Mothers’ Self-Esteem and Maternal Attitudes

Becoming a mother is one of the most important events in a woman's life. The dynamic transformation of a woman's personality is the key to the process of becoming a mother, and each woman's experience of transitioning to motherhood is unique. The transition to motherhood brings with it a restructuring of goals, behaviors, and responsibilities to achieve a new sense of self. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between mothers' self-esteem and maternal attitudes. The study investigated the mothers' self-esteem levels, their attitudes towards parenting, the relationship between self-esteem and maternal attitudes, and the effects of some demographic variables on self-esteem and attitudes towards motherhood. The study, designed in the relational screening model, used a Demographic Information Form, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and Attitude Towards Parenting Scale-Mother Form to obtain data. The study was conducted with 490 mothers over the age of 18 who volunteered. In the study, a low-level positive relationship was found between self-esteem and the interest dimension of the attitude scale towards parenting, a moderate relationship with the satisfaction dimension, and a high-level positive relationship with the total attitude. The mean scores of the mothers showed that they had normal self-esteem and positive parenting attitudes. It was determined that the attitude scores decreased as the educational status increased in the interest dimension of the attitude scale towards parenting. No statistical difference was found between marital status, employment status, socioeconomic level, number of children, family type, and parenting attitudes and self-esteem.