Role conflict and ambivalence in the aged-parent-adult-child relationship

摘要

Purpose The parent-child relationship is important to the solidarity of families and the emotional well-being of family members. Since people are more dependent on their close social relationships as they age, understanding the quality of relationships between aged parents and their adult children is a critical topic. Previous research shows that this relationship is complicated with both kinship and ambivalence. However, there is little research on the causes of this complexity. This paper proposes a role model to explain this complexity by studying the leadership transition within a family as the child grows. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, we proposed a novel perception to understand this transition process and explain related problems based on the analysis of the leader-follower relationship between the parents and their children. Findings When a child is born, his/her parents become the leader of this family because of their abilities, responsibilities and the requirements of the infant. T...