Mothers and fathers' beliefs about parental investment
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0103-863X2012000300007Keywords:
childrearing practices, parent child relations, motherhood, fatherhoodAbstract
Parental investment increases the chance of babies' survival and ensures parents' fitness. While adaptive, it does not occur automatically and takes various forms, according to the context. Parental beliefs are part of those contexts and this study aims to investigate how parents consider parental investment and their investment practices in their children. Fifty men and 50 women with children up to six years of age answered two open questions about their conception of investment and their practices. The answers were classified as financial investment, emotional, basic care, intellectual, social-spiritual and family-individual. Men and women indicated that they most value and practice emotional investment. In general, mothers reported more investment than fathers, especially with regard to basic care. There were some inconsistencies between reported beliefs and practices. These results may contribute to the study of beliefs and parental investment, especially in relation to fathers who are not always included in these studies.Downloads
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
The Editorial Board authorizes free access to and distribution of published contentes, provided that the source is cited, that is, granding credit to the authors and Paidéia and preserving the full text. The author is allowed to place the final version (postprint / editor’s PDF) in an institutional/thematic repositor or personal page (site, blog), immediately after publication, provided that it is available for open access and comes without any embargo period. Full reference should be made to the first publication in Paidéia. Access to the paper should at least be aligned with the access the journal offers.
As a legal entity, the University of São Paulo at Ribeirão Preto School of Philosophy, Sciences and Languages owns and holds the copyright deriving from the publication. To use the papers, Paidéia adopts the Creative Commons Licence, CC BY-NC non-commercial attribution. This licence permits access, download, print, share, reuse and distribution of papers, provided that this is for non-commercial use and that the source is cited, giving due authorship credit to Paidéia. In these cases, neither authors nor editors need any permission.
When deriving from research involving human beings, manuscripts need IRB approval, in compliance with the guidelines and standards of the Brazilian National Health Council Resolution 196/96 – Ministry of Health. Authors should attach the digital copy of the IRB declaration of approval, according to instructions displayed further ahead.