PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIP

Throughout recorded history, there has been an interest in understanding the causes and consequences of the complex relationship between parents and children. Despite frequently expressed worries about the weakening of inter-generational ties, the evidence has demonstrated the continued intensity and influence of these ties. In fact, recent research has shown that the intensity of the bond retains its strength even long after the parents' deaths (Shmotkin, 1999). Of interest here is the relationship between adult children and their parents, particularly factors that affect the quality of relations between the generations. Also important in this discussion is how the childless fare, relative to parents, in terms of happiness and well-being in their later years.

Parent-adult child relations in historical context

Changes in American society during the twentieth century led parent-adult child relations to be of increasing interest to scholars, policymakers, and the lay public. Gains in average life expectancy have provided parents and children the opportunity for even more enduring intergenerational relationships than in previous eras. For example, men born in 1920 were expected, on average, to live to be only 54; by 1950, their life expectancy had risen to 66, and by 1996, to 73. Women's life expectancy increased even more across the same period, from 55 for women born in 1920, to 71 in 1950, and 79 in 1996. Such increases in life expectancy provide greater opportunities for meaningful family exchanges across the generations.

However, the opportunity for greater family involvement may not be sufficient to produce warm and supportive intergenerational relations. In fact, both the popular and scholarly literatures have often framed parent–adult child relations as potentially problematic. Such concerns can be attributed to certain societal trends that may create obstacles to harmonious and supportive relations between the generations. First, increased life expectancy leads to a greater likelihood that families will spend longer periods of time caring for disabled elderly relatives. Coupled with declining fertility, this development suggests that larger numbers of elderly people will be cared for by fewer offspring. Adult children, in turn, will bear the costs of caring for aged parents, with fewer siblings to assist them.

In addition, the nature of parent-child relations in later life became substantially more voluntary toward the end of the twentieth century. That is, elderly parents' relationships with grown children are characterized by choice, rather than by obligation. In the past, control of family resources was a major method of ensuring contact with, and care by, children. In contemporary society, the young are dependent on the labor market for their livelihood, rather than on elderly parents. Further, norms of filial responsibility were more clearly articulated in the past. At present, the amount and nature of parent-child contact and the degree of mutual aid between the generations tend to be individually negotiated, with only limited guidance from society.

What is remarkable, in the face of such obstacles to high relationship quality, is that parent– adult child ties tend, on average, to be warm and supportive despite the difficulties that both generations face.

The quality of parent-adult child relations

Children and parents' social characteristics and intergenerational relations. It has been demonstrated that both children's and parents' social characteristics are crucial to an understanding of intergenerational relations. Three social characteristics play a particularly important role in determining the quality of parent-child relations in later life: age, gender, and race.

Age. Theories of adult development and intergenerational relations suggest that the age of the adult child affects the quality of parent-child relations. These theories argue that as adult children become older, there is less conflict and greater closeness in the parent-child relationship because maturational changes reduce differences between parents and adult children, thus minimizing the bases for conflict between them. Further, these theories posit that as children and parents age, there is greater tolerance for any intergenerational differences that remain. Empirical studies conducted with both adult children and elderly parents provide support for these theories by showing consistently that relations are more harmonious when children are older.

Gender. A review of the literature suggests that the gender of both parent and child affects intergenerational relations. Studies of the effects of gender consistently demonstrate stronger affectional ties between mothers and daughters than any other combination. For example, mothers report more positive affect with adult daughters than sons, and they are more likely to rely on daughters than sons as confidants and comforters. In turn, adult daughters report greater feelings of closeness to mothers than fathers.

The literature on other parent-child gender combinations suggests that there is greater closeness and less conflict in both mother-son and father-daughter pairs than in father-son pairs. The preponderance of studies of intergenerational relations have found that adult sons report greater closeness to mothers than to fathers, whereas fathers report greater closeness to daughters than to sons.

Race and ethnicity. Research on ethnic diversity in families in the later years has grown considerably during the past two decades. Most of this work has focused on differences between black and white families; however, both Hispanic and Asian families have also received attention.

The literature has revealed some consistent differences in intergenerational relations between black and white families. In particular, elderly blacks are substantially more likely than whites to live in two- and three-generational households, and to be involved in their grandchildren's day-to-day activities. Further, it appears that there is greater closeness and less intergenerational conflict in black than in non-black families. C. V. Willie (1988) has argued that older blacks are less insistent that younger family members adhere to their elders' customs than are nonblacks, which might reduce the basis for conflict over intergenerational value discrepancies; however, the few studies that have investigated this issue have not provided a consistent picture.

