Nonetheless, we found that distal effects for fathers’ alcoholism were consistent across reporters (with the exception of the MLS sample in mother-report analyses) whereas we found distal effects for mother’s alcoholism only in parent-report analyses. Moreover, we found proximal effects of father’s alcohol-related symptoms in both father- and mother-report analyses and those for mother’s alcohol-related symptoms were found in both mother- and adolescent-report analyses. Finally, we found the time-varying effects of father’s alcohol-related symptoms in mother-, adolescent- and, to some extent, father-report analyses. Given potential parental bias in reporting children’s symptomatology related to the parents’ own psychopathology, the pattern of findings bolsters our confidence that reporter effects alone are not responsible for these effects. (For example, effects of maternal alcoholism were found in father-report analyses and not just mother-report analyses as well as vice-versa.)
