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Transitioning to the Care Giving Stage: Understanding Expectations
A study of 100 Jewish women discussed in the March 1998 issue of Contemporary Women's Issues Database revealed what elderly mothers and their daughters thought about entering a period of necessary caregiving:
Building Blocks
Filial responsibility means the perceived level of suitable responsibility by a son or daughter.
- Daughters expect more filial responsibility from themselves with regard to caretaking than their elderly mothers expect from them.
- Mothers want to spare their children from having to take care of them and becoming a burden.
- Mothers do not want to live with their children, but do want to maintain close ties.
- Mothers and daughters value their social and financial independence. Therefore, they each try to prolong those qualities for their elders.
- Mothers do not give up the role or image of themselves as nurturers and therefore try to protect their daughters.
- Mothers fear relying too heavily on their children, worrying they may be become resentful.
- Mothers and daughters in this group try to make their relationship reciprocal and do things for each other.
- Some mothers voluntarily put themselves into nursing facilities in order not to burden children.
- Daughters of mothers in residential nursing home settings express less "filial expectations" than daughters whose mothers are still living in the general community.
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Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Mothers and Daughters © 2001 by Rosanne Rosen. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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