Abstract

The present study aimed to explore the mediating effect of maternal gate-closing behavior in the relationship among neuroticism, intensive parenting attitudes and parenting stress and its difference between full-time mothers and working mothers. A sample of 169 full-time mothers and 134 working mothers who had at least one preschool children were asked to complete the self-report survey measured neuroticism, intensive parenting attitudes, maternal gate-closing and parenting stress. Mplus was used to analyze the structural equation model, and the result revealed that higher neuroticism and more intensive parenting attitudes were related to more maternal gate-closing and increased parenting stress. Also, more maternal gate-closing was associated with increased parenting stress. The result of comparisons of full-time mothers and working mothers showed no significant difference between two groups in regard to the relationship among the variables. Additionally, although full-time mothers adopted more intensive parenting attitudes, they did not show more gate-closing behaviors and more parenting stress. The mediation effect of maternal gate-closing was observed in the relationship between neuroticism and parenting stress. Based on these findings, the present research implied that parenting stress could be reduced through collaborative co-parenting by alleviating negative emotion and helping to think flexibly on their rigid parental role.