The parenting alliance is defined as the "capacity of a spouse to acknowledge, respect, and value the parenting roles and tasks of the partner" (Weissman & Cohen, 1985, p. 26). A disrupted parenting alliance has been associated with child maladjustment, social incompetence, and behavior problems (Abidin & Brunner, 1995; Bearss & Eyberg, 1998). On the other hand, researchers assert that a strong parenting alliance can help parents and children combat the deleterious effects of family stress and even divorce (e.g., Abidin & Brunner, 1995). Despite the obvious importance of this construct, the foundations of this alliance are not yet well understood.

Though the parenting alliance has been described as a separate construct from the marital relationship itself, there is evidence that various characteristics of the marriage, such as marital satisfaction, are related to the strength of the parenting alliance (Abidin & Brunner, 1995; Floyd, Gilliom, and Costigan, 1998). The purpose of this exploratory study is to investigate additional aspects of the marital relationship that may predict the strength of the parenting alliance. Specifically, marital power, defined as "the relative ability of either spouse to influence the other" (Balswick & Balswick, 1995, p. 297), may be another component of the marital relationship that is associated with the parenting alliance, because perceptions of power imbalance may be destructive to parents' view of themselves as a "team."

If marital power is indeed related to the parenting alliance, it is possible that other variables, such as marital satisfaction, marital conflict, and parental depression, mediate this relationship. Previous research has shown that certain patterns of marital power are associated with low marital satisfaction (Gray-Little & Burks, 1983), which may affect investment in parenting, especially for fathers (Floyd et al., 1998). In addition, differential marital power may be related to increased conflict, which may weaken the parenting alliance (Fauber, Forehand, Thomas, & Wierson, 1990; McHale, 1995). Moreover, low marital power has been associated with depression (Mirowsky, 1985), particularly in women, and depression has been related to poorer parenting behaviors (Cummings & Davies, 1992; Kaslow, Warner, John, & Brown, 1992).

Therefore, it was hypothesized that:

1. Lower levels of perceived marital power (high power-other) will be associated with a poorer parenting alliance for both husbands and wives;
2. The relationship between marital power and parenting alliance will be mediated by the following variables: marital conflict, marital satisfaction, and/or parental depression;
3. The relationship between marital power and parenting alliance will be moderated by gender, in that marital satisfaction may only be a significant mediator for fathers, whereas parental depression may only be a significant mediator for mothers.

Participants are 60 married parents living in Knoxville, TN. Couples were recruited randomly from a mailing list purchased by the experimenters and were compensated according to their level of participation. As part of a larger, longitudinal study of marital and family interactions, each spouse completed the following self-report measures: the Relationship Dimensions Profile, Power-Partner subscale (RDP; Daiuto & Baucom, 1994); the Dyadic Adjustment Scale, Satisfaction and Consensus subscales (DAS; Spanier, 1976); the Center for Epidemiological Studies – Depression Scale (CESD; Radloff, 1977); and the Parenting Alliance Inventory (PAI; Abidin & Brunner, 1995).

Means and standard deviations are presented in Table 1. Correlational analyses revealed a strong, negative relationship between marital power and parenting alliance for fathers (r = -.534, p < .001). As expected, fathers who reported that their spouses have more marital power tended to report a weaker parenting alliance. Contrary to our hypothesis, however, no significant relationship was found between levels of marital power and parenting alliance for mothers. Correlations among all of the variables are presented in Table 2.

Because the association between marital power and parenting alliance was significant for fathers but not for mothers, mediation could only be tested for fathers. According to the procedures outlined by Baron and Kenney (1986), multiple regression analyses were used to test the mediational models. As shown in Table 3, the results partially supported the hypotheses. For fathers, only marital conflict fulfilled the requirements for full mediation. The requirements for full mediation are met when the significance of the predictor variable (power-other) drops to nonsignificance with the addition of the mediational variable (conflict) to the regression equation. In summary, the mediational analyses for fathers revealed that marital conflict alone can fully account for the link between marital power and parenting alliance for fathers.

