Study: Nagging Mothers with High Expectations Raise Successful Daughters

Nagging gets a lot of flak in most circles. Some say that reminding your children over and over again to do their homework, wash the dishes, pick up their clothes from the floor, and so forth only teaches them to tune out your voice.

However, research has found that nagging actually gets things done—at least in the case of teenage girls. The study conducted by the University of Essex in England found that daughters with pushy mothers are more likely to be successful. 

Girls whose parents have high expectations are less likely to become pregnant in their teens and perform better at school

Head researcher Ericka Rascon-Ramirez studied the lives of 15,770 girls from 2004 to 2010. The girls were first interviewed at the ages of 13 and 14 between the ages of 13 and 14. She found that the higher parental expectations were, the lower the likelihood of teenage pregnancy became.

"It is worth highlighting that the measure of expectations considered in this study, reflects a combination of aspirations and beliefs about the likelihood of attending Higher Education reported by the main parent, who in the majority of cases, is the mother."

As much as nagging parents annoy teenagers, their influence is undoubtable. 

It also found that pushy parents also led to a positive result in teenage girls’ academic performances—especially if they weren’t particularly academic. This is because these girls don’t have friends or teachers who put in the work to motivate them, and so the influence of a pushy parent tends to be more pronounced.

Even when teenagers try to act independently or defy their parents’ expectations, the nagging of well-meaning parents still has an effect on their performance.

"What our parents expected about our school choices was a major determinant of our decisions about conceiving a child or not during our teenage years”

“In many cases, we succeeded in doing what we believed was more convenient for us, even when this was against our parents’ will,” Rascon-Ramirez said in a media briefing. “But no matter how hard we tried to avoid our parents’ recommendations, it is likely that they ended up influencing, in a more subtle manner, choices that we had considered extremely personal.

"What our parents expected about our school choices was, very likely, a major determinant of our decisions about conceiving a child or not during our teenage years.”