Avoided Conversations: How Parents and Children delay talking about Widowhood and Dependency in Later life
Avoided Conversations: How Parents and Children delay talking about Widowhood and Dependency in Later life
复制标题
避免的对话：父母和孩子如何推迟谈论晚年的丧偶和依赖
作者：
J. Synge
本文利用1980年对加拿大一个中等城市（N = 464）的中老年居民的抽样调查。很少有父母和成年子女事先讨论过，如果父母患重病或无法照顾自己，会发生什么。然而，大多数受访者认为这些问题应该提前讨论，大多数人认为父母应该提出这些问题。中年人如此，老年人也是如此。上了年纪的男人很少和孩子讨论妻子的未来。中年人和老年人都很少与兄弟姐妹或朋友谈论自己或父母依赖的可能性。所进行的讨论往往因疾病而突然中断。然而，儿童对父母，特别是年长的父母表示了极大的关切。提出了各种可能的解释。这些问题包括不愿意承认家庭结构和死亡率的变化，以及父母对非家庭提供的服务的看法。
ABSTRACT This paper draws on a 1980 sample survey of middle-aged and elderly residents of a medium-sized Canadian city (N = 464). Few parents and grown-up children discussed in advance what might happen should parents become seriously ill or unable to look after themselves. However, most respondents did feel these matters should be discussed in advance, and most felt that parents should be the ones to raise these issues. This was true for both the middle-aged and the elderly. Elderly men rarely discussed