An innovative study by University of Manchester researchers has shown that mothers' feelings of being overwhelmed and unhappiness, not fathers', are directly associated with their children's feelings of nervousness, worry and unhappiness.
The study, published in BMJ Open, funded by Wellcome and the Royal Society, definitively confirm the mother's role as central to the emotional wellbeing of the family unit.
Though other researchers have focused on isolated relationships between mother and child, this is the first study of the role that both partners may play in family mental health, both concurrently and over time.
The researchers produced a series of maps - called networks - depicting the way symptoms of anxiety and depression in parents and their children up the age of 16 connect with each other over time.
They based the analysis on data from 3,757 families from the UK Household Longitudinal Study between 2009 to 2022.
Additional cross-sectional network maps of 8,795 families captured independent associations between family members' mental health.
While fathers' emotional state was linked to mothers' mental health in the cross-sectional analysis, they observed an absence of associations with their children.
However, they reported that fathers' emotional symptoms may influence children's well-being indirectly, by affecting maternal mental health.
The longitudinal maps also identified how a mother's feelings of being overwhelmed affected the child's emotional state-especially worry, and that children's feeling of worry cycled back, further affecting her own emotional health.
The influence of maternal emotional health on their children waned as they got older, reflecting how adolescents transfer their primary attachment from their parents to others.
Lead author Dr Yushi Bai from The University of Manchester said: "We do know that children's mental health is formed by, and within, their family through shared genes, nurturing behaviours of caregivers, and sibling dynamics.
"Our study identified mothers, not fathers, as central to the emotional wellbeing of the family unit.
"We suspect that this can be explained by traditional division of parenting roles, where societal expectations often position mothers as the primary caregivers and organisers within families.
"Mothers are typically more involved in child-rearing and spend considerably more time with their children than do fathers, which means they are more likely to influence children's lives and development.
"Greater exposure to maternal care might also lead children to copy their mother's coping mechanisms and behaviours."
Co-author Dr Matthias Pierce from The University of Manchester said: "Emotional disorders in young people are not only increasingly prevalent, but also present at early ages, highlighting the need for early intervention and prevention.
"Given the family's central role in shaping and sustaining mental health, interventions and policies should consider how the family mental health ecosystem operates.
"This study shows the potential value of interventions that aim to support mothers and reduce maternal anxiety, which may have the greatest impact on improving family dynamics and reduce the risk of poor mental health in children.
"We also suggest that the link between fathers' and mothers' mental health presents a further potential avenue for alleviating maternal stress."
The paper Quantifying cross-sectional and longitudinal associations in mental health symptoms within families: network models applied to UK cohort data published in MBJ Open is published here
- doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2025-104829
