TABLE 3.
Narrative Styles and Associated Characteristics
| Maternal Narrative Styles | Easy-Going | Indulgent Worry | Effortful No-Nonsense | Conflicted Control | Disengaged | Practical No-Nonsense | Total | P |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N | 32 | 16 | 19 | 15 | 22 | 29 | 133 | |
|
Coded Interview Categories
| ||||||||
| N (%) | ||||||||
| Authority | *** | |||||||
| High | 1 (3.1) | 0 (0.0) | 19 (100.0) | 15 (100) | 7 (31.8) | 29 (100) | 71 (53.4) | |
| Low | 31 (96.9) | 16 (100) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 15 (68.2) | 0 (0.0) | 62 (46.6) | |
| Investment | *** | |||||||
| Removed | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 22 (100) | 0 (0.0) | 22 (16.5) | |
| Mildly | 32 (100) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 7 (46.7) | 0 (0.0) | 29 (100) | 68 (51.1) | |
| Deeply | 0 (0.0) | 16 (100) | 19 (100) | 8 (53.3) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 43 (32.3) | |
| Confidence | *** | |||||||
| Confident | 18 (56.2) | 6 (37.5) | 19 (100) | 0 (0.0) | 5 (22.7) | 29 (100) | 77 (57.9) | |
| Unopinionated | 6 (18.8) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 17 (77.3) | 0 (0.0) | 23 (17.3) | |
| Conflicted | 8 (25.0) | 10 (62.5) | 0 (0.0) | 15 (100) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 33 (24.8) | |
| Illustrative Supporting Quotation | There is always a flow to our dinner. If I’m making asparagus, I know she won’t eat that, so I’ll make peas ‘cus I know she’ll eat those. I guess that I’ve learned to accommodate her. | I do worry that he doesn’t eat enough. He doesn’t ask me a lot to eat and I’m the one that is begging him to eat. I do worry because if I’m not pushing him, he doesn’t eat. You know he is gordito but one never knows. | She’s really picky so she don’t eat much. She won’t eat nothing, no meats. So I’ll just cook and prepare whatever she’ll eat along with what me and my other daughter would eat. But I make sure we all sit together at the table and eat. | I feel bad about not giving it to him. And I don’t want it to be such a struggle in terms of food. I don’t want to sort of create this food issue but um, we feel pretty adamant - we try not to give them sort of the idea that if they don’t like what’s for dinner then they can have something better | I don’t really think about it. It’s just, I don’t know, eating is just something, something we do. I don’t, I don’t really think about it like that. It’s just, we eat. | They both had grilled cheeses, if they pick something that I am not a huge fan of then they usually can’t get fries. So he had mandarin oranges and she had apple slices, so that worked out pretty well. | ||
|
| ||||||||
|
Associated Demographic Characteristics
| ||||||||
| N (%) | ||||||||
| Maternal Sociodemographic Group | *** | |||||||
| Lower SES white | 5 (15.6) | 2 (12.5) | 6 (31.5) | 3 (20.0) | 2 (9.1) | 11 (37.9) | 29 (21.8) | |
| Lower SES black | 15 (46.9) | 1 (6.2) | 2 (10.5) | 5 (33.3) | 17 (77.3) | 5 (17.2) | 45 (33.8) | |
| Lower SES Hispanic | 7 (21.9) | 12 (75.0) | 6 (31.6) | 5 (33.3) | 1 (4.6) | 1 (3.5) | 32 (24.1) | |
| Middle to upper SES white | 1 (3.1) | 1 (6.2) | 4 (21.1) | 1 (6.7) | 1 (4.6) | 7 (24.1) | 15 (11.3) | |
| Middle to upper SES Asian | 4 (12.5) | 0 (0.0) | 1 (5.3) | 1 (6.7) | 1 (4.6) | 5 (17.2) | 12 (9.0) | |
| Child male | 18 (56.3) | 6 (37.5) | 12 (63.2) | 10 (66.7) | 10 (45.5) | 15 (51.7) | 71 (53.4) | |
| First child | 16 (51.6) | 5 (31.3) | 13 (68.4) | 9 (60.0) | 8 (40.0) | 15 (51.7) | 66 (50..8) | |
| Mother works | 10 (38.5) | 4 (25.0) | 5 (26.3) | 5 (35.7) | 5 (31.3) | 12 (41.4) | 41 (34.2) | |
| Mother obese | 9 (37.5) | 8 (50.0) | 5 (26.3) | 7 (50.0) | 6 (40.0) | 11 (37.9) | 46 (39.3) | |
| Child obesea,b | 4 (22.2) | 2 (13.3) | 2 (15.4) | 6 (60.0) | 0 (0.0) | 3 (18.8) | 17 (20.5) | * |
| Mean (SD) | ||||||||
| Child age, years | 4.65 (0.78) | 4.33 (0.77) | 4.55 (0.93) | 4.36 (0.84) | 4.54 (0.50) | 4.62 (0.81) | 4.54 (0.77) | |
| Maternal age, years | 30.6 (6.3) | 33.3 (5.9) | 30.1 (6.0) | 30.7 (5.8) | 30.7 (8.1) | 32.1 (5.7) | 31.2 (6.3) | |
| Interview length, minutes | 40.0 (19.0) | 68.4 (23.1) | 65.2 (24.3) | 52.1 (25.2) | 28.2 (9.8) | 44.4 (14.2) | 47.4 (23.0) | *** |
a
N = 17. Limited to 83 in the subset with anthropometrics
b
Child obesity was defined as body mass index • 95th percentile for age and gender
c
N = 120
*
P≤ 0.05
***
P≤ 0.001