Washifa Haque, Dennis S Macias, Emily Antoine, and Joel Rosario.

Inquiry Question: What are the impacts of abusive households and intergenerational trauma on adults who decide to be parents?

Intergenerational Traumas and Continuing Cycles

Introduction

Childhood trauma is a very prevalent problem in today’s world, with somewhere around 600,000+ children reported to be maltreated, which can have long lasting impacts on the children as they grow and face the possibility of continuing this trauma with their own families. (Walden et al., 2021). Traumatic upbringings from abusive households detrimentally affect adults, who can unknowingly continue a generational cycle of trauma in their own households, if they decide to pursue a family. 

Intergenerational trauma is the concept that exposure to early adverse events, such as child abuse, parental incarceration or divorce, natural disasters and poverty, all have enduring impacts on the health, adjustment, and well-being of subsequent generations. (Walden et al., 2021). When aware of their trauma, most adults are hesitant and have resigned views of having the potential of continuing the cycle of abuse, causing them to withdraw from having kids all together, additionally, their traumatic childhoods can lead to them having an inclination for violence, and as a result of their unprocessed trauma, they are shown to be less mentally stable and more volatile with their own children. 

Trauma can come in many forms, and abusive households can vary in the type of abuse that is perpetuated in them. While studying the correlation between childhood maltreatment and the risk of continuing such behaviors in their own households, Matthews et al. (2019), using data from the Public Health Agency of Canada, categorized the types of childhood maltreatment as: exposure to intimate partner violence, neglect, physical abuse, emotional maltreatment and sexual abuse. These types of abuse are all examined in the studies cited as abuse faced by potential parents, to see the correlation between the risk of continuing childhood maltreatment with their own children. 

Whether it’s being a victim of abuse or witnessing violence and neglect in the household, children who are raised in such environments are usually predisposed to continue such behaviors well into their adulthood, and have shown implications of a faltering mental health. According to Chamberlain et al.’s (2019) study, responses from childhood trauma are part of a cluster of symptoms associated with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (complex PTSD). Such traumatic experiences often stem from interpersonal violation within a child’s care system and can intensify by additional traumatic experiences as an adult. While rearing their own children, especially in the perinatal period before and after the birth of their child, parents may relive or worsen their traumas, with feelings of inadequacy, stress, and isolation, often influencing their parenting.

Potential parents who’ve faced maltreatment of this kind are usually positively correlated with having children who’ve experienced similar traumas caused by their traumatized parents, which make them wary of having their own kids. In fact, Finzi-Dottan et al. (2014), in their own study examining parent’s potential for child abuse due to intergenerational trauma, emphasized that the rate of abusive behavior among parents with a history of childhood abuse is six times higher than the base rate for child abuse in the general population, and go on to estimate that approximately 30% continue the cycle of abuse. Matthews et al. (2019) corroborates this statistic, as eight adults (six females, two males), were either hesitant or decided against having children, because of their fear of continuing cycles of dysfunction. This further verifies the likelihood of continuing cycles of trauma, as parents with abusive childhoods, have an unfortunately high rate of continuing such abuses themselves.

Using the data from the Walden et al. (2021), Matthews et al. (2019), Chamberlain et al. (2019), Finzi-Dottan et al. (2014) studies, we analyzed the impacts of traumatic childhoods in abusive families on adults considering to be parents or are already parents, and their likelihood of continuing the cycle of abuse with their own children. Trauma is a very intricate subject; while some adults vow to be nothing like their parents and follow through on such promises, others unconsciously mimic the behavior they have become desensitized to, continuing the cycle their parents did with them. While the impact of such trauma on potential parents is still being researched, it doesn’t mean that such adults should be ostracized for wanting to pursue families of their own. Instead of isolating them further just because of their risk of continuing generational cycles, we should help adults process their trauma and heal, so they can be better parents and role models to their own kids. 

