Fear of Recession Causes Harsher Parenting (Study Released 8/5/13)

When a recession hits, people start feeling nervous about the future. For many parents, it seems that this nervousness can strongly affect how they parent their kids.

Published in the August 5 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a recent study found that many mothers began using harsher methods of discipline with their kids when the economy began its slide into a recession in 2007. These mothers described yelling, threatening, spanking, or slapping their child more often once the recession started.

A few interesting points about this study:

• This held true only for mothers in the study who had a specific gene variant of DRD2, a gene that helps produce the neurochemical dopamine. Mothers without this variant did not parent more harshly at the start of the recession.
• These same mothers did not have the same levels of harshness just a little while later, even while the recession was in full swing. Some experts think that this may be because the uncertainty at the beginning of the recession was even more powerful than the reality that hit later on.
• Once the economy stabilized and started to improve, parents with this gene variant of DRD2 actually parented less harshly than those without this gene variant. In other words, these mothers react to their environment -- whether good or bad -- and parent accordingly.

Source: US News. "Economic Recession Tied to 'Harsh' Parenting From Mothers." Aug 5 2013.