Meeting filial responsibilities in brothers-only sibling groups.

OBJECTIVES: This research examined how sons in brothers-only sibling groups meet the needs of their elderly parents. METHODS: 49 pairs of brothers without sisters whose parents were 74 years of age or older participated in open-ended interviews to explain how their parents' needs were met. Inductive analysis of interviews identified elements of these brothers' approaches. RESULTS: Brothers were in routine contact with and performed "masculine" services for their parents. Brothers acted independently and expected to be asked rather than volunteering help to their parents, except during times of crisis and transition. They defined their parents as self-sufficient, even when their parents' situations were precarious, and acted to reestablish their parents' independence when it was threatened. They viewed their parents' use of informal networks and formal services as appropriate. Brothers' wives provided "gender-appropriate" services. Wives' levels of involvement appeared to be a function of the quality of their relationships with their parents-in-law. Wives who helped were part of a support network. DISCUSSION: Brothers' goals of maintaining or reestablishing independence for their parents matches most parents' wishes to be independent and not to burden their children. The brothers' goal of self-sufficiency for their parents precluded their wives being the sole providers of support to their parents.

Caught in the middle? Occupancy in multiple roles and help to parents in a national probability sample of Canadian adults.

This article considers, for a Canadian national probability sample of middle-aged women and men, the question of how typical is the experience of being "caught in the middle" between being the adult child of elderly parents and other roles. Three roles are examined: adult child, employed worker, and parent (and a refinement of the parent role, being a parent of a co-resident child). Occupancy in multiple roles is examined, followed by an investigation of the extent to which adults in various role combinations actually assist older parents and whether those who provide frequent help are also those "sandwiched" by competing commitments. The majority of middle-aged children do not provide frequent help to parents. Notably, the highest proportion of daughters who assist elderly parents are those in their fifties whose children are no longer co-resident. For both sons and daughters, being "caught in the middle" is far from a typical experience in this cross-sectional analysis.

Gender and the division of filial responsibility between lone sisters and their brothers.

Descriptions of and rationales for the division of responsibility for elderly parents by 50 sister-brother dyads in sibling groups that included only one sister were analyzed qualitatively to explore why provision of services is a gendered activity or at the very least appears to be. Three interrelated factors were identified: (a) Family members adopted cultural assumptions about what constituted gender-appropriate behavior; (b) the lone sister typically was "in charge" of service provision; (c) brothers' actual contributions tended to be considered unimportant by both sisters and brothers. The gender composition of the sibling group is suggested to be an important context within which the meanings of gender and parent care are negotiated.

Is parent care normative? The experiences of a sample of middle-aged women.

In the current literature on parent care, the assertion is made that modern women at some time in their lives may expect to be sandwiched between responsibilities to old parents and their other commitments. This article presents the distribution for a random sample of 163 women aged 40 to 69 with respect to combinations of variables or commitment configurations that have been identified in the literature as contributing to women's being "caught in the middle." In addition, the lifetime caregiving experiences and the likelihood that those who have not yet been caregivers will be "caught" are examined for a subsample of the women. The argument is made that adult children rather than caregivers to frail parents are the appropriate population on which to focus if the incidence and prevalence of the involvement of adult children in parent care are to be ascertained.

Relative contributions of help by employed and nonemployed sisters to their elderly parents.

The relationship between daughters' employment status and involvement in the provision of services to old parents was examined using information collected from 50 pairs of sisters whose employment status differed. The Wilcoxon matched-pairs, signed-ranks test was used to assess whether employment status affected perceptions of parents' needs, relative contributions to parents, and relative contributions when parents' health status was poorer. Nonemployed sisters contributed relatively more tangible services than their employed sisters when parents' health status was poorer. Qualitative analysis of the interviews indicated that although nonemployed sisters usually took disproportionate responsibility for medical appointments and day-time emergencies and care, employed sisters were expected to contribute in other ways. That the significance of individual attributes of family members makes sense only within the family context is stressed.

Adolescents' relationships with grandparents: an empirical contribution to conceptual clarification.

Findings from research in which a sample of 132 late adolescents completed questionnaires about their relationships with each of their living grandparents are reported. The grandchildren were most likely to describe their relationships with their maternal grandmothers as close and least likely to describe their bonds with the paternal grandparents in this way. Grandchildren's current evaluations of relationships with their grandparents were affected by access to the particular grandparent in childhood and their perceptions of each of their parents' relationships with the specific grandparent. The findings demonstrate empirically the importance for future research of conceptualizing the grandparent-grandchild tie as both particularistic and mediated through a biological and an in-law-child.