Methods:

Mattews et al (2021), Set out to measure and collect data by interviewing each participant two times and to observe if there’s a connection between certain life experiences that can affect whether one decides to bring another life into this world. The study started in 2013 to explore the experiences of adults who experienced physical or emotional abuse, neglect, or exposure to family violence in childhood and who either had, wanted to have, or did not want to have or hesitate to have children. The data was collected by setting up 2 separate interviews for each participant. The study recruited its participants by advertising on posters and putting them up in locations like post-secondary campuses, in public spaces, and electronically on online social networking and classified advertisement sites, in Western Canada. The poster invited adults from the age of 25 through 35 who experienced a history of physical or emotional abuse or neglect (as defined by the participant) perpetrated by a parent. The first interview was set up to hear out the participant and to listen when they tried to answer the prompt. “The interview posed the question “can you tell me your story of how you are deciding or have already decided to have or not have children? The second interview was a semi-structured interview guide that included open-ended questions about: the factors they had considered in their reproductive decision-making; conversations with their partners, family, and friends about family formation and childhood maltreatment; the meaning and value of parenthood and family for them; perceptions of how childhood maltreatment had shaped them; their current relationships with their parents; their views on coping, support, and forgiveness; and other related topics.    

Participants were recruited from families who registered and had gotten treated at the Jaffa Welfare Department in Tel-Aviv, Finzi-dottan et al (2014) sought to examine parenthood among welfare beneficiaries and they did that by comparing parents who suffered abuse and neglect as children with those who had not, as well as compared various kinds of childhood abuse/neglect. The experiment had two hundred and thirteen Jewish and Arab parents of children up to six years of age participating in the study. The study examined predictors for parents’ potential for abusing their children.. Finzi-dottan et al. (2014) administered the study questionnaire individually to each participant. Participants signed an informed consent form before privately completing the questionnaires. In this study, there were eighty-three percent of women(177) and seventeen percent of men (36). The study had six different questionnaire sections the “Demographic Questionnaire”, “The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire”, “The Experiences in Close Relationships Scale, Emotional Control Questionnaire”, “Cognitive Appraisal Questionnaire for Parenthood”, and “Perceived Stress Scale” All these questionnaires were designed to be scale from A to B(ex: scale ranging from 1 (never or true) to 4 (often or false). One questionnaire was different than the other ones and this is one called the “Child Abuse Potential Inventory” this questioner it was designed to agree or disagree with the statement. This was the most important section because, for this study, only the Abuse scale was used. It includes 77 items and is divided into six-factor scales; one factor describes rigidity in parenting attitudes, two factors describe negative affect (i.e., distress and unhappiness), and the remaining three factors describe interactional problems (i.e., problems with a child, problems with family, and problems with others). This section was the most important because we only wanted to collect and observe the participants who have experienced parents who suffered abuse and neglect as children and this section clearly states if they have experienced that. 

 Walden et al.. (2021), set out to measure and understand the effects of mothers’ ACEs(Adverse Childhood Experience) on their children’s NLEs(negative life events), by first understanding the prevalence of these constructs, and then by examining how mother ACEs may put children at risk for experiencing NLEs. The data was collected from 88 dyads of the biological mother and was done via online surveys or in-person locations, it was all based on the mother’s preference. The survey was set up with two questionnaires, the ACEs Questionnaire and a modified version of the Coddington Live Events Questionnaire. The purpose of the ACEs Questionnaire mothers reported on their childhood traumas. The main purpose of the Modified version of the Coddington Live Events Questionnaire is for mothers to report on their children’s experiences of child NLEs in the past year and separately over one year ago. Both questionnaires were designed to be yes or no questions and whether you agree with the statement you would have to pick either one. The ACE questionnaire was focusing its questions on these topics: consistency of abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction. whether or not that event was experienced by the individual before age 18. In the modified version of the Coddington, Live Events questionnaire Questions were one statement, describing a specific NLE(negative life events) that the children have experienced in their lifetime. The same rule applied to the second interview with yes or no answers. Researchers who collected the data had the option if they felt that the child was being maltreated that they would report this action. 

Chamberlain et. al. (2019), collected a group of researchers to help by having them scout other studies and collect their data and the study aimed to map perinatal evidence regarding theories of intergenerational pathways, parents’ views, interventions, and measurement tools involving parents with a history of maltreatment in their childhoods. Since this study didn’t perform their own experiment/data, they created a program on how they were gonna pick out which studies they would want to use. The search terms included both thesaurus (MeSH) and keyword synonyms for ‘child abuse’ AND ‘intergenerational’ AND ‘prevention’ AND ‘parent. They used these keywords to find the articles and evidence they wanted to use. The participants that they wanted in this study had to be at the parenting stage(pre-pregnancy, pregnancy to six weeks postpartum, six weeks to one year postpartum, one to two years postpartum) with childhood trauma reported and wanted to find people around with the same age, place of residence, race/ethnicity, gender, language, religion, socio-economic status, marital status and much more. 

Data and Results:

Table 1: Represents the ANOVA for each of the studies variables and pairwise scheffe comparisons (p<0.05)  Finzi-dottan et al (2014)

Finzi-dottan et al. (2014) found  an Anova t-test for the sequels of abuse on victims’ well-being and mental capacities showed significant differences between victims of abuse and people without a history of abuse and concluded that victims of abuse are more likely to be potential child abusers and continue the cycle. As can be assumed in general, the “no history of abuse” group had lower scores than the other groups in the variables of anxious and avoidant attachment, perceived stress, and potential for abusing their children, and had higher scores in emotional control and parenthood perceived as a challenge. For example, it’s clear that in the variable of anxious attachment, people without a history of abuse had a mean of 3.55, compared to victims of abuse like physical abuse, who had a mean of 4.44, which is 0.89 higher than people without a history of abuse. Positive traits like emotional control were  higher in people without a history of abuse; for example, table 1 showed that the mean of people without a history of abuse is  4.22, compared to people with a history of sexual abuse, which has the lowest mean of this category with a mean of 2.42. The most important point with regard to the argument of the consequences of abuse in future generations is their potential for child abuse. Based on the results of Table 2, people without a history of abuse had  the lowest mean of 217.32 compared to the highest in this variable, people with a history of sexual abuse, with a mean of 330.38, which made it 113.06 points higher than people without a history of abuse.

Table 2: represents the results of 15 women who categorized themselves as “meant to be mothers,” “not meant to be mothers,” and “maybe or maybe not a mother/father.” And each participant is under two variables in their reproductive decisions and their perception of risk regarding transmitting abuse tendencies to their children. Mattews et al. (2021)

Table 3: Anova results of the relationship between mothers’ ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) and children’s NLEs ( negative life events). These results were categorized in three groups, high, low and none and the types of NlEs that was examined was all NLES (more than one year ago), All NLEs (in the past year), trauma-related NLEs (in the pasts year),non-trauma-related NLEs  (more than one year ago) and Non-trauma related NLEs (in Past year). Walden et al. (2021)

Furthermore, Walden et al. (2021) used an ANOVA test in addition to Tukey’s HSD comparisons. Tukey HSD was used for pairwise comparisons of ACE levels of high, low, and none; these comparisons revealed that NLEs more than a year ago and in the previous year were higher for children with mothers at the high level compared to either the low or none levels, though the results between the low and none levels were not significantly different. The results of the same number of children were then taken: 24 for high level, 41 for low level, and 21 for none. And each kid was analyzed in six types of NLEs: all NLEs (more than one year ago), all NLEs (in the past year), trauma-related NLEs (more than one year ago), trauma-related NLEs (in the past year), non-trauma-related NLEs (more than one year ago), and non-trauma-related NLEs (in the past year). As it can be seen in the chart, even though for every type of NLE the low category had almost double the participants compared to the high category, the mean of NLEs is almost always highest in the high group. For example, the mean of Nles in the high levels of ACE group was 1.94 compared to 1.28 in the none levels of ACE group; this puts the high group about 0.78 points higher than the none exposure to ACE group. Another example can be seen in trauma-related NLEs (more than one year ago): the group with high levels of ACE had a mean of 1.09, and in the group with no levels of ACE, the mean is 0.34, which is 0.75 lower than for the high group.

Table 4: Presents a brief summary of the major themes studied by Chamberlain et. al. (2019), whose findings were based on eleven research studies on experiences during the perinatal period and techniques parents, who had been abused as children, utilized to heal and potentially break cycles of trauma.   

In the perinatal period, these parents experienced “lack of control”, “negative feelings of self worth”, and a “lack of parenting knowledge and skill”. Several studies reported on parents’ opinions of factors that promote healing and/or can help break intergenerational trauma cycles, and one documented that mothers recovered after Childhood Sexual Assault  (CSA). As a result of their trauma, these parents listed strategies that helped them heal and possibly disrupt the cycle of their trauma. These strategies include religion, psychotherapies, and self-care time (meditation, reading, and exercise).  Prenatal care experiences were reported in two studies, while nursing experiences were reported in one study, particularly among mothers who had experienced Childhood Sexual Assault  (CSA).  This is due to the fact that the birth and parenting journey was difficult for most survivors of Childhood Sexual Assualt (CSA). Furthermore, these parents described how their experiences were re-traumatic, causing them to experience responses of disbelief and invalidation of their past experiences. Unexpected trauma reactions such as encounters with strangers and not being able to soothe their crying child have been described by some women as unexpected triggering trauma experiences they’ve encountered. A study by Thomas et al suggested that anger could assist healing by motivating people to help other people, an idea that is consistent with the theory that ‘righteous anger’ is a healing technique. The terms ‘self-protective’ and ‘indignant’ anger were used to describe areas of anger that were positive. However, self-castigating anger and anger that was displaced were considered negative. In general, ‘hanging on’ to any type of anger was detrimental. Moreover, parents reported that talking about trauma could contribute to self-empowerment instead of suppressing them. 

Discussion:

Based on the reported results, the data supports the idea that adults from abusive households can continue the cycle of abuse if they decide to have children of their own, and have their parenting impacted fundamentally by their own trauma. Adults who grow up witnessing violence, usually grow desensitized to the cruelty and harsh discipline they were raised in; and, they consider this a norm, as they view how violence is positively reinforced while behaviors are corrected and changed to accommodate angry parents or spouses. The rate of abusive behavior among parents with a history of childhood abuse is six times higher than the base rate for child abuse in the general population, and approximately 30% of parents continue a cycle of abuse. (Finzi-Dottan et al., 2014). This accentuates how adults who grew up in violent households are naturally more predisposed to continue abusive behaviors in their households, as they revert back to what they grew up with as the standard of parenting and control. Chamberlain et al. (2019) delineates how a parents’ ability to nurture and care for their children may be hampered by the long-term effects of childhood maltreatment, which include smoking, eating disorders, unplanned pregnancies, and a plethora of other physical and psychological morbidities, and how they can all result in “intergenerational cycles” of trauma. When a parent sees their child in distress, they may have their own anxiety responses, and as a result, the demands of the developing child may be met in a hostile or helpless manner. A parents’ ability to even parent is fundamentally altered as parents struggle to handle and meet their own children’s needs, because of the trauma inflicted on them when they were a child themselves, as old wounds open up. 

