An Ecological Study of Child-Mother Attachments Among Japanese Sojourners in the United States

This study examined the effects of life stress and support on parenting and attachment security among 53 Japanese mothers and their preschoolers who were temporarily living in the U.S. Mothers who had been in the U.S. for 6 months or less reported more life stress and less social support than did mothers who had been in the U.S. for more than 6 months. Measures of life stress and support were differently related to measures of parenting stress and security of attachment. When life stress was high, mothers reported more parenting stress if support was not adequate and less parenting stress if support was adequate. High support, particularly high marital support, was associated with lower levels of attachment security. The findings call for further research on family dynamics-particularly on the interplay between the husband-wife and mother-child subsystems -to develop ecological models of Japanese parenting and child development.