Intermarriage and mother-child relationships

Research indicates that when adult children marry, ties to parents weaken. Yet less is known about how spousal characteristics, and specifically, spouse's race or ethnicity, affect ties to the family of origin. This paper uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to ask how interracial/ethnic marriage, compared to same-race/ethnicity marriage, is associated with ties to mothers among young adults in the United States. Results indicate that offspring who are intermarried differ little in their relationships to mothers compared to those who married same-race/ethnicity partners. However, findings from this study suggest that intermarriage may have greater consequences for some groups, such as Blacks, compared to other racial/ethnic groups. Overall, the results highlight how intermarriage has a relatively limited effect on offspring relationships with mothers and suggest a role for future research that examines how ties to parents during adolescence may shape partner choices during young adulthood.