The Effects of the mother training program

Abstract

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of a mother training program and to determe whether the program helped the mothers gain a more `modern` perspective on relationships. Thus, the attitudes of the mothers who participated in the mother training program toward their family life, toward their own effectiveness as mothers, and toward their sex roles were measured and then compared to the attitudes of mothers of low and middle SES who had not participated in the program. The sample consisted of 170 mothers including 60 mothers of low SES who were in the training program 50 mothers of low SES who were not trained, and 60 mothers of middle SES who were not trained. The three groups were compared on the 3 subscales of the Ideal and the 3 subscales of the Actual Mother Behavior Scales, on the 4 subscales of the Sex Role Scale, and on the 3 subscales of the Women's Intrafamily Status Scale which included Subscale I, measuring the women's decision making power; Subscale II, measuring the level of communication between the spouses; and Subscale III, measuring the women's marital satisfaction. The results indicated that the mothers who participated in the training program modified their traditional sex role attitudes toward more modern ones as predicted by Hypothesis 1. The findings also showed that the women's egalitarianism scores tended to increase as their level of decision-making power and communication with their spouses increased. As predicted by Hypothesis 2, the mother training program caused a decrease in the gap between the ratings of the mothers' reported actual behaviors and their ideas about ideal mother behaviors. Regarding Hypothesis 4, the mothers who were trained stressed the social development of their children more than their physical and intellectual development. However, both mothers of middle SES and low SES who were not trained stressed the physical development of their children more than their social and intellectual development. So Hypothesis 4 was not supported. Contrary to the expectations of Hypothesis 5, no significant differences were found between having modern attitudes and marital satisfaction. The amount of time the women had lived in the city and the women's employment were not found to affect women's sex role attitudes. Finally, the overall results showed that the mother training program affected the sex role attitudes and their parenting attitudes as well as influencing their marital life as was expected. vu