Boys’ Caregiving Needs vs. Cultural Practices in Parenting

SMSU Event Center BC

Research studies indicate boys’ brains develop much more slowly than girls, especially their RH (Shore, 2017). This makes them more vulnerable than girls to early adverse environmental experiences (Shore, 2017). Rather they need a caring, sensitively-attuned, safe environment to support their early neurological and overall development. Cultural and ethnic differences in beliefs about parenting males may, however, put some boys at greater risk of not being provided with the supportive care they need. The purpose of this study is to examine ethnic differences in parenting/ beliefs, including how parental machismo may impact parenting beliefs and practices. It is expected that higher levels of parental machismo will be negatively related to parental attachment security, including parental warmth and positive emotion socialization. In addition, it is hypothesized that Hispanic males will score higher than Caucasian males on parental machismo and lower on parental attachment security, including parental warmth and positive emotional socialization. Participants will be 100 male participants (50 Hispanic, 50 Caucasian) between the ages of 18 and 30 years. Participants will complete the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI) (Parker, 1979), (a measure of parents warmth), the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (Armsden & Greenberg, 1987), (which assess attachment to parents), the Expressive Encouragement (EE) scale (Fabes, Eisenberg, & Bernzweig, 1990) (a measure of parent recognition and positive response to their child’s negative emotions), and a machismo scale (Ariniega, et al., 2008), (which assess parents’ sex-role attitudes). The findings of this study will shed more light on potential ethnic variations in parenting boys, which may have implications for supporting (or not) boys’ developmental needs.