Vital Defenses

Abstract

Guided by the conceptual frameworks of social support appraisal mechanisms and cultural variant perspectives, the reported experiences of 23 Black grandmothers parenting grandchildren who receive cash assistance under the current welfare program, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), were used to integrate macro-and micro-level perspectives by exploring mechanisms used to appraise social support resources within a historical context. Mechanisms of social support appraisals included personal esteem (i.e., adaptive pride, self-reliance, and personal resources) and social penetration (i.e., family respect and responsibility, reaction to myths or stereotypical views held about poor people, and normative child-centered activities) as economically poor grandmothers demonstrated strong personal integrity and familial responsibility. Grandmothers relied on a wide range of sources for formal and informal support to provide for their grandchildren. Recommendations for future research are discussed to fortify established family defenses.

Daily Family Routines of Italian and Ecuadorian Immigrant Mothers in Everyday Life

“…Another change that follows the arrival of a child is the introduction of the grandparent figure, who is able to materially and psychologically support the parents, playing the role of a "stress buffer" (Botcheva & Feldman, 2004). Grandparents help parents manage their children, making up for the lack of a welfare state (Stevenson, Henderson, & Baugh, 2007), in particular in families in which the mother has a job. They are figures whom parents trust and who can care for their grandchildren with competence and effectiveness (Gerard, Landry-Meyer, & Guzell Roe, 2006).…”

Toward an integrative framework of intergenerational coparenting within family systems: A scoping review

“…Second, in 2000, the United States Census introduced the question of whether coresident grandparents were caregivers of their grandchildren (Sadruddin et al, 2019). Third, the past two decades marked an industrial shift toward globalization, which resulted in more dual‐income households and migrant families (i.e., where parents and children are physically separated in different countries or cities) in many countries, urging grandparents into the role of caregivers (Stevenson et al, 2007).…”

Examining the Relationship between Social Support and Interracial Divorce in Louisiana

“…Earlier research on social support networks demonstrates that they can provide buffering effects against stress (Cobb, 1976), morbidity (House et al, 1988), and mortality (Berkman & Syme, 1979). Recent scholarship also suggests that social support is vital for personal and family wellbeing, especially for black families (Cross et al, 2018;Stevenson et al, 2007) and for interracial couples to access social capital (Jang & Danes, 2016). Social support could be conceptualized as both informal (through personal, primary connections such as family and friends) and formal (through professional, secondary connections such as marriage counselors).…”