The Power of Daughters: The Role of Sibship Gender Composition in Mother-Adult Child Relations

Abstract

Prior scholarship demonstrates that older mothers receive more care from daughters, prefer daughters as caregivers, and have stronger emotional bonds with daughters. Despite these clear gendered differences in care, care preferences, and closeness, less is known about whether the presence of daughters in a family affects mother-adult son relationships or whether the presence of sons in a family affects mother-adult daughter relationships. Drawing from theories of gender socialization and social exchange, we propose that mothers would, given the choice between daughters and sons, prefer to receive care from and engage in emotional exchanges with daughters. Therefore, we predict sons’ care to and emotional closeness with older mothers will be inversely related to the number of daughters in the family. We test our hypotheses with mixed-method data from 1,577 mother-adult child dyads nested within 420 families collected as part of the Within-Family Differences Study-II. Findings support our hypotheses. The larger the number of daughters, the less likely sons are to provide care to their mothers, whereas the likelihood of daughters providing care is unaffected by the number of sons. Similarly, the larger the number of daughters, the lower closeness mothers report with their sons, whereas mother-adult daughter closeness is unrelated to the number of sons. In sum, our findings show ways in which both an adult child’s gender and the gender composition of their sibship affect mother-adult child relationships, as well as highlighting the applicability of theories of gender socialization and social exchange to the context of aging families.

The Effect of Mother-Daughter Connectedness and Social Comparison Motivation on Co-Shopping and Co-Consumption: a Research on Adult Daughters

“…These interactions between adult daughters and mothers increase daughters' social support for their mothers and induce mothers to converse more with their daughters about their preferences (Kestler & Paulins, 2014;Suitor & Pillemer, 2006). Emotional interaction between adult daughters and their mothers continues (Frase et al, 2022). Adult daughters have an active contribution to their mothers' lives (Alford, 2021).…”

“…Throughout their lives, adult daughters have an ongoing and active contribution throughout life in their relationships with their mothers (Alford, 2021). Frase et al (2022), in their study on mother-adult daughter pairs, emphasize that in families with a higher number of female children, mothers receive more attention from their daughters. There are stronger emotional bonds between adult daughters and their mothers.…”

“…There are stronger emotional bonds between adult daughters and their mothers. Mothers prefer to have more emotional exchanges with their daughters than with their sons (Frase et al, 2022). As the daughter grows older, the mother-daughter relationship becomes closer and resembles a friendship relationship (Arnett, 2007).…”

Empati sebagai Mediator Hubungan Komunikasi Keluarga dan Distress Psikologis pada Mother-Daughter Relationship

“…Kedekatan antara ibu yang berusia lanjut dan anak mereka ditularkan lebih kuat kepada anak perempuan mereka yang sudah dewasa daripada anak laki-laki, hal ini kemudian mampu berkontribusi pada kualitas hubungan antara anak perempuan yang sudah dewasa dan ibu mereka [8]. Terdapat juga penelitian yang mendukung bahwa anak perempuan memberikan lebih banyak perawatan kepada ibu mereka yang lebih tua dibandingkan dengan anak laki-laki [9].…”