An Intergenerational Exploration of Discipline, Attachment, and Black Mother-Daughter Relationships Across the Lifespan

Discipline is a significant predictor of parent-child attachment and relationship quality across the lifespan. Yet, much of the research on Black families’ disciplinary strategies uses a deficit and myopic lens that focuses on punitive punishment styles (e.g., spanking or taking away privileges). In the current qualitative study, we used an intergenerational narrative lens (Fivush & Merrill, 2016) and thematic analysis to explore semi-structured interview data from 31 Black mothers (25–60 years, Mage = 46) in the United States around maternal discipline experiences. Mothers varied widely in their retrospective accounts of their mothers’ disciplinary strategies, which we categorized into three main themes: (a) punitive (b) logical, and (c) natural, as well as three thematic categories around the extent to which Black adult daughters continued to use the maternal disciplinary practices they experienced during childhood (d) continuity, (e) mix, and (f) shift. Results highlighted the personal and cultural factors that informed Black women’s disciplinary strategies across two generations of motherhood and revealed that most adult daughters shifted away from what they experience during childhood – often towards less punitive strategies. Finally, we explored the explicit connections that adult daughters made between their childhood disciplinary practices and their current relationship with their mothers. We identified three main categories: (g) strained, (h) progressing, and (i) healthy. Each category revealed important patterns about the extent to which adult daughters felt connected, validated, and supported by their mothers. Overall, our findings lend significant insight into Black mother-daughter relationship dynamics, particularly around the importance of communication patterns and emotional connection in the culture of discipline within families.