Research reveals how having warm, loving parents as a child helps you flourish as an adult
A recent study out of Harvard has found that people who had warm, affectionate parents in childhood live better lives. Most of us consider it common sense that a parent’s love goes a long way, affecting a child’s well-being and health in the moment and for years to come. But the size of that impact may be larger than we think.
The search for what determines our health and happiness in life has become a science unto itself. This particular study isolated one factor: whether people experienced their parents as affectionate. The association was clear and consistent; people who remember their parents as warm and loving are flourishing at much higher rates in adulthood. This was true even when the study controlled for socioeconomic and other factors.
What do they mean by flourishing?
Flourishing is a popular word for philosophers and theologians, but it refers to something doctors study under other terms. Simply put, it’s about the good life.
Tyler VanderWeele, one of the study authors and director of Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program, explains flourishing as “a state in which all aspects of a person’s life are good.”
When asked for more on that, he said, “There are five domains of life that are generally desired by everyone. While there are other dimensions of flourishing, these are the ones that are the consensus across traditions.”
The proof that loving our kids and expressing it affectionately is a key factor in their future well-being is wonderful news.
These domains include happiness and life satisfaction, physical and mental health, meaning and purpose, good character, and good relationships in the social dimension.
When we are truly flourishing, we have it all.
Why measure flourishing?
A happy life means more than simply not having a disease, but that insight is a recent development for researchers. “For a long time, studies looked at disease or the absence of disease, but increasingly we understand that you can be free of disease and still not be experiencing a sense of thriving,” the paper explained. That makes sense; we all know people who are physically healthy but not necessarily happy.
In the past, research has linked flourishing to lower all-cause mortality in adults and fewer behavioral problems in adolescents. This would indicate that people who feel a sense of thriving are healthier.
For the purposes of this study, the authors defined flourishing as “three aspects of well-being, including emotional, psychological, and social well-being.”
They measured these aspects broadly, asking participants to indicate their alignment with statements like: “I like most parts of my personality,” “In general, I feel I am in charge of the situation in which I live,” and “My community is a source of comfort.” Study participants were defined as flourishing if they showed high levels of well-being on all of the measured scales.
In other words, people who are flourishing live in a good world, among kind people, and have a sense of purpose in their own life. They feel that they can manage, that they are growing and learning, and that they basically like themselves. Their experience of the world is marked by generally positive emotions and a sense of satisfaction with their life.
What happens in childhood influences flourishing in adulthood
By now, everyone knows that when parenting behaviors are consistently negative, children have difficulty throughout their lives. For instance, adults who were disciplined harshly as children are more likely to suffer from anxiety, depression, or addiction. On the other hand, adults who were overprotected also struggle with chronic anxiety and poor self-image because their parents kept them from opportunities to grow coping skills.
It’s easy to assume that the opposite would be true of more positive parenting behaviors. But does the data support that?
“We were trying to see if that experience of warmth, affection, and love in a child’s life is really important or not,” VanderWeele explained. The study concludes that it is.
“We now have reasonably strong evidence that the experience of parental warmth in childhood, 40–50 years prior, really does shape various aspects of flourishing such as happiness, self-acceptance, social relationships, and being more likely to contribute to the community,” he went on. So people who found their parents to be loving are happier, like themselves better, and want to help their community. That makes sense.
But one aspect of life that’s important to philosophers who study flourishing is a sense of purpose — and in this area, a parent’s love was less important. According to VanderWeele, “parental warmth led to more happiness and social acceptance as well as less depression, anxiety, and drug use.” However, having loving parents did not seem to make a difference in whether people felt a sense of purpose in life. “The experience of love in childhood is of profound importance, and parental warmth is a key factor,” VanderWeele said.
Do these findings apply in today’s culture of intensive parenting?
However enlightening, this study is limited by its data source. The researchers looked at a particular population using data from the Midlife in the United States Study (MIDUS), which started in 1995 by surveying adults between 25 and 74 years old.
Study participants reported their recall of parental warmth in a questionnaire that asked things like, “How much love and affection did your mother/father give you?” Later, in 2004–2006, participants were assessed on measures of flourishing.
But this study population grew up before the onset of intensive parenting. So one has to wonder if the findings still apply? How might changes in child-rearing practices alter these findings? Is there such a thing as too much parental warmth? VanderWeele and his team are working on this question now.
This study is good news for parents
Parents tend to read reports like this and start questioning themselves: Am I loving enough? Am I present enough? What if I’m not affectionate enough? And there is, of course, always a place for a healthy self-assessment. But if we start worrying about whether we are loving enough, we miss this point.
It’s not about one more thing we should do, it’s about having faith in the understanding that love for our children goes a long way.
The proof that loving our kids and expressing it affectionately is a key factor in their future well-being is wonderful news. We are all busy and trying very hard to do well by our kids. Now, maybe, we can relax a little and look for more opportunities to express the warmth that we feel.
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March 12, 2020 at 06:15PM
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How Loving Were Your Parents? - Elemental
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