = 322)
Subscales of the Intensive Parenting Attitudes Questionnaire
Essentialism Fulfillment Stimulation Challenging Child-centered

Sex
Men 2.28 (0.74) 4.08 (0.98) 4.73 (0.74) 3.81 (0.72) 3.77 (0.95)
Women 2.32 (0.81) 4.35 (0.89) 5.03 (0.66) 4.10 (0.66) 3.77 (0.91)
F(1, 314) 0.26 7.67** 14.97*** 14.01*** 0.01
Version
Mother 2.27 (0.77) 3.97 (0.97)a 4.83 (0.79) 4.00 (0.74)ab 3.53 (0.93)a
b a
Father 2.36 (0.77) 4.48 (0.85) 4.96 (0.68) 3.82 (0.67) 4.01 (0.92)b
ab b
Parent 2.28 (0.79) 4.21 (0.93) 4.88 (0.67) 4.09 (0.67) 3.76 (0.89)ab
F(2, 314) 0.50 8.48*** 0.97 4.06* 7.12**
* p \ .05; ** p \ .01; *** p \ .001; means with different superscripts differ significantly at p \ .05. IPAQ scores are mean scores with a
potential range from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree)

attitudes than men on several dimensions. Women in our should be noted that although the father version was more
sample indicated that parenting should be more fulfilling, strongly endorsed than the mother version on several
more challenging, and rated the importance of providing scales, which was unexpected, there were no significant
consistent intellectual stimulation for children higher than differences between the mother version and the parent
male participants. These findings suggest that women have version on any scale, which was consistent with our
internalized intensive parenting attitudes, which is consistent expectations. Although, the null hypothesis cannot be
with the literature on intensive mothering (Arendell 2000; proven, the high power (*100 %) observed in this study
Hays 1996; Johnston and Swanson 2006). However, previ- should have allowed detection of differences if they
ous studies had not incorporated male views of intensive existed.
parenting. In contrast to our hypothesis, women did not score There are several possible explanations for the fact that
higher than men on the Essentialism scale, which was the the father version of several scales resulted in stronger levels
scale least strongly endorsed by all participants. of endorsement than the mother version. First, given the
We also hypothesized that participants completing the societal pressures already placed on women to parent
version of the IPAQ that referred to either mother or parent intensively (Tummala-Narra 2009), undergraduates may
would endorse Fulfillment, Challenging, and Child-Cen- have been hesitant to endorse attitudes that women should be
tered beliefs significantly more than when the referent was more fulfilled by their children than anything else in their
father. We also hypothesized that the mother version would lives or put their children’s needs ahead of their own to a
not differ significantly from the parent version. Both greater extent than they already do. While it is possible that
hypotheses were partially supported for the Challenging these participants actually view fathers as more intensive
scale. Participants indicated that being a parent was sig- parents than mothers, it should be noted that the IPAQ
nificantly more challenging than being a father; however, measures prescriptive norms, or what participants think
being a mother did not differ significantly from either mothers (or fathers or parents) should be doing, rather than
parent or father on this dimension. what they already are doing. Thus, the higher rating for
Our hypothesis that college students would think that fathers on these two aspects of intensive parenting might be
mothers should be more child-centered and fulfilled by prescriptive; i.e., they ‘‘should’’ find being a parent more
their children than fathers was incorrect. Participants who fulfilling than they do and that they ‘‘should’’ be more child-
completed the father version of the IPAQ said fathers centered in their parenting practices than fathers currently
should be more fulfilled by their children and more child- are. It should also be noted that we did not find an interaction
centered than did participants who completed the mother between the sex of the participant and whether the IPAQ
version. For both the Fulfillment and Child-Centered referred to a mother, father, or parent. Thus, both men and
scales, being a parent was rated in between the mother and women equally held the prescriptive norms that fathers
father versions, but was not significantly different from should be more child-centered and fulfilled by their children
either. As anticipated, no differences were hypothesized or than they thought mothers should be.
found for the Essentialism and Stimulation scales due to An alternate explanation for the findings that were con-
the identical/similar wording of items across versions. It trary to our hypothesis is that there may be a tendency to

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idealize fathers’ participation in parenting activities; challenging than men do. It is concerning to note that our
whereas mothers are rarely praised for being greatly data suggest that young, childless women anticipate they
involved in their children’s lives (Wall and Arnold 2007). will find parenting more challenging than young men,
Highly involved fathers exceed the norm for their sex and especially given the negative mental health outcomes
are often praised for parental involvement in media repre- among mothers who hold this belief (Rizzo et al. 2012).
sentations of parenting (Arendell 2000; Wall and Arnold Both the young men and women in our sample have
2007). However, mothers are not praised because there is a high hopes and ideals for the level of paternal involvement.
baseline expectation for maternal involvement in childcare. However, given women’s higher endorsement of intensive
Thus, the fact that participants responded that being a parenting beliefs and their greater intention of interrupting
father should be more fulfilling and child-centered than their work for their children, their hopes for intensive
being a mother may reflect this idealization of the paternal paternal involvement may not be met. When mothers find
role. their husbands are less engaged with their children than
Given that data consistently confirm that mothers do the they had hoped, they experience decreases in marital and
majority of childcare, this ideal of high paternal involve- life satisfaction (Cowan and Cowan 1988; Hochschild and
ment may not transfer into greater paternal involvement in Machung 1989; Twenge et al. 2003). Understanding the
reality (Coltrane 2000; Fetterolf and Eagly 2011; Wall and mechanisms by which this potential violation of expecta-
Arnold 2007). There is some evidence that greater paternal tions occurs is important to better prepare young men and
involvement may not be realized for our participants either. women for the transition to parenthood.
First, they rated parenting as more challenging than father- Future research should also expand on this study to
ing, suggesting they perceived that fathers do not bear the address its limitations. Our participants were a convenience
full brunt of the difficult aspects of childcare. Second, sample with homogeneous demographic characteristics,
women in our study gave higher ratings than men on many which limits the generalizability of the results. Therefore, it
aspects of intensive parenting indicating that they have would be interesting to examine what the sex differences in
internalized and endorse this ideology more fully. Finally, intensive parenting attitudes are in participants with dif-
participants’ lifestyle preferences seem to contradict the ferent levels of education, racial/ethnic backgrounds, and
endorsement of higher intensive parenting attitudes for socioeconomic levels. Second, future research should
fathers. Although both our male and female participants examine the sex differences in intensive parenting attitudes
indicate fathers should be more child-centered than mothers, among parents rather than among college students. In
only 19.6 % of the males in the sample reported that they addition, it would be especially beneficial to examine
anticipated more than a minor interruption of full-time work intensive parenting attitudes more in depth among fathers,
after the birth of a child compared to 47.9 % of females. who have not been studied directly in the literature to date.
Prior research has found that college-aged women report For example, mothers and fathers may view constructs
a discrepancy between the amount of childcare they would such as intellectually stimulating children and being child-
ideally like to do and the amount of childcare they think they centered differently. Prior research indicates that men
will actually have to do later in life (Askari et al. 2010). The equate good parenting with a father’s ability to provide
current study suggests a possible mechanism to explain this financially for his family (Chesley 2011; Shows and Ger-
anticipated discrepancy. Given that the person with higher stel 2009), whereas women consider good parenting as
standards typically does more of the household chores spending quality time with their children (Dillaway and
(Alberts et al. 2011), it is probable that mothers end up doing Paré 2008; Hays 1996; Johnston and Swanson 2006).
more of the childcare due to their greater endorsement and As a final limitation, it should be noted that the reli-
internalization of intensive parenting attitudes. If mothers, ability of some scales on the ‘‘Father’’ version of the IPAQ
more than fathers, believe that children need constant were relatively low (e.g., Challenging). The participants in
stimulation and engagement, then women are more likely to this sample may have found the concept that being a father
take on the responsibilities for providing those activities was difficult and exhausting (e.g., fathers never get a
themselves. Subsequently, mothers may, often uninten- mental break from their children, even when physically
tionally, limit father involvement in childcare to ensure it apart) somewhat incoherent. This finding supports the use
meets the high standards envisioned by the mother, a prac- of items referring specifically to motherhood as being
tice known as ‘‘gatekeeping’’ (Allen and Hawkins 1999; challenging in the original version of the IPAQ. Overall,
Fagan and Barnett 2003; Gaunt 2008). the reliabilities of the IPAQ in this college sample were
This cycle of high parental standards (i.e., intensive lower than those obtained from non-mothers using the
parenting attitudes) and gatekeeping behaviors, which original version of the IPAQ (Liss et al. 2012). The
results in mothers doing the majority of the childcare, may Challenging and Stimulation scales did not reach accept-
account for why women also rate parenting as being more able levels of reliability, even when the original ‘‘parent’’

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