Growing up faster? Post-divorce catalysts in the mother-adolescent relationship

Adding to the literature on post-divorce parent-adolescent relationships and applying the symbolic interactionist notion of reflective appraisal, we hypothesized that being called on by one's mother for emotional assistance and being exposed to maternal concerns/worries (sensitive maternal disclosures) would be related to adolescents' feeling older than their same-aged peers (high subjective age) and engaging in greater socializing/dating. We also examined whether those associations would be moderated by age. Questionnaire data were collected from 81 adolescents whose parents were divorced. Findings offer some support for our hypothesis. Mother-to-adolescent disclosures about financial and job concerns were associated with adolescents' high subjective age; and disclosure regarding personal concerns (e.g., things that make the mother sad) was associated with adolescents' greater social involvement/ dating. For younger adolescents,maternal negative disclosure about the ex-husband was associated with greater social involvement/dating. Further research is needed to determine why exposure to sensitive maternal disclosures seems to act as a catalyst for adolescents feeling older and being more socially active. Possible reasons are offered.