The Role of Boomerang Fathers in Adolescent Female Depression

Depression is a common mental health disorder among adolescents, often first developing shortly after puberty and peaking in young adulthood (Hankin et al., 1998; Thapar, Collishaw, Pine, & Thapar, 2012). Depressive symptoms can fluctuate during adolescence (Wight, Sepulveda, & Aneshensel, 2004) and can have negative consequences for child academic outcomes, self-esteem, and problem behaviors, including alcohol and substance abuse, suicide ideation, and suicide (Harlow, Newcomb, & Bentler, 1986; Lemstra et al., 2008; Marmorstein, 2009). Furthermore, adolescent depression is a precursor to a broad range of psychosocial difficulties in adulthood, including anxiety disorders and bipolar disorder (Copeland, Shanahan, Costello, & Angold, 2009; Fergusson, Horwood, Ridder, & Beautrais, 2005), and is associated with forming less committed romantic unions in early adulthood (Manning, Trella, Lyons, & Du Toit, 2010; Sandberg-Thoma & Kamp Dush, 2014). Although depression is common among both genders, girls are twice as likely to experience depressive symptomatology. This may be related to girls focusing inward on their emotions rather than actively relieving their distress (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2001).Although there are biological precursors to depression, research also highlights environmental triggers, such as the family environment. Previous research indicates that father absence (Amato, 1991) and family instability (Brown, 2006) during childhood are associated with long-term child mental health problems. This is especially true for adolescent daughters who experience father absence during early childhood (Culpin, Heron, Araya, Melotti,J Halpern-Meekin & Turney, 2016) or cyclical cohabitors (Nepomnyaschy & Teitler, 2013). These terms refer to partners who cycle in and out of the home because of breaking up and repartnering with the same partner and consequently are in on-again and off-again romantic relationships (Dailey, Pfiester, Jin, Beck, & Clark, 2009; Dailey, Rossetto, Pfiester, & Surra, 2009). As such, the current literature has not investigated how paternal churning (or other more fluid residential patterns of biological fathers) could be associated with adolescent depressive symptomatology. By focusing on how this understudied residential pattern (churning) may influence the parenting role a biological father may enact (which we refer to as boomerang fathering), our research contributes to existing literature by providing national estimates of the proportion of youth who experience cyclical paternal relationships from birth to age 18. Furthermore, we describe the characteristics of households that experience boomerang fathering and compare those characteristics with various father residential patterns. Last, we assess whether boomerang fathering is associated with higher or lower rates of adolescent depressive symptoms among boys and girls.Boomerang FatheringYoung adulthood is seen as a pivotal time point for developing intimate relationships (Arnett, 2000, 2007); thus, research examining on-again and off-again romantic relationships has primarily focused on young adults (e.g., Dailey, Brody, LeFebvre, & Crook, 2013; Dailey, Pfiester, et al., 2009; Dailey, Rossetto, McCracken, Jin, & Green, 2012). Among young adults in dating relationships, 50% to 60% have reported churning with the same partner (Dailey, Pfiester, et al. …