Abstract

      Perhaps the single most important role in society is the rearing of children, for good parenting is necessary for good citizenship, a productive economy, good parenting in the next generation, and indeed for the peace, order and good government of a country, not to mention the faith and commitment that Judeo-Christian traditions believe is necessary for a righteous and eternal life.

      Like our earlier monographs on well-being, this one comprises indicators in the three major domains of life - personal well-being, community or altruistic well-being, and religious or spiritual well-being - and an overall index of well-being. The indicators are presented for young parents and employed parents, and parents with different age groups of children; and are pulled together from our companion monographs on the whole population, young adults, and the employed. The variables used in forming each indicator are displayed in fine detail in tables and charts, and analysed in the appendix tables.

      Five components of parental well-being are portrayed in both tables and charts. These are indicators of perceived satisfaction with life in general, of worry over future finances, of volunteering, of perceived religiosity, and of the frequency of worship. The variation in these five components is displayed for a wide variety of sub-populations of mothers and fathers.

      Associations of several key characteristics of parents with each of these five components are also explored, by means of regression analysis, for both mothers and fathers. Important differences between mothers and fathers are derived from these analytical results. Brief summaries of the main results are provided.

      The overall well-being index for parents is 46, the same for mothers and fathers --Table 16. The index is only slightly lower, 44, for parents with only preschoolers, and 47 to 48 for parents with both preschoolers and older children, and with only children aged 6 to 17.

      Some 48% of parents say they are very satisfied with life in general (only 38% in Quebec), 32% say they never worry about having enough money in the future, 18% volunteer 200 or more hours a year, 58% say they are very or somewhat religious (40% in Quebec and 45% in British Columbia), and 29% worship at least monthly (18% in Quebec and British Columbia, and 41% in Atlantic Canada). There are wide variations in these rates by sub-populations of parents. These variations appear in tables, charts and tables of regression results in the appendix tables.

      An appendix presents some classic formal prayers for parents and children, taken from The Book of Common Prayer, and Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living, 1650.