Ambivalence in the Relationship of Adult Children to Aging Parents and In‐Laws

Willson, Andrea E.; Shuey, Kim M.; Elder, Glen H.

doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2003.01055.x

Cited by 209 publications

(255 citation statements)

References 60 publications

(88 reference statements)

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“…The potential role of the joint family system can be seen most clearly when comparing the results from Pariwarbasti with studies on the US and Great Britain, which have nuclear family systems. Western studies that compare the mother-in-law/ daughter-in-law relationship to the mother/daughter relationship consistently find that the mother/daughter relationship is more positive, in terms of ideals and experience (Fischer, 1983;Lee, Spitze, & Logan, 2003;Timmer & Veroff, 2000;Willson, Shuey, & Elder, 2003).…”

Section: The Relevance Of Love and Other Positive Aspectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Like Her Own: Ideals and Experiences of the Mother-In-Law/Daughter-In-Law Relationship

Allendorf

2015

Journal of Family Issues

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This article explores ideals and experiences of the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship using semi-structured interviews with 46 members of 22 families living in one Indian village. Ideally, the relationship is characterized by love and understanding, where one's mother-in-law or daughter-in-law is like one's own daughter or mother. In practice, the relationship varies in quality. Some women experienced affectionate, high quality relationships, while others' relationships were characterized by hurtful exchanges and not speaking. Previous literature portrays the relationship as negative, but these results point to the relevance of positive aspects as well. I also suggest that these ideals and experiences are shaped by the joint family system. The joint family system contributes to the strongly positive ideal, while the tensions that women experience arise from the contradictory family locations that they occupy within that system. Daughters-in-law and mothersin-law are simultaneously strangers and close family members. KeywordsFamily; mother-in-law; daughter-in-law; relationship quality; India; Asia Research on the family often focuses on relationships nestled in the heart of the nuclear family. There are large literatures devoted to both the marital (or cohabiting) relationship and the parent-child relationship. Research on the marital relationship has examined the nature and determinants of marital quality and its consequences for health and well-being (e.g. Glenn, 1990;Umberson, Williams, Powers, Liu, & Needham, 2006;Waite, Luo, & Lewin 2009). Similarly, research focused on the parent-child relationship explores the nature of the relationship and its consequences for children's life trajectories, intergenerational transfers, and caretaking of parents in old age (e.g. Pearce & Axinn, 1998;Sobolewski & Amato, 2007;Ward & Spitze, 1998).In comparison, relationships outside the nuclear family have received less attention. One such relationship that has been neglected is that between mothers-in-law and daughters-inlaw. Only a handful of studies explicitly set out to examine the nature of this relationship (Cotterill, 1994;Fischer, 1983;Jackson & Berg-Cross, 1988;Marotz-Baden & Cowan, 1987;Merrill, 2007;Shih & Pyke, 2010). This neglect is unfortunate since the relationship is a common and important component of family life. Many women embark on a relationship with a mother-in-law near the beginning of their adult lives and then a relationship with a daughter-in-law later on. HHS Public AccessAuthor manuscript J Fam Issues. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2016 May 02. Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptAuthor Manuscript Author ManuscriptWhile the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship is important in its own right, some studies suggest that the quality of this relationship affects women's well-being and the quality of other relationships. In South Asia, daughters-in-law with poor relationships with their mothers-in-law are more likely to experience depression (Chandran, Tharyan, Muliyil, & Abra...

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Section: The Relevance Of Love and Other Positive Aspectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Like Her Own: Ideals and Experiences of the Mother-In-Law/Daughter-In-Law Relationship

Allendorf

2015

Journal of Family Issues

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“…Fingerman et al's (2004) quantitative study of relationships between parents and children of different ages classified their sample as solely close, solely problematic, or ambivalent. As Willson et al (2003Willson et al ( ,1056 have pointed out, the 'emphasis on and attention to both positive and negative perceptions of relationship quality' are 'critical to the concept of ambivalence'.…”

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

The experience of co-residence: young adults returning to the parental home after graduation in England

Lewis

West

Roberts

et al. 2016

Families, Relationships and Societies

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Finishing full-time higher education is one of the main reasons for returning home to live. Graduates who return to co-residence with their parents experience a delay in achieving full adult independence, which may pose problems for them and for their parents. In this article we use face-to-face interview data to explore the feelings and perceptions of 27 co-resident graduate ‘returners’ and one of their parents. We classify parent–returner dyads into groups according to whether the members of each dyad are positive, negative or ambivalent about co-residence and identify the salient issues for each group. We find that more parents are negative about co-residence than adult children and that almost half the sample is ambivalent. We also discuss the factors accounting for differences between groups of dyads and between parents and adult children.

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“…For instance, Adam Smith's observation of the affective asymmetry of the parent-child relationship, that ''Nature, for the wisest purposes, has rendered, in most men, perhaps in all men, parental tenderness a much stronger affection than filial piety '' (1982, p. 142;III.3.13), if it points to something that is true in our day and age, might cast doubt on the fairness and feasibility of Richards' (2010, p. 240) proposal that children ought to give parents a place in their affections roughly equal to the place they had in their parents' affections. Another example might be the potential moral relevance of the (sociological and psychological) ambivalence of parent-child relations, a feature little stressed by writers on filial obligations, but receiving increasing attention in family studies (Luescher and Pillemer 1998;Willson, Shuey, and Elder 2003;Fingerman, Pitzer et al 2008).…”

Section: Filial Obligations 417mentioning

confidence: 99%

Filial Obligations: A Contextual, Pluralist Model

Schinkel¹

2012

J Ethics

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In this article I investigate the nature and extent of filial obligations. The question what (adult) children owe their parents is not only philosophically interesting, but also of increasing relevance in ageing societies. Its answer matters to elderly people and their adult children, and is relevant to social policy issues in various ways. I present the strongest arguments for and against three models of filial obligations: the 'past parental sacrifices' model, the 'special relationship' model, and the conventionalist model. There is something to be said-and after consideration of objections something remains to be said-for all three models. In other words: filial obligations have more than one source, and an adequate model of filial obligations should reflect this. On its own, each of the above models is one-sided. They also fail to show the connections between the question of filial obligations and various other issues, such as issues of gender justice, the extent of institutionalization of eldercare, and social conventions regarding filial responsibility. Therefore, I integrate what I think we should keep from the aforementioned models into a contextual, pluralist model, which places filial obligations in a broader social and cultural context and relates them to issues of social justice. The model also highlights the difference between general and specific filial obligations, and the factors that determine their nature and extent, thus enabling a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of filial obligations.

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Ambivalence in the Relationship of Adult Children to Aging Parents and In‐Laws

Cited by 209 publications

References 60 publications

Like Her Own: Ideals and Experiences of the Mother-In-Law/Daughter-In-Law Relationship

Like Her Own: Ideals and Experiences of the Mother-In-Law/Daughter-In-Law Relationship

The experience of co-residence: young adults returning to the parental home after graduation in England

Filial Obligations: A Contextual, Pluralist Model

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