| |
Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
 | |
|
| Meeting filial responsibilities in brothers-only sibling groups | | Author(s) | Sarah H Matthews, Jenifer Heidorn |
| Journal title | The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, vol 53B, no 5, September 1998 |
| Pages | pp S278-S287 |
| Keywords | Brother ; Siblings ; Children [offspring] as carers ; Family relationships ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | 49 pairs of brothers without sisters whose parents were aged 74 and over participated in open-ended interviews to explain how their parents' needs were met. Inductive analysis of interviews identified elements of these brothers' approaches. 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 re-establish 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' level of involvement and support appeared to be a function of the quality of their relationships with their parents-in-law. Brothers' goals of maintaining or re-establishing independence for their parents matches most parents' wishes to be independent and not to burden their children, and precluded daughters-in-law from being sole providers of support. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-010117213 A |
| Classmark | SV6: SV: P6:SS: DS:SJ: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
|
| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
| |
|