Childhood sexual abuse history and role reversal in parenting

Objective: This study explored the main and interactive effects of sexual a buse history and relationship satisfaction on self-reported parenting, cont rolling for histories of physical abuse and parental alcoholism. Method: The community sample consisted of 90 mothers of 5- to 8-year-old ch ildren. The sample was limited to those mothers currently in an intimate re lationship, 19 of whom reported a history of childhood sexual abuse. Partic ipants completed the Child Behavior Checklist, the Parenting Stress Invento ry, the Family Cohesion Index, and questions assessing parent-child role re versal, history of abuse and parental alcoholism, and current relationship satisfaction. Results: Results of analyses and multivariate analyses of covariance sugges ted that sexual abuse survivors with an unsatisfactory intimate relationshi p were more likely than either sexual abuse survivors with a satisfactory r elationship or nonabused women to endorse items on a questionnaire of role reversal (defined as emotional overdependence upon one's child). Role rever sal was nor significantly predicted by histories of physical abuse or paren tal alcoholism or child's gender. While parenting stress was inversely pred icted by the significant main effect of relationship satisfaction, neither parenting stress nor child behavior problems were predicted by the main eff ect of sexual abuse history or by the interaction between sexual abuse hist ory and relationship satisfaction. Conclusions: These results suggest the unique relevance of sexual abuse his tory and relationship satisfaction in the prediction of a specific type of parent-child role reversal-namely, a mother's emotional overdependence upon her child. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd.