Mature and Teenage Mothers' Infant Growth Expectations and Use of Child Development Information Sources

Abstract

A home interview and Parent Expectation Scale are used with a group of mature mothers and a group of teenage mothers to assess their knowledge or expectations about infant growth and development and to determine the sources they used or would use to obtain needed child development information. The results suggest that: 1) mothers education age and type of occupation affect both their expectations for infant development and the sources they use to obtain information; 2) a range of sources are used by most mothers to gather information with mature mothers relying most heavily on books and magazines while teenage mothers rely most heavily on family; and 3) there is a substantial body of knowledge about infant development that these mothers regardless of familial characteristics do not possess. If educators and child development specialists wish to provide parents with information they must consider carefully specific characteristics of the target audience. The heavy use of mother and grandmother for child development information by teenage mothers suggests a need for an intergenerational study to compare the knowledge base of grandmothers mothers and teenage mothers.

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