As middle-class women enter retirement, through giving up a job or losing a spouse or dependent relative, they adopt different friendship strategies. Some extend and deepen existing relationships; some make new friends; some develop the role of 'good neighbour'; some grow closer to siblings. One of the most popular ways of making friends is to join a voluntary association, but this strategy is not always successful. Between them, friends provide a variety of services, supports and company. Old friends contribute something unique to the acceptance of ageing and adjustment to changing circumstances. Middle-class friendships have a hedonistic quality which matches the lifestyle of middle-class women in retirement.
Sociologists have paid relatively little attention to friendship, for a variety of reasons. This paper, based on an intensive study of a small group of middle‐class, middle‐aged English women, describes the basis of their attraction for each other, the activities they pursue together and the norms governing their interaction. Friendship emerges as a source of social integration. Friends are seen to play an important part in the creation and maintenance of social reality. Friendship offers relief from the strains of other role performance and provides a vehicle for the expression of feminine and status attributes. In this connection, attention is drawn to the role of women in the maintenance of the family's social position.
This article draws on material from the Bangor Longitudinal Study of Ageing.
The survivors, now all 80 plus, were interviewed first in 1979 and for the last
time in 1995. This paper concentrates on friendship over that period. Answers
to questions about the presence or absence of ‘real friends’ and about
satisfaction with the status quo are related to personal strategies for managing
change in the friendship network. Four types of response to current levels of
friendship are identified: contented, dissatisfied, needy and resigned. Examples
are given from each category, drawing on qualitative data.Findings suggest three types of movement over the 16 years in the relationships
of these very old respondents: contraction in the friendship network,
expansion, and the replacement of departed friends or fading friendships. New
friendships were unusual in departing from same-sex, same age and reciprocal
norms of adult friendship. The findings indicate that older adult friendships
might breach several of the norms of friendship common in earlier adulthood;
the distinctiveness of close relationships in advanced old age calls for its
treatment as a separate life stage.
Evidence of emotional distance between elderly parents and their adult children is taken from an anthropological study of ageing and family life. Two case studies drawn from a series of life history interviews illustrate the complex relationship between personal development, family relationships, culture and social structure. Unsatisfactory relationships are explained in terms of changing psychological needs through the life course, the cultural emphasis on independence and related values, the feminine tilt in family life, and the structure of in-law relationships. The complex interplay of these factors has implications for therapy with families experiencing estrangement.
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