Because intergenerational trauma is so prevalent worldwide, many victims of childhood trauma and domestic abuse, question the mere possibility of them having kids, as the fear of continuing the neglect and abuse they faced themselves is suffocating. Matthews et al. (2019) emphasizes the lifelong impact childhood physical, sexual, emotional abuse and or neglect, had on the victims. In their sample of fifteen adults, four women described themselves as not meant to be mothers (voluntarily childless or parent allies), which eliminated any risk of transmission of dysfunction; and two men and two women were uncertain about starting families and of their ability to eliminate the transfer of dysfunction. There were two common recurring reasons for these adults and why they decided or were  hesitant not to  be parents. One, they had a persistent fear that no matter how hard they tried, they would inevitably turn out like their parents–that their parents’ influence would bleed through. The two men who were hesitant to have kids had haunting answers on why they’re uncertain about their futures as a father. One of them, Gavin, said   “That’s why I don’t want to be a parent. Because I know I’m like them underneath it all. Somewhere.” (Matthews et al., 2019). It shows how the men were already resigned to their fates of becoming like their parents, and mimicking their failures. Their introspection shows a startling level of self-awareness and maturity, of being able to accept that you may be like the parents who’ve fundamentally changed your life, and in a bid to stop this transmission to your own kids you refuse to continue the cycle. This is further verified by the data, as parents who were raised in abusive, neglectful houses, were shown to continue the transmission of abuse in their own households, validating the fear of adults who are wary of their own abilities to parent. The second overarching reason why the adults decided not to have a family or kids of their own, is that they deemed themselves inadequate from the get-go, and believed that no matter how they parented they would never live up to their expectations, and be what they consider to be “good parents.” Emily, a woman who decided not to have kids, phrased it as such, “I’m afraid that I can’t be everything and that I’m going to do it all poorly or that I’ll always think I’m doing it poorly. [Later] I don’t trust myself.” (Matthews et al., 2019). All these adults went on to show how their traumatizing upbringings tainted their perspectives of parenting, and led them to face the fear and possibility of becoming like the parents. This idea is further supported by Chamberlain et al. ‘s (2019) study, as their results outlined how parents described the impact of having a negative sense of self-worth on parenting, which included feelings of guilt and shame that were shaped by previous experiences, and experiencing a lack of control within the context of parenting, which all weakened their resolve as parents. This feeling of fear and lack of faith in one’s ability to parent is not unwarranted as young adults who show such feelings are often substantiated in their reactions when parenting. Adults like Gavin and Emily are justified when the data about the quality of life of children show a higher likelihood of abuse and difficult life conditions, when raised by parents who were previously abused, which is the unfortunate truth. 

As a result of intergenerational trauma, the victims’ parenting is impacted, which can translate into the normalization of the violent, neglectful types of behavior, they were raised in. This is demonstrated with Matthew et al.’s (2019) findings of a positive correlation between coming from an abusive family and continuing this cycle of behavior, as 30% of the women in one group of the study, who have been victims of child abuse and are mothers or have the intentions of becoming mothers, are unintentionally transmitting abusive tendencies to their own children, they’re defined as “transmission attenuated.” Walden et al. (2021) were able to find a positive association between the results they collected from child trauma-related negative life experiences (NLEs) and mother’s adverse childhood experience questionnaire (ACEs). First, correlations on transformed variables were run to determine if relations between total ACEs and trauma-related NLEs existed. Total ACEs were positively correlated with total child trauma-related NLEs in the past year, r = 0.36, p < 0.01, and child trauma-related NLEs more than one year ago, r = 0.40, p < 0.001. (Walden et al., 2021). This shows a prevalent positive correlation between a mother’s troubled childhood and her own child’s negative life experiences, and shows how there is an increased likelihood of children of parents from abusive or turbulent households, facing difficulties from the onset of their births. Overall, showing how there is a positive correlation between being raised in a troubled, abusive household and continuing such behaviors with your own children, as the behavior is so normalized that parent’s continue it without even being aware of their actions. 

