Gendered stories of parental caregiving among siblings

Hequembourg, Amy; Brallier, Sara A.

doi:10.1016/j.jaging.2003.12.001

Cited by 60 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Sibling relationships are multifaceted, characterized by tensions between the intimacy of such close relationships and the conflicts that arise from them (Apter 2007;Hequembourg and Brallier 2005). Beginning early in life, siblings experience both a strong sense of identification inherent in their equivalent status and a strong need for differentiation from each other (Apter 2007;Sulloway 1996).…”

Section: Siblings and Parent Carementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Siblings may justify limited participation in caregiving in terms of living at a distance or as a result of having a full-time job (Ingersoll-Dayton et al 2003). The influence of gender is evident in the ways in which the division of caregiving responsibility is negotiated among siblings, with brothers sometimes becoming involved in caregiving in roles of helpers and co-providers while sisters more likely become care coordinators (Hequembourg and Brallier 2005).…”

Section: Siblings and Parent Carementioning

confidence: 99%

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Tensions among siblings in parent care

Lashewicz

Keating

2009

Eur J Ageing

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From a place of ''genealogical equivalence'' as children of their parents, siblings spend a lifetime developing separate identities. As parents near the end of their lives, issues of sibling equivalence are renegotiated in the face of equal obligations to provide care and equal entitlement to parent assets. In this paper, we hypothesize how unresolved issues of rivalry for parent affection/attention among siblings may be reasserted when parents need care. Data are drawn from a project about how parent care and assets are shared. In-depth interviews with three sibling groups experiencing conflict over sharing parent care and assets along with six Canadian legal case portrayals of disputes among siblings over how parent care and assets were shared are examined. Findings are that disputes occur when siblings perceive others as dominating parent care and assets through tactics such as separating the parent from other siblings and preventing other siblings from being engaged in decisions about care and assets. Discussion is focused on paradoxes faced by siblings given expectations for equity in parent relationships alongside perceived pre-eminence in care and asset decisions.

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Section: Siblings and Parent Carementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Siblings and Parent Carementioning

confidence: 99%

Tensions among siblings in parent care

Lashewicz

Keating

2009

Eur J Ageing

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“…Sisters are more likely to feel responsible for personal contact, information flow, domestic maintenance, and the organization of ritual occasions (Rosenthal 1985). And if parents need more care due to health problems, daughters tend to be (and are expected to be) the coordinators of care because they are ascribed to have more specialized knowledge about caring than sons do (Hequembourg and Brallier 2005). We are interested to know whether having sisters leads to less contact with parents than having brothers.…”

Section: Gender Compositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intergenerational contact beyond the dyad: the role of the sibling network

2008

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In this paper we aim to reach beyond the dyadic perspective on intergenerational contact and examine the influence of the sibling network on parent-child contact. We include aggregate sibling network characteristics as well as the adult child's position in the network vis-à-vis siblings, and use data from the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (2002)(2003)(2004) NKPS; N = 4,601 dyads). Regarding aggregate network characteristics results show that having sisters, having stepsiblings, increasing geographical distance between siblings, and decreasing levels of network cohesion are associated with less contact per parent-child dyad. Regarding the position of the adult child vis-à-vis his or her siblings, results show that having geographically or emotionally closer siblings has a negative effect on parentchild contact. The impact of differences in emotional distance among siblings is stronger when the analyses are limited to parents in poor health. Suggestions for future research are made.

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“…This study suggests in other words that the motive to become a caregiver is strongly connected to the role of being a sister and in some cases also connected to being the oldest sibling. In a qualitative study in the US, Hequembourg and Brallier (2005) 31 found that coproviding brothers contributed equitably to the care of their parents. The researchers conducted interviews with eight adult sibling pairs.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In other words, 30 Matthews and Rosner (1988) performed face-to-face interviews with 50 pairs of sisters who had at least one parent aged 75 or older. 31 Hequembourg and Brallier (2005) performed structured, in-depth, face-to-face interviews with eight adult sibling pairs, each consisting of one male and one female caregiver.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Men do care! : A gender-aware and masculinity-informed contribution to caregiving scholarship

Wallroth

2016

Linköping Studies in Arts and Sciences

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In caregiving literature, it is often the female gender that has been the focus of attention, and in particular women's unpaid labor. Studies also tend to make comparisons between men's and women's caregiving, using men's caregiving experiences to show not only that women face greater burdens, but also that men's needs can be disregarded. This means that while gender analyses are not uncommon in the caregiving literature, gender tends to be equated with womanhood. The research problem that this dissertation addresses is therefore the gender bias that characterizes caregiving scholarship at present and the fact that this bias is impeding us from moving the debates on care and caregiving forward. The aim of the dissertation is twofold. Firstly, it attempts to contribute to the rectification of the gender bias in question by focusing on men's caregiving and answering the following research questions: What motivates men to provide care for their elderly parents? How do adult sons experience caregiving? What do adult sons think that care and caregiving are, i.e. what are their perspectives on care? Secondly, this dissertation also aims to explore whether a gender-aware and masculinity-informed perspective can be used to enhance our understanding of caregiving. Thus, through a phenomenological analysis of interviews with 19 caregiving adult sons and sons-in-law, this dissertation discusses how motives, experiences and perspectives, which have so far been interpreted as unique to women, are also matters that men talk about and consider important in caregiving. The dissertation argues therefore that much could be gained if we were to rectify the gender bias that characterizes the literature on family caregiving and explore caregiving men in the genderaware and masculinity-informed way that is lacking in this literature at present. Inspired by the debate within studies of masculinity, the dissertation argues that within the debate on care there is a hegemony of care which has so far tended to exclude men's perspectives on caregiving because literature on family caregiving has regarded women as the ideal caregivers. This dissertation shows that a gender-aware and masculinity-informed perspective on care can increase our understanding of family caregiving and contribute to the rectification of the gender bias that care research suffers from. Against this backdrop, it is proposed that caregiving men should not solely be regarded as empirically interesting. This is because they are an unexploited and theoretically profuse source of information about caregiving.

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Gendered stories of parental caregiving among siblings

Cited by 60 publications

References 21 publications

Tensions among siblings in parent care

Tensions among siblings in parent care

Intergenerational contact beyond the dyad: the role of the sibling network

Men do care! : A gender-aware and masculinity-informed contribution to caregiving scholarship

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