Fam. Sci., Volume 2, Issue 3 (September 2026) – 8 articles

While debate persists over the accuracy of retrospective self-reports of childhood family environments, empirical understanding of the stability of these assessments among young adults during stressful events remains limited. In response, this study examined whether college students’ perceptions of problematic childhood family environments changed across the COVID-19 onset. We leveraged a longitudinal dataset of 355 college students (237 female, Mage = 19.4 years, SD = 0.70; 118 male, Mage = 19.6 years, SD = 0.70), oversampled for recent substance misuse. Participants completed assessments over five to seven timepoints; the pandemic onset (13 March 2020) occurred near the midpoint of data collection. We employed piecewise growth-curve modeling (PGCM) to evaluate pandemic-onset-related changes in participants’ perceptions of problematic childhood family environments and the moderating effect of family co-residence during the acute pandemic onset. Results indicated that college students’ perceptions of problematic childhood family environments significantly but modestly increased from pre- to post-pandemic onset. Living with family during the acute disruption period did not moderate this change. In conclusion, stressful events like the COVID-19 outbreak could serve as a pivotal event associated with increased problematic perceptions of childhood family environments among young adults. We reinforce the necessity of adopting rigorous longitudinal, repeated-measures designs for retrospective assessments in family sciences. Additional conceptual and theoretical, methodological, and practical implications were discussed. Full article

Family science lacks a shared ontological account of its central referent: what kind of thing F-A-M-I-L-Y is remains unclear. This gap undermines theoretical coherence, inhibits cumulative knowledge-building, and weakens the field’s policy relevance. The essay traces how family science inherited distinct frames from parent disciplines at founding, without consolidating a shared ontological account. Drawing on the metaphysics of organized and feature social groups and the philosophy of deliberate care, the essay applies systematic ontological analysis to F-A-M-I-L-Y as a candidate distinct social kind. Comparison across six metaphysical dimensions reveals that F-A-M-I-L-Y shares features with organized groups but diverges in structural-functional organization, collective intentionality, member volition, and the source of these shared features. These are not definitional failures; they are a coherent ontological pattern. The paper suggests that F-A-M-I-L-Y is a care-constituted relational nexus: a structured web of care-bonds among particular persons, constituted by deliberate care oriented toward the adequate viability of those persons through the real conditions of their existence. This framework resolves apparent tensions between embattled conceptions of F-A-M-I-L-Y, accommodates technological complexity in reproduction, and provides actionable methodological guidance for researchers. Ontological precision and genuine inclusiveness are not competing goods; the care-constitution framework demonstrates they are mutually reinforcing. Full article

Parental burnout has been recognized as a significant family risk factor linked to problematic parental functioning and disruptions in overall family relational processes. However, to our knowledge, there is no validated instrument to study this construct in Greece. The present study therefore aimed to (a) validate the Greek version of the Parental Burnout Assessment (PBA) and to (b) examine whether conflictual parent–child interactions within the home learning environment (HLE) mediate the association between parental burnout and preschool children’s socio-emotional difficulties. Two independent samples of Greek parents with children aged 0–6 years were included (EFA sample: n = 128; CFA sample: n = 202). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported the original four-factor structure of the PBA (CFI = 0.982, SRMR = 0.047, RMSEA = 0.030) and demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties. Correlational analyses indicated that parental burnout was positively associated with conflictual HLE interactions and children’s socio-emotional difficulties and negatively associated with prosocial behavior. Conflictual HLE interactions partially mediated the association between parental burnout and children’s socio-emotional difficulties; given the mediator’s nonsignificant correlation with prosocial behavior, mediation was not tested for that outcome, with indirect effects ranging from 0.028 to 0.095 (all p < 0.05). These findings extend the parental burnout literature by conceptualizing parental burnout as a family relational process associated with children’s socio-emotional adjustment through conflictual HLE interactions. The study discusses implications of these findings for family-centered prevention and intervention programs during early childhood. Full article

