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“It’s a Balance on a Knife-Edge”: Expectations of Parents and Adult Children

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The Palgrave Handbook of Family Sociology in Europe

Abstract

Intergenerational relationships are important for individuals and society but under-examined in qualitative sociology compared to other types of relations. This chapter uses interview data from 34 Danish men and women to qualitatively examine relations between parents and adult children to identify contemporary cultural ideals influencing the relationships between generations in a Nordic welfare state. The analysis focuses on the expectations of parents and children towards each other, and on how people interpret their interactions as contributing to either closeness or distance in the relationship. The analysis shows that parents and adult children engage in similar ‘maintenance work’ as do participants in other types of personal relationships, but also that specific and culturally legitimate expectations attach to the role of parent, even after the children have reached adulthood.

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Acknowledgements

The research for the chapter was supported by The Danish Council for Independent Research (grant number 1329-00112A). I want to thank the participants in the network and workshop series Significant others—informal social networks between policy and everyday life for inspiring discussions of the ideas included in this chapter. Especial thanks to Anna-Maija Castrén, Sara Eldén, and Terese Anving. The workshop series was funded by The Joint Committee for Nordic research councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences (grant number 2016-00258/NOS-HS_4). I want to thank Professor Bente Halkier, University of Copenhagen, as well as the editors of this volume and the anonymous reviewers for constructive comments and helpful advice on earlier drafts of this chapter.

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  1. Danish Evaluation Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Bella Marckmann

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  1. Bella Marckmann
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland

    Anna-Maija Castrén

  2. Faculty of Human and Social Studies, Mykolas Romeris University, Vilnius, Lithuania

    Vida Česnuitytė

  3. Department of Education, Cultural Heritage and Tourism, University of Macerata, Macerata, Italy

    Isabella Crespi

  4. University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Jacques-Antoine Gauthier

  5. Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Rita Gouveia

  6. EHESP, CNRS (National Centre of Scientific Research), Rennes, France

    Claude Martin

  7. Campus María Zambrano, University of Valladolid, Segovia, Spain

    Almudena Moreno Mínguez

  8. Institute of Sociology, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland

    Katarzyna Suwada

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Marckmann, B. (2021). “It’s a Balance on a Knife-Edge”: Expectations of Parents and Adult Children. In: Castrén, AM., et al. The Palgrave Handbook of Family Sociology in Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73306-3_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73306-3_16

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