Expectations and Experiences of Mothering Adult Children in Later Life: A Comparison between Turkey and the U.S.


Con Wright G.

16th European Sociological Association, Porto, Portekiz, 27 - 30 Ağustos 2024

  • Yayın Türü: Bildiri / Özet Bildiri
  • Basıldığı Şehir: Porto
  • Basıldığı Ülke: Portekiz
  • TED Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

Motherhood ideologies are powerful cultural forces which exert tremendous pressure on women of younger children. However, mothering adult children is a topic that has received little attention in both family and gerontology scholarship. The popular notion of the parental role drastically transforming and even disappearing when children transition to adulthood, often idealized as clear-cut independence from one’s parents in Western cultures, may explain the relatively scant attention to motherhood in later life. In this paper, I examine the expectations and experiences of older mothers of adult children to understand how they compare to earlier mothering with a cross-cultural comparison between Turkey and the U.S. The data for this study come from semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with 23 American and 21 Turkish mothers who are above 60 years old and have at least two living adult children of their own. Mothers in both samples identified ways in which their experiences with motherhood for adult children differed significantly from their experiences with younger children but were still important. Yet, how they interpreted their motherly responsibilities to their adult children varied between two countries due to the cultural values of independence at adulthood vs. familism. The most striking differences were in how normative they considered financial support and giving advice. These expectations were also subjected to changing needs and demands of their adult children. This study contributes to the literature by showing how mothering activities and expectations are subject to change in later life and shaped by cultural context.