Association Between Mothers’ Perceived Childhood Experiences And Their Wishes For Children’s Future

Shea Garramone

Faculty: Kazuko Behrens

This study examined the association between mothers’ perceived childhood experiences and their wishes for their children’s future. Forty-one mothers were given the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) which mainly asks about their childhood experiences with their parents but also includes a question about their top three wishes for their children 20 years into the future.

Five different types of wishes were identified: Well-being, relationship, personal fulfillment, achievement, and personality/character. The findings show that nearly half of the mothers described their children’s “well-being” as their first wish. For the second wish, five categories were almost evenly distributed.

More than a third of mothers described “relationship”, followed by “personality/character” as their third wish.

“Personality/character” wishes were significantly related to the mothers’ loving experiences with their parents.