OBJECTIVE: While child sexual abuse and its negative effects have
been of increasing interest to researchers and practitioners, more
empirical focus has been given to measuring mental health consequences
rather than other areas of life functioning such as
parenting. Furthermore, recent questions have been raised about
whether documented negative effects of abuse stem from the abuse
itself or the more general negative family environment which often
accompanies it. The aim of the current study was to examine the impact
of a history of child sexual abuse and more general family
relationship quality on the parenting of a sample of low-income
mothers. METHOD: The current study was a secondary analysis of
archived data collected by Zuravin (1996) on 518 low-income
mothers. Parenting was assessed using measures such as frequency of
worry about child problems, views of self as a parent, and how child
discipline problems were handled. RESULTS: Child sexual abuse was
associated with more negative views of self as a parent and the
greater use of physical punishment strategies even after accounting
for differences in family-of-origin relationship quality. CONCLUSIONS:
The findings indicate that sexual abuse may be a risk factor for more
negative views of self as a parent beyond differences between abused
and nonabused samples in more general assessments of family-of-origin
quality. Implications for future research and intervention are
discussed.