Relationships – Marriage, Grandparenthood and Family Caregiving

Lecture 13 – PS277

Marriage and Partnerships in Late Life

Marital satisfaction over life course

Predicting low satisfaction and divorce – Gottman’s work

Late life marriages

Widowhood, remarriage and gender

Marital Satisfaction Over Life Course

Role of kids (vs. child-free couples)

Individual differences in parenthood transiiton – Cowans

General pattern is less steep if account for these variations

Factors Predicting Marital Dissatisfaction and Divorce

Gottman’s research on couple discussions and affect

Predicting 80-90% of divorces from short observations of newlyweds’ discussions

Gender differences very important in these patterns

Gender Differences in Couple Discussions of Problems

Who expresses more emotions in these problem discussions?

Who gets the most upset physiologically?

Who is the most likely to avoid or try to escape discussions?

What Patterns Predict to Later Divorce in Younger Couples?

What patterns predict biggest subsequent problems?

Negative start-up in wives Stonewalling and stubbornness in

husbands Reciprocation of negatives in wives No de-escalation of arousal for men

with use of positives, humour

How Do Older Couples’ Marriages Differ from Middle-Aged (Levinson et al., 1993)?

What predict based on life course curve for midlife vs. older couples’ satisfaction?

Increased pleasure for: children/grandchildren, dreams, vacations, things done recently

Decreased conflict for: children, money, religion, recreation

Middle-aged couples showed more differences between spouses on pleasure in dreams, accomplishments, plans for future, past good times – older adults showed no differences on any topic

Patterns of Emotional Expression in Older Couples (Carstensen et al., 1995)

Socioemotional selectivity theory – older adults motivated to seek more positive emotional experiences, minimize negative

Consistent with this, older adults in study of problem discussions expressed more affection, less disgust and whining, even controlling for problem severity – these factors predict problems in younger couples

For unhappy couples only, negative start-up sequences were lower for older adults…they seemed to be better at avoiding getting into hassles

Wives express more emotion than husbands, both positive and negative, in older couples like younger

Gender Differences in Widowhood and Remarriage

50% or more of women over 65 are widows, only 16% of men

Men are more likely to remarry than women, especially in later life, also have shorter life spans, so less likely widowed

Widowhood is harder on men than women as a status in many ways – Marriage may be a better deal for men than for women psychologically!

However, financial situation of widowed or divorced women is often more problematic – get only part of husband’s pensions, etc.

Marital Status of Old and Oldest-Old in Canada

The Darwins

Darwin died at Down in 1882, at age 73, of heart failure

Emma lived on for 14 more years as a widow, dying in 1896. She moved to stay closer to family, lived with unmarried daughters

Emma’s diary records her pleasure in children and grandchildren, and her many positive memories of times spent with Charles

Outline

Grandparenting styles of interaction

Grandparent stories and generativity

Caregiving to elderly in later life family

Research on Grandparenting Styles

Neugarten & Weinstein (1964): early studies that suggested several distinct styles of grandparenthood in relating to grandchild

Mueller, Wilhelm, Elder (2002): 5 different styles found in their study of rural US families

Mueller et al.(2002) Grandparenting Types

Factors Predicting Group Differences in Mueller et al. Study

Maternal vs. paternal side

Number of grandchildren

Parental encouragement

Proximity

Child and grandparent gender?

Grandparent personality??

Special Grandparent Roles – Caretaking and Co-Residing Grandparents and Their Effects

In many cultures, grandparents live with and care for younger grandchildren – this may be more common in aboriginal groups in Canada too

In North America, lower income and ethnic families more likely to have three-generational households overall

Caretaking by grandparents more common with parent stressors, such as divorce, poverty

Pittman (2007) found co-residing grandmothers were associated with somewhat lower levels of depression in adolescents, and single mothers often do better with grandmothers’ support

Important Functions of Grandparents in Storytelling (Norris et al., 2004)

Establishing close bonds

Conveying family and personal history

Teaching values

Fostering generativity in family

Conveying a model of aging

What about Children’s Stories about Grandparents?

Think about something important that you learned from a grandparent. What would you say?

