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McConnell, Melanie Christine

Psychology

2005

PhD

This study examined couple relationship quality, coparental functioning, and parenting experiences in families headed by lesbian couples. Participants included 153 lesbian mothers who were coparenting with a female partner and who were currently raising a child between 7 and 10 years of age. Participants were recruited throughout the US and Canada from lesbian-focused email lists and community-based lesbian support services. Data were gathered anonymously via online questionnaires. Results were threefold. First, data supported a multidimensional measurement model of the coparenting construct, which included coparental support, conflict, disparagement, satisfaction with the division of family labor, and the degree of discrepancy in partners' individual parenting styles. Second, the findings indicated that the multidimensional coparenting construst fully mediated the association between couple relationship quality (i.e., relationship satisfaction, conflict resolution patterns) and parenting experiences (i.e., parenting stress, parental role satisfaction, parental self-efficacy). Finally, when individual aspects of coparenting were considered as potential mediators of the relationship between couple and parental functioning, none of these models was supported by the data. Altogether, this study contributes to a growing literature regarding family dynamics that play important roles in supporting parental functioning. Moreover, the present results expand current understandings of multiple dimensions of family functioning in families headed by lesbian parenting couples. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed, along with directions for future research.