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When Mothers Have Favourites: Conditions under Which Mothers Differentiate among Their Adult Children*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 March 2010

J. Jill Suitor ,
Jori Sechrist  and
Karl Pillemer
J. Jill Suitor*
Affiliation:
Purdue University
Jori Sechrist
Affiliation:
Purdue University
Karl Pillemer
Affiliation:
Cornell University
*
Requests for offprints should be sent to: / Les demandes de tirés-à-part doivent être adressées à: J. Jill Suitor, Ph.D., Department of Sociology and Anthropology, 700 Stone Hall, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907. (jsuitor@purdue.edu)
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Abstract

Research has shown that mothers often differentiate among their adult children in terms of closeness and support; however, studies have not addressed why some mothers report preferences among children and others do not. To distinguish between mothers who do and do not report favouring some of their adult children, we used data from a within-family study in which 553 older mothers were interviewed about each of their children. Almost all of the mothers reported differentiating among their children regarding emotional closeness, confiding, or preference among caregivers. Multivariate analyses revealed that mothers' values and mother-child value similarity predicted which mothers differentiated among their children regarding closeness and confiding, whereas mothers' and children's demographic characteristics predicted which mothers differentiated regarding preferred caregivers. Black mothers were less likely than white mothers to differentiate when seeking a confidant; however, race played no role in mothers' likelihood of differentiating regarding emotional closeness or help during illness. Taken together, these findings indicate that differentiating among adult children is common; further, family-level predictors of mothers' differentiating mirror the patterns shown in dyad-level analyses of mothers' favouritism.

Résumé

La recherche démontre que, dans beaucoup de cas, la mère ne voit pas ses enfants adultes sur un pied d'égalité s'agissant de l'intimité et du soutien, sans avoir toutefois étudié pourquoi des mères affichent des préférences parmi leurs enfants et d'autres pas. Pour cerner ce qui fait que des mères ont des préférences et que d'autres n'en ont pas, nous avons examiné les données d'une étude intrafamiliale dans le cadre de laquelle 553 mères âgées ont été interrogées à propos de chacun de leurs enfants. Ces mères considèrent presque toutes leurs enfants différemment des points de vue de l'intimité émotionnelle, de l'inclination à la confidence ou de la préférence dans la dispensation des soins. Des analyses multivariables révèlent que les valeurs de la mère et la proximité entre la mère et ses enfants sous l'angle des valeurs sont des indicateurs prévisionnels de l'expression d'une préférence à l'égard d'enfants concernant l'intimité et la propension à se confier, alors que les caractéristiques démographiques de la mère et des enfants permettent de cerner les mères qui expriment une préférence en matière de dispensation des soins. Les mères noires sont moins enclines que les mères blanches à préférer un enfant plutôt qu'un autre pour se choisir un confident, tandis que la race n'a aucune influence sur la probabilité que la mère s'estime plus proche de certains de ces enfants des points de vue de l'intimité émotionnelle ou du rôle d'aidant naturel. Somme toute, ces constatations indiquent que l'expression d'une préférence de la mère à l'égard de certains de ses enfants adultes est courante; en outre, les indicateurs familiaux du favoritisme maternel reflètent les schémas qui ressortent des analyses dyadiques.

Keywords

agingparent–adult child relationsparental favouritismmothers–adult child relationsmaternal favouritismvieillissementrelation entre le parent et l'enfant adultefavoritisme parentalrelation entre la mère et l'enfant adultefavoritisme maternel
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal on Aging / La Revue canadienne du vieillissement , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , Summer/Été 2007 , pp. 85 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Association on Gerontology 2007

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Footnotes

*

This project was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (R01 AG18869-01), J. Jill Suitor and Karl Pillemer, Co-Principal Investigators. Karl Pillemer also acknowledges support from an Edward R. Roybal Centre grant from the National Institute on Aging (1 P50 AG11711-01).

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, Montreal, Canada, August 2006.

We wish to thank Michael Bisciglia, Rachel Brown, Ilana S. Feld, Alison Green, Kimberly Gusman, Jennifer Jones, Dorothy Mecom, Michael Patterson, and Monisa Shackelford for their assistance in preparing the data for analysis and participating in the analysis of the qualitative data. We would also like to thank Paul Allison for his helpful suggestions regarding the data analysis. Finally, we would like to thank Mary Ellen Colten and her colleagues at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, for collecting the data for the project.

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