All in all, generational trauma can be attributed to a weaker mental state and more emotionally volatile parents, who usually have some variation of post-traumatic stress disorder and a faltering mental health. Chamberlain et al. (2019) deduced that reactions to childhood trauma, such as “conflicting infant attachment and defense (fear or ‘flight, fright and freeze’) systems can be activated in response to child maltreatment which can lead to internal confusion and behavioral responses that are an attempt to manage distress and promote self-regulation,” and can all be linked to complex post-traumatic stress disorder (complex PTSD). And, responses of PTSD can include emotional detachment and heightened reactions, which can hinder the parents’ ability to parent, and their trauma can also be exacerbated by subsequent traumatic events experienced as an adult. Meaning, that without proper treatment and healing, the parents’ condition will only continue to worsen which harms both them and their child, who at the perinatal period of time needs the most one-on-one attention and caring, which the parent cannot provide without a stable sense of self. This is further supported by Finzi-Dottan (2014) whose results indicated “a path leading from abuse and neglect to insecure attachment and deficits in emotional control.”Demonstrating that child abuse can lead to intergenerational patterns of abuse and trauma, as adults raised in abusive and neglectful households, show signs of emotional deficits and trouble forming strong emotional relationships. This can be inferred from the usage of insecure attachment, which is an attachment style that is typically characterized by having difficulty forming emotional connections with others. This is often due to the inconsistent love and attention they received as children, and as a result, they can be hostile or unpredictable with the people they care about. This can predictably make it hard for them to raise a child, as someone with those unstable traits, may not be entirely fit to raise a developing child who needs consistent love and support from their parents. 

While this paper attempts to grasp the understanding of how growing up in abusive households with intergenerational trauma can impact parenting of the victim’s own children, there were still some limitations. For example, each study had differing sample sizes, some sufficiently large with hundreds of participants, while others were decidedly small with as little as fifteen participants. Sample size needs to be large enough to be representative of the whole population, and a sample of fifteen is by no means large enough to make a broad enough claim. Moreover, adults from various regions of the world were studied, and different regions of the world contain different parenting styles and cultural biases. One study was exclusively about Arab and Jewish parents, and this can’t be used to generalize all parents and adults, as the culture of the two aforementioned ethnicities have a specific type of parenting that may not be applicable to all other types of parents around the world. In addition to the exclusivity of cultures and ethnicities, one study was specifically focused on women only, and other studies had larger samples of women compared to men. This may lead to biased results mostly focused on women, and may undermine the effect men have in parenting their children, and show a lack of research of how men raised in traumatic households would have their parenting impacted; thus, the sample may not be representative enough for men. All things considered, these were the overall limitations of this paper.

Conclusion: 

Overall, adults who’ve grown up in abusive households are negatively affected by those traumatic experiences, and they can unknowingly perpetuate the cycle of trauma in their own families. In the face of their trauma, most adults are hesitant and have resigned views of continuing the cycle, which prevents them from having children. A traumatic childhood can lead to violence, and as a result, their unprocessed trauma can cause them to be less mentally stable and more volatile with their own children. In spite of some adults swearing not to behave like their parents, others unconsciously imitate those same behaviors they have become desensitized to, repeating the cycle established by their parents. Even though research is still being conducted on the impact of such trauma on potential parents, it shouldn’t discourage them from pursuing family life. Further research should be directed towards understanding the processes that might help adults process their traumas so they can heal and be better parents and role models for their own children, rather than being isolated further because they are at risk of continuing generational cycles. 

Citations

Walden, Emily D., et al. “Intergenerational Trauma: Assessment in Biological Mothers and Preschool Children – Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma.” SpringerLink, Springer International Publishing, 17 Aug. 2021,  https: //link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40653-021-00397-3/ 

Chamberlain, Catherine, et al. “Parenting after a History of Childhood Maltreatment: A Scoping Review and Map of Evidence in the Perinatal Period.” PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science/Journal.plog, 13 Mar. 2019, ht tps://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0213460#sec026 

Finzi-Dottan, Ricky, and Galit Harel. “Parents’ Potential for Child Abuse: An Intergenerational Perspective – Journal of Family Violence.” SpringerLink, Springer US, 13 Apr. 2014, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/ s10896-014-9592-7 

Matthews, Elise J., and Michel Desjardins. “The Meaning of Risk in Reproductive Decisions after Childhood Abuse and Neglect – Journal of Family Violence.” SpringerLink, Springer US, 10 May 2019, https://link.springer .com/article/10.1007/s10896-019-00062-2