ArticleThe journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences2026
Receiving advice from mothers and depressive symptoms in midlife: exploring the moderating roles of gender and relationship quality.
Article in The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
objectivesAdvice has been conceptualized as both a form of support and as a threat to recipients' feelings of autonomy and competence. However, little is known about the effects of advice from mothers on adult children's psychological well-being. This study examines the association between the frequency of advice from mothers and adult children's depressive symptoms. In addition, we investigate the ways in which this association is shaped by the gender of the adult child and the quality of the mother-child relationship.
methodsThe sample included 687 adult children (mean age: 49.1) in 283 families collected as part of the Within-Family Differences Study. We used multilevel modeling to account for the nested structure of the data.
resultsUsing the full sample, we found that more frequent advice from mothers was associated with adult children's higher depressive symptoms. Models stratified by gender revealed that advice from mothers was associated with higher depressive symptoms among sons, but not daughters. Moderation analyses found that, among the full sample, mother-adult child tension exacerbated the association between advice from mothers and adult children's depressive symptoms. Gender comparisons revealed that, among sons, receiving advice was more strongly associated with greater depressive symptoms when tension was high or emotional closeness was low; however, neither closeness nor tension moderated the association between advice from mothers and daughters' depressive symptoms. DISCUSSION: This study contributes to the literature on intergenerational relations by highlighting the ways in which gender and relationship quality shape the association between receiving advice and well-being in midlife.
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