Mummy’s Boys, Daddy’s Girls and Teenage Mental Health

Using data from the Millennium Cohort Study, we have previously shown that family breakdown is a major influence on whether or not teenagers subsequently exhibit high levels of any mental health problem. We have also shown that family breakdown does its damage by reducing both family income and closeness to either parent. In this new analysis, we look at the interplay between parent-parent and parent-child relationship, taking into account relational factors from child’s birth to age 14. Although there is clear overlap between factors affecting boys and girls, we also find distinct gender differences. For boys, the major protective factors are having parents who were married when their son was born, whose mother was ‘very happy’ with her relationship with the father when the son was aged 11, or who had a close relationship with his mother at age 14. While having a mother with a degree is also a protective factor, most of this benefit is transmitted through closeness between mother and son. The use of physical force between parents is a risk factor for the 3 per cent ever experiencing it. However low relationship quality has no direct effect. For girls, the major protective factors are having parents whose relationship quality was anything better than ‘low’ when their daughter was born, or who had a close relationship with her father at age 14. Risk factors mostly affect small minorities, the 3 per cent where there has ever been physical force between parents, the 10 per cent whose family income is in the bottom two quintiles, and the 4 per cent whose interparental happiness is rated lowest. Once again, a mother’s degree is a protective factor but in this case it transmits through a combination of closeness with the father and family income at age 14. Overall, teenagers are much more likely to be close to their mother than their father, with girls being ‘very’ or ‘extremely close’ to 81% of mothers yet only 59% of fathers, and boys being close to 86% of mothers yet only 69% of fathers. Boys thus also tend to get on slightly better with both parents. Although not being close to mum appears on the surface to have a bigger impact on teen mental health than not being close to dad, when we take other factors into account it’s the relationship with the opposite sex parent that matters most. These complex findings suggest the way parents relate to each other and to their opposite sex children has a fundamental influence on the way teenage boys and girls might be thinking about their own future relationships and commitment.