Bedouin society in the Negev/Naqab has experienced rapid social, spatial, and economic transformation, including expanded access to higher education and paid employment alongside enduring kinship obligations and gendered expectations. Guided by an ecological perspective on family life, this qualitative descriptive study examined how married, educated, and employed Bedouin women and men described their experiences at the intersection of social change, family relationships, parenting, gendered work, and place. Twenty-four participants (12 women and 12 men), aged 28–60, participated in semi-structured interviews. Data underwent reflexive thematic analysis. Four interconnected patterns were identified: (1) negotiating household-level autonomy within extended-family belonging; (2) pursuing marital partnership while unequal care and public authority persisted; (3) treating children’s education as both an intergenerational resource and a present-day strain; and (4) experiencing locality and planning status as conditions that shaped family security and everyday coordination. Rather than presenting a linear movement from “tradition” to “modernity”, participants’ accounts suggest that family change is an ecological process: everyday marital and parental arrangements are negotiated within kin networks, work demands, community expectations, and their location’s material conditions. The study contributes to family science by showing how dual-earner family processes in a collectivist, Indigenous-minority context are shaped not only by household-level role negotiation, but also by spatial governance and collective belonging. Full article

Reflecting on emotionally challenging experiences with caregivers is a critical developmental process through which children learn to identify, express, and regulate emotions. However, much of the existing literature on caregiver–child emotion socialization has centered White, middle-class families, limiting understanding of how these processes unfold within culturally and contextually situated interactions among Black families. Guided by Margaret Beale Spencer’s Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory and the Integrative Conceptual Model of Adaptive Racial/Ethnic and Emotion Socialization, the present study explored how Black girls (ages 5–11) described experiences of sadness, stress, and anger during caregiver-guided conversations embedded within a culturally grounded shared book reading activity. Fifteen Black girls (M = 8.27 years, SD = 1.71) and their caregivers participated in a novel video-recorded shared reading activity followed by a guided discussion about emotions. Black girls described sadness in relation to separation from loved ones, social exclusion, and witnessing harm; stress primarily in response to academic pressures; and anger in response to perceived unfairness and injustice. They also identified diverse emotion regulation strategies, including deep breathing, solitude, cognitive reframing, imaginative coping, and seeking social support. Across emotional contexts, caregivers consistently encouraged elaboration, validated children’s emotional experiences, and reinforced adaptive coping strategies, creating supportive opportunities for collaborative emotional meaning-making. Our findings highlight shared reading as a culturally affirming context for caregiver-supported emotion socialization and underscore the importance of centering Black girls’ voices in research on socioemotional development. Full article

With its long history of familism and conservative values, marriage has been universally expected of young adults in the Philippines, yet the country has undergone considerable modernization over recent decades. During a time of economic and cultural change, marriage rates have decreased, while cohabitation has become more prominent. Using a sample of young women and men in the Philippines, this study examines the marriage aspirations of young adults, in terms of their desire to marry and their preferred timing, thereof. The results show that while a majority of both sexes do prefer to marry someday, they espouse more individualistic preferences concerning intimacy and union formation. Their preference for cohabitation is shown to be positively associated with the desire to marry, suggesting that most view cohabitation as a precursor to marriage, and not purely an alternative form of union. The implications of the findings, along with the future of marriage patterns in the Philippines, are discussed with the Second Demographic Transition framework. Full article

The pandemic resulted in a proliferation of job-related and family stressors for many working mothers. The purpose of the current study is to explore working mothers’ career aspirations and priorities in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The current sample consisted of 168 working mothers in the United States who responded to open-ended questions developed to understand how they perceived that the COVID-19 pandemic affected their career progression, career aspirations, and priorities. Thematic analysis of these open-ended questions revealed a change in career aspirations for many working mothers as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, thematic analysis also indicated that some working mothers shifted their priorities away from their career trajectory and towards family, health, and stability. Three subthemes emerged from working mothers’ descriptions of placing greater priority on family following the pandemic: shifting priorities away from work concerns to family needs, increased focus on time spent with family, and recognition that family should not be taken for granted. The findings of the present study attempt to gain a more nuanced understanding of the pandemic’s effect on working mothers’ attitudes towards their career trajectories, priorities, and families in a post-pandemic worker landscape. Full article