Investigating How Parental Support Varies Across Racially Diverse Mothers and Fathers in Relation to Emerging Adults' Multiracial Experiences and Psychological Distress

The present study examined Multiracial emerging adults' reports of up to two of their primary caregivers' support of their Multiracial experiences, in addition to their reports on outcomes of their own feelings of Multiracial pride, challenges with racial identity, lack of family acceptance, and psychological distress. We then organized participants' chosen primary caregivers into mothers and fathers, and also sorted them by race as either White, monoracial People of Color, or Multiracial to investigate how links between parental support of Multiracial experiences and the outcomes varied based on parent characteristics. We recruited 628 Multiracial American emerging adults between the ages of 18 and 29 (M = 19.91, SD = 2.34) from three universities in different regions of the United States to participate in an online survey. ANOVA tests indicated that White mothers and fathers were perceived to provide significantly less support of Multiracial experiences. The regression analyses for mother and father models found that support was related to more Multiracial pride, and for father models it was related to lower scores on lack of family acceptance and psychological distress. In addition, findings indicated that participants with White mothers reported more challenges with racial identity compared to participants with monoracial mothers of color or Multiracial mothers. The moderation analyses did not detect significant interactions between support and mother or father race predicting the outcomes. Our findings highlight that parent race and gender may play a role in Multiracial youths' perceptions of support, and that support may be associated with the development of Multiracial pride, lack of family acceptance, and psychological distress.