Because marital power was significantly related to parenting alliance for fathers but not for mothers, the gender differences predicted in Hypothesis 3 could not be tested.

To view the tables, click HERE.

This study revealed interesting gender differences in the link between marital power, or the level of power that one perceives his/her spouse to have in the marriage, and the parenting alliance, or the sense of respect and teamwork spouses have for each other as parents. Perceived levels of marital power were associated with the strength of the parenting alliance for fathers, but not for mothers. Moreover, the nature of the link between fathers' perceptions of marital power and parenting alliance appears to be rather complex. The mediational analyses revealed that levels of conflict within the marriage can fully account for the relationship between marital power and parenting alliance for fathers. However, it appears that other variables such as marital satisfaction and depression may also be predictive of the parenting alliance for both mothers and fathers, even though they may not play a mediating role.

The findings of this study may be consistent with the tendency for couples to operate within an egalitarian or traditional marital power structure, versus a wife-favored power structure (Gray-Little & Burks 1983). It may be the case that wives are used to parenting within households where their husbands have as much or more power than they do, and so their parenting is less affected by power differentials.

The results of this study have significant implications for clinical practice. For example, it is important for marriage and family therapists to keep in mind the wide range of marital characteristics that affect spouses' parenting alliance, as well as how this alliance is related to overall family functioning. The implications of this research are important when working with both intact and divorced families. Furthermore, given that the parenting alliance has implications for child behavior and adjustment (Abidin & Brunner, 1995; Bearss & Eyberg, 1998), it is imperative that researchers continue to further delineate the complex relationships between the marital relationship and the parenting partnership.

Abidin, R. R., & Brunner, J. F. (1995). Development of a parenting alliance inventory. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 24, 31-40.

Balswick, J. O., & Balswick, J. K. (1995). Gender relations and marital power. In B. B. Ingoldsby & S. Smith (Eds.), Families in multicultural perspective: Perspectives on marriage and the family (pp. 297-315). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Baron, R. M. & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51(6), 1173-1182.

Bearss, K. E., & Eyberg, S. (1998). A test of the parenting alliance theory. Early Education and Development, 9, 179-185.

Cummings, E. M., & Davies, P. T. (1992). Parental depression, family functioning, and child adjustment: Risk factors, processes, and pathways. In D. Cicchetti & S. L. Toth (Eds.), Developmental perspectives on depression. Rochester symposium on developmental psychopathology: Vol. 4 (pp. 283-322). Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.

Daiuto, A., & Baucom, D. H. (1994). [The Relationship Dimensions Profile]. Unpublished measure, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Fauber, R., Forehand, R., Thomas, A. M., & Wierson, M. (1990). A mediational model of the impact of marital conflict on adolescent adjustment in intact and divorced families: The role of disrupted parenting. Child Development, 61, 1112-1123.

Floyd, F. J., Gilliom, L. A., & Costigan, C. L. (1998). Marriage and the parenting alliance: Longitudinal prediction of change in parenting perceptions and behaviors. Child Development, 69, 1461-1479.

Gray-Little, B., & Burks, N. (1983). Power and satisfaction in marriage: A review and critique. Psychological Bulletin, 93, 513-538.

Kaslow, N., Warner, V., John, K., & Brown, R. (1992). Intrainformant agreement and family functioning in depressed and nondepressed parents and their children. American Journal of Family Therapy, 20, 204-217.

McHale, J. P. (1995). Coparenting and triadic interactions during infancy: The roles of marital distress and child gender. Developmental Psychology, 31, 985-996.

Mirowsky, J. (1985). Depression and marital power: An equity model. American Journal of Sociology, 91, 557-592.

Radloff, L. S. (1977). The CES-D Scale: A self-report depression scale for research in the general population. Applied Psychological Measurement, 1, 385-401.

Spanier, G. B. (1976). Measuring dyadic adjustment: New scales for assessing the quality of marriage and similar dyads. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 38, 15-28.

Weissman, S., & Cohen, R. S. (1985). The parenting alliance and adolescence. Adolescent Psychiatry, 12, 24-45.

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