Parent–adult child relations among Hispanics appear to differ from those of both blacks and whites. For example, parent-adult child contact is more frequent among Hispanics than whites or blacks, and Hispanic parents are more likely to live with their adult children than are blacks or whites. Further, several studies suggest greater intrafamily support in Hispanic than non-Hispanic white families. However, because most of these studies do not separate the role of adult children from that of other close family members, it is difficult to determine with certainty whether parent-child relations are closer in Hispanic than non-Hispanic families.

Although the population of elderly Asians is growing rapidly in the United States, there is relatively little literature on parent–adult child relations among these ethnic groups. The literature that exists suggests that there are inconsistencies in the patterns of parent-child relations among Asian-American families. On one hand, filial piety is still normative, and parent–adult child coresidence is common, yet Chinese-American parents who do not live with their children have lower frequency of contact with them than do black, white, or Hispanic parents. Further, value differences which might lead to conflict between parents and children are increasingly common in Asian families.

Life events, parent-child relations, and parents' well-being. Changes in either parents' or children's social characteristics may have profound effects on intergenerational relations. It is important to distinguish between transitions that are experienced by adult children and those experienced by elderly parents, as well as to make a distinction between two types of transitions: those that are normative—that is, transitions that are socially acceptable and expected to occur at a given time—and those that are nonnormative.

Effects of adult children's normative transitions. Numerous studies have found a consistent pattern of increased intergenerational closeness and contact when children experience normative transitions. For example, parents and adult children appear to become closer when children establish separate households, marry, and become parents. In part, there is a positive change in intergenerational relations when adult children experience these normative transitions because such transitions confirm that the adult child is conforming to societal norms regarding maturational development. An often neglected point is that normative transitions also improve parent-child relations because these transitions increase the number of social structural positions that adult children share with their parents.

Effects of adult children's nonnormative transitions. Considering that normative transitions generally intensify affectional bonds, it is not surprising to find that nonnormative transitions sometimes affect parent-adult child relations detrimentally. However, whether the nonnormative transition affects relations appears to be determined greatly by the extent to which the transition challenges parents' values.

Recent studies of adult children's transitions support this argument. For example, studies have shown that relations between middle-class sons and their parents often become strained when the adult children, particularly sons, lose their jobs. Further, adult children's relationships with their parents have been found to suffer when the children engage in illegal behaviors, regardless of whether the actions lead to legal action.

Nonnormative transitions that do not challenge the parents' values appear to have far less impact on parent-adult child relations. For example, it appears that adult children's returning to live in their parents' homes creates little distress in the parent-child relationship. The preponderance of the literature suggests that a child's divorce also has little or no deleterious effect on the quality of parent-child relations. In fact, some findings suggest that there might even be an increase in parent–adult child closeness following a child's divorce. However, studies have not examined whether the effects of an adult child's divorce on parent-child relations is affected by either circumstances surrounding the divorce or by the parents' values regarding marriage.

Children's stressful life events and parents' well-being. While negative life events in the lives of adult children do not necessarily affect the quality of the parent-child relationship, they do affect parents' psychological well-being. Studies have shown that problems experienced by adult children, and contact with children during these periods, can detrimentally affect elderly parents' well-being. For example, it has been found that parents whose adult children have had mental, physical, substance abuse, or stress-related problems experience greater depression and emotional distress than do parents whose children did not have these problems.

Further, parents of mentally ill adults have been found to experience both substantial psychological distress and reduced marital quality because of problems associated with their children's bizarre and threatening behaviors. Violence and abuse by adult children has been found to be particularly distressing to elderly parents.

Morale may also suffer if adult children's problems require parents to continue to provide them with care and support. Such continued assistance is associated with increased psychological distress among the elderly. Thus, to the extent that problems experienced by children lead to their increased dependency, the quality of the relationship tends to decline, and decrements in psychological well-being can result.

Effects of parents' normative transitions. Both retirement and widowhood have been identified as normative transitions that have potential for affecting relationships between parents and adult children. Some scholars have suggested that parental retirement might represent a major crisis for adult children because it could signify that parents could lose their productive roles and eventually die. Further, it has been argued that children might fear that the resulting decrease in parental income would require them to assume financial responsibility for their parents while they are still supporting their own children. However, recent studies that have been conducted on this issue have found either no effects of retirement on intergenerational relations, or greater contact and closeness between the generations.