Example Story of Grandparent Teaching a Value by an Adolescent

Susan, Age 15:  (Kind and caring) “My grandparents, they've always lived on a farm, they've always had horses and ever since I was very young, my grandfather taught me how to ride… Like he found something that I was interested in and that he was interested in and we did it together, and it was a grandfather-granddaughter thing you know, and that's something that I really do respect him for, because there would be times when we were like cleaning the horses and he‘d say, “you know, I really appreciate our time together” and stuff like that. He found that thing that was something I enjoyed and it was almost like he wanted to share in my life. Like there's some of those grandparents who you never see them, like once a year maybe and they load a whole bunch of presents on your lap and then say goodbye, know what I mean?  [Umhum.]  I want to build a relationship with my grandkids like he did I think.”

Generativity in Relation to the Grandparent Role in Socialization

Grandparenting = a range of “styles” that are more or less engaged or distant from the role of child socialization in the family as in Mueller et al.

Parents don’t have the luxury of such choice – they have to discipline the child!

Generativity may be one predictor of how, and how much, the grandparenting role is “inhabited” by older adults, and in turn, the kinds of stories this role engenders in the family

Grandparents’ Stories about Their Own Grandchildren (Norris et al., 2004)

78 grandparents of 8 year-olds participated, part of a larger project

Wrote stories of a time when they taught their grandchild + a time when proud of grandchild

Completed the standard LGS of McAdams

Examples of Specific Grandparent Story

Memories by Generative Adults

Proud Story: “Last Christmas, Billy got a toy at the dinner table. His younger cousin did not like the toy he got and began to cry. Billy quickly offered to trade toys with Andy. I feel Billy is very sensitive, and I’m proud of him as a person.”

Teaching Story: “One day, my husband and I were at the park with Sandy. We ran into a group of kids who were picking on one little boy, calling him names. You could see the hurt in his eyes. When Sandy asked, we explained to her that it does not matter about where people come from, or the color of their skin. Everyone is the same.”

Examples of No Story Responses or “Non-Specific” Grandparent Stories

Proud Story: “My granddaughter is too young to have done much.”

Proud Story: “I’m always proud of my grandson.”

Teaching Story: “Let’s face it. I have lots of grandchildren and I love them all, but when we babysit them we know that they’re going back to their parents, so it’s not the same as your own kids. So most situations I leave it up to the parents. I guess you could call it chickening out…ha-ha.”

Percentage of Grandparent Stories Scored as Specific Memories by Generativity Level

and Story Type

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

TeachingStory

ProudStory

Hi Gen

Lo Gen

p’s of differences < .05

Generative Grandparents as More Engaged?

Generative grandparents recalled more and more specific memories of grandchild, perhaps because they are more attentive to grandchild’s socialization and development than others

There were some gender differences in content between grandmothers and grandfathers (social skills vs. hockey), but no gender differences in memory specificity in this study

Generativity is important in predicting variations in family stories in this older adulthood role

Midlife Adults and the Sandwich

Midlife adults now more likely to have children and grandchildren to care for, along with an elderly parent who needs help as well

Women much higher on this adult caregiving role overall

Clear progression over time in how much care is needed as older adult’s health declines – need longitudinal studies to examine this and caregiver’s reactions over time

Lawton et al. (2000) reported that women seemed to adapt to the caregiver role fairly well over time when studied this longitudinally for 1-2 years – however, “wear and tear” theory of declines in mental health might show up over longer periods of time

Personal Experiences with Family Caregiving

My mother’s Alzheimer’s progressed slowly after 75, but more problems with physical care, memory, thinking, etc.

My role was mostly to support my father for quite a while

He did much of the care on a day-to-day basis, pretty common in long-term marriages, but can be very stressful – I didn’t realize how much for a while

My father’s health began to fail and then I needed to spend a good deal more time visiting, helping out, etc.

Not always easy to find best care arrangements

What Consequences of Such Caretaking for Adult Children (Stephens & Franks, 1999)?

What Factors Influence How Midlife Adults Experience the Caregiver Role?

Attachment – Cicirelli’s (1983) research on relationship security and later caretaking:

Security of attachment a stronger predictor of experience of caregiving than sense of obligation to care for elderly parent

Generativity – Peterson’s research on women in early 50’s – generativity of adult women measured in 40’s

More generative women felt less “subjective burden” about caregiving (e.g., “I feel I don’t do enough for my parent,” “It is painful to watch my parent age”), no differences on objective burden (e.g., “having enough time for myself”)

More generative women were more knowledgeable about community resources for aging parents as well