ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we examine the effects of parents’ personal networks on their parenting attitudes and behaviors. To limit ourselves to that single connection-between personal networks and parenting-would, however, run counter to the ecological perspective guiding this book, because personal networks are, in part, social lines of transmission, carrying the influences of the larger society into the life-space of the individual and family. Thus, to a significant degree, a parent’s network reflects her or his position in the social structure of a given society. For that reason, the impacts of that network on parenting attitudes and behavior must be understood as the impacts of that social structure, and his or her location in it.
