Remarried Families: Under the View of Grandparents

Abstract

The remarried family comes from a previous separation, by one or both partners, creating a new union that leads to the needs of adaption and shaping of new relationships among its members. Being it a time of transition, most often, grandparents are present, providing emotional and instrumental support to their children and grandchildren. This study therefore aimed to understand how the grandparents perceive and experience the remarriage of their children. The participants were nine grandmothers and one grandfather, aged between 48 and 83 years. They answered a semi-structured interview that was analyzed according to Thematic Content Analysis. The results showed a large involvement of grandparents in the remarriages of children, contributing to the adjustment of grandchildren to this new family. Acceptance and support for the choice of the children proved to be essential to achieve a sense of family among all those involved in this system.

Não foi bom pai, nem bom marido: Conjugalidade e parentalidade em famílias separadas de baixa renda

“…Grandparents may have an important role to families after separation or divorce, providing two main kinds of support: emotional (such as affection, company, advice, transmitting values) and instrumental (like staying at home with the child, financial aid, food supply). The intensity of such support depends on the location, custody, age, marital status and employment of grandparents (Schuler & Dias, 2015). The cases analyzed herein point out that most participants returned to their parents' home after separation, or live in houses provided by them.…”

“…This authority sometimes is assigned to parents, other times to grandparents and other to the closest references. Contradictory messages sent by these figures of authority may confound children and interfere on their understanding of which behaviors are acceptable to their proper development (McGoldrick & Shibusawa, 2012;Minuchin et al, 2011;Schuler & Dias, 2015).…”

“…They need the support offered by the large family, and must manage the dilution of parental authority in face of the active participation of other adults in their children's lives (McGoldrick & Shibusawa, 2012;Schuler & Dias, 2015).…”