‘Liberators’, ‘Companions’, ‘Intruders’ and ‘Cuckoos in the Nest’: A Sociology of Caring Relationships over the Life Cycle

Abstract

This chapter describes a small study of thirty-eight married daughters caring for their elderly mothers who live with them. We have devised a typology of caring relationships involving different degrees and balances of tending and emotional support, and we have explored whether current relationships can be explained in terms of socialisation, altruism or reciprocity over the life cycle.¹ It has been argued that the government’s policies of so-called ‘community care’ have been cost-cutting measures which load the burdens of care onto a small number of informal carers, usually female kin (Walker, 1982; Finch and Groves, 1983), so we ask whether the physical, financial or psychological burdens of caring for disabled people can cause the breakdown of caring relationships.