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Emotional relationship quality of adult children with ageing parents: on solidarity, conflict and ambivalence

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Abstract

Emotions towards a relationship partner provide relevant and specific information about relationship quality. Based on this assumption the present study was performed to identify different types of emotional relationship quality of middle-aged adult children with their ageing parents. This was done by cluster analytic procedures in a sample of 1,208 middle-aged adult children (482 men, 726 women). Using ratings of positive and negative emotions towards their mother and father as grouping variables, the same four-cluster solution emerged for both the child–mother relationship and the child–father relationship. Clusters were labelled as amicable, disharmonious, detached and ambivalent relationships. Results showed that especially amicable relationships clearly prevailed followed by ambivalent, detached and disharmonious relationships. Clusters differed significantly with respect to gender of adult child, willingness to support, expected parental support and overt conflicts. In a cross-classification of cluster membership regarding the child–mother relationship (four clusters) and the child–father relationship (four clusters), all possible 16 combinations were observed, with a considerable degree of divergence regarding the type of relationship quality within the same family. Results are discussed with respect to types of emotional relationship quality, within family differences and the intrafamilial regulation of relationship quality.

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Notes

  1. They included three subgroups of relationships: (a) positive with parent A and negative with parent B (i.e. amicable combined with either detached or disharmonious: 12.1%), (b) ambivalent with parent A and positive with parent B (13.0%) and (c) ambivalent with parent A and negative with parent B (12.2%).

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Acknowledgements

This study is part of a research project entitled ‘Parental Differential Treatment in Middle Adulthood: Dyadic and Longitudinal Analyses’, which was conducted at the University of Trier (Germany). It was supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to the first author (DFG; FE 502/2-3). We thank Lisa Trierweiler for her very helpful support in preparing the English manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Unit INSIDE, University of Luxembourg, Campus Walferdange, BP 2, 7220, Walferdange, Luxembourg

    Dieter Ferring, Tom Michels & Thomas Boll

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Trier, Trier, Germany

    Sigrun-Heide Filipp

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  1. Dieter Ferring
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  2. Tom Michels
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  3. Thomas Boll
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  4. Sigrun-Heide Filipp
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Correspondence to Dieter Ferring.

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Ferring, D., Michels, T., Boll, T. et al. Emotional relationship quality of adult children with ageing parents: on solidarity, conflict and ambivalence. Eur J Ageing 6, 253–265 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10433-009-0133-9

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