In contrast to retirement, the widowhood of a parent involves a direct change in the lives of adult children. Widowhood has been found to be one of the most stressful of all life events, and marks a drastic change in the life of the surviving spouse. Adult children have been found to be a particularly important source of emotional support and instrumental assistance to the surviving parent during this time. Further, there appears to be a general pattern of stability and continuity in parent-child relationships following widowhood.

Effects of parents' nonnormative transitions. Divorce is among the most common non-normative transitions in the lives of parents of adult children. The preponderance of work on this topic has shown that the detrimental effects of parental divorce on intergenerational relations continue throughout the life course. For example, it has been found that both divorced and remarried parents provide less emotional support to their adult children, have less frequent contact, and report lower levels of parent-child solidarity than do parents who have not divorced. The effects of divorce on closeness vary by gender of the parent. Divorce appears to be more detrimental to fathers' than mothers' relationships with their adult children. In fact, many mothers and daughters continue to have very close relationships following the mother's divorce.

Family caregiving to elderly parents: patterns and consequences

As the elderly population grows, so will the number of family members involved in their care. It is estimated that in 2001, approximately 2.2 million people provided unpaid help to elderly disabled relatives, and that these individuals provide 80 percent of the care received by the frail elderly. Of these individuals, more than one-third were adult children. Daughters continue to be substantially more likely than sons to be primary caregivers to their parents, although sons' participation in caregiving has increased. In part, daughters' greater caregiving to elderly parents can be explained by the general trend toward a traditional division of family tasks in the United States. However, another contributing factor is that older parents are more likely to be cared for by adult children of the same gender, and gender differences in life expectancy result in a larger number of women than men who receive care.

Reviews of the caregiving literature have shown that caregivers experience increased depression and demoralization, as well as increased psychiatric illness. Although the evidence is less clear, caregivers also appear to be more vulnerable to physical illness. Further, studies of caregiving suggest that these physical and psychological costs of caregiving are greater for women than men, and women who become caregivers are more likely than men to experience a loss of income and retirement benefits as a consequence of their caregiving.

Studies of the effects of caregiving on the quality of the parent-child relationship do not provide an entirely consistent picture. Some studies indicate that declines in parents' health often result in decreased closeness and attachment between them and their adult children; however, other research suggests that caregiving is more likely to have positive than negative consequences on relationship quality.

There are theoretical bases for suggesting that the motivation of adult-child caregivers determines whether caregiving has positive or negative effects on the parent-child relationship. In particular, it has been suggested that adult children who are motivated by attachment, rather than by exchange or obligation, would experience better relationships. Findings of research on the connection between caregiver motivation and the quality of parent-child relations support this argument by revealing that the parent–adult child caregiving relationship is better when daughters are motivated by feelings of affection and closeness.

Effects of childlessess on the elderly

Considering the closeness and mutually supportive relationships that many adult children and elderly parents enjoy, it is reasonable to expect that elderly individuals who are parents would be happier than those who do not have children. However, the research on this issue has consistently demonstrated that individuals who are childless are as happy and well-adjusted as are parents, even in the later years. Further, people who are sixty-five or older and do not have children are more likely to report advantages than disadvantages of childlessness. Individuals who have remained childless have been found to develop social networks that compensate for the absence of support from adult children. However, the emphasis on such compensatory mechanisms vary by gender. For example, childless women are more likely than their male counterparts to develop close friendship networks and become involved with community and religious organizations. Not surprisingly, older individuals who are the most likely to be disadvantaged by their childlessness are widowed men who had been dependent primarily on their wives for instrumental and emotional support.

The one area in which there are substantial differences between the experiences of parents and the childless in the later years is living arrangements. Elderly people who are childless are about 50 percent more likely to live in some form of residential care at some point than are parents. One might expect that this would mean that childless men would be the most likely to live in residential care at some point in their later years; however, the fact that women are more likely to be childless, combined with their longer life expectancy, means that childless women are more likely than childless men to live in residentialcare facilities at some point.

J. Jill Suitor Karl Pillemer

See also Caregiving, Informal; Filial Obligations; Intergenerational Exchanges; Kin; Parental Obligations.

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