Interviewing eighteen older parents (aged 65 and older) with two or more
children for this project established support for the emotional experience of
intergenerational ambivalence. Seventy-five parent-child relationships were
discussed. Two major themes arose over what healthy, independently living
parents feel ambivalent about in their relationships with their midlife children. The
first theme focused on how parents simultaneously felt sadness and pride about the
busyness of their children's lives. In some respects, parents sensed themselves left
out of their children's everyday life, yet they accepted these feelings with a
gratified knowledge that their children were functioning adults in society. The
second theme of intergenerational ambivalence that surfaced from the interviews
was the issue of respecting and negotiating boundaries around spheres of
influence. Parents oscillated between positive and negative feelings and thoughts
about the appropriateness of offering advice to children. Parents shared conflicted
thoughts about stepping back, allowing their children to live their own lives even if
they disapproved of certain aspects of it. A few parents shared situations when
they felt they did interfere and overstepped their right to comment on their
children's life decisions. This theme centered around four issues: financial matters,
core beliefs of politics and religion, romantic partnerships, and parenting styles.
This study also examined management strategies parents used to sort out
and think through complex feelings and thoughts about their midlife children. A
contribution this project gives to the emergence of intergenerational ambivalence
as a theoretical concept of study in parent-child relations over the lifecourse is the
experience of older mothers and fathers. I found no evidence parents experienced
qualitatively different emotions because of their gender. Instead, the underlying
experience of intergenerational ambivalence was very similar for mothers and
fathers. From the results presented in this study, mixed emotions seem to be a
natural and normative experience in late life. Older parents experienced
ambivalence on a psychological level. Conflicting inner thoughts and mixed
emotions resulted from everyday interactions and conversations with midlife
children. / Graduation date: 2004
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/31892 |
| Date | 02 June 2003 |
| Creators | Peters, Cheryl L. |
| Contributors | Hooker, Karen A. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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