Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Psychology, University of Szczecin, Szczecin, Poland.
Humanitas University, Sosnowiec, Poland.
Sci Rep. 2024 Aug 31;14(1):20258. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-71043-9.
Postponed parenthood is considered one of the most extensive changes in the process of family formation. Among the many reasons for deferred parenthood, those related to greater feelings of incompetence as a potential parent, self-focus, perceiving parenthood as a burden, fearing the changes that the birth of a child may bring to a person's life, financial insecurity, and worrying about the child's future seem particularly important. Since little is known about the motives for delayed parenthood in relation to anxiety and psychological maturity, the main goal of our study was to verify how these variables may be related to each other and whether maturity for parenthood mediates the direct association between anxiety and the motives for delayed parenthood. The sample consisted of 223 Polish adults (the age range of the participants was 18-44 years). The respondents completed the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), the Maturity to Parenthood Scale (MPS), and the Multidimensional Scale of Motives for Postponing Parenthood (MSMPP-18). The results showed positive correlations between anxiety and four (uncertainty, burden, change, and finance) of the six motives for postponing parenthood and postponed parenthood overall. Maturity for parenting and all its dimensions correlated negatively with anxiety and all factors of postponed parenthood, except worry about the child's future. In all six of the seven models (except "worry"), at least one of the factors of maturity to parenthood mediated the relationship between trait anxiety and motives for postponing parenthood/total score. Based on the results it can be assumed that a tendency to direct attention to a threat related to the context of child-bearing and child-rearing may lead to lower maturity to parenthood, which in turn may result in various motives for postponing parenthood.
推迟生育被认为是家庭形成过程中最广泛的变化之一。在推迟生育的众多原因中，那些与作为潜在父母的能力不足感、自我关注、将为人父母视为负担、担心孩子的出生会给个人生活带来变化、经济不稳定以及对孩子未来的担忧等相关的原因显得尤为重要。由于人们对与焦虑和心理成熟度相关的推迟生育动机知之甚少，因此我们研究的主要目的是验证这些变量之间可能如何相互关联，以及为人父母的成熟度是否在焦虑与推迟生育动机之间的直接关联中起中介作用。样本由 223 名波兰成年人组成（参与者的年龄范围为 18-44 岁）。受访者完成了状态-特质焦虑量表（STAI）、为人父母成熟度量表（MPS）和推迟生育动机多维量表（MSMPP-18）。结果表明，焦虑与推迟生育的六个动机中的四个（不确定性、负担、变化和财务）以及推迟生育的总体情况呈正相关。为人父母的成熟度及其所有维度与焦虑和推迟生育的所有因素（除了对孩子未来的担忧）呈负相关。在所有七个模型中的六个（除了“担忧”）中，为人父母的成熟度的至少一个因素在特质焦虑和推迟生育动机/总分之间起中介作用。基于这些结果可以假设，将注意力直接指向与生育和育儿背景相关的威胁的倾向可能导致为人父母的成熟度降低，这反过来又可能导致各种推迟生育的动机。
