13. THE ONCE AND FUTURE PARENTS: EXPLORING THE IMPACT OF EARLY PARENTAL MEMORIES ON THE ANTICIPATED LIFE HISTORIES OF YOUNG ADULTS

Abstract

In this volume, researchers have brought their expertise to bear on the ambivalence enacted and expressed by adult children and their parents towards each other. As Lüscher and Pillemer note in their seminal article (1998), using ambivalence as an organizing concept for the study of intergenerational relationships allows researchers to explore the inherent contradiction of roles and obligations. For example, at what point does a child become an adult child? Is this a judgment that both parent and child make? What happens when parent and child disagree? Even raising the question misses the point: One can never unidimensionally be an “adult child.” In the subtle and dynamic consciousness within which each of us dwells, we are always an adult and a child to ourselves and to our parents, as they were to theirs.

Citation

Segal, H.G. (2003), "13. THE ONCE AND FUTURE PARENTS: EXPLORING THE IMPACT OF EARLY PARENTAL MEMORIES ON THE ANTICIPATED LIFE HISTORIES OF YOUNG ADULTS", Pillemer, K. and Luscher, K. (Ed.) Intergenerational Ambivalences: New Perspectives on Parent-Child Relations in Later Life (Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research, Vol. 4), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 313-338. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1530-3535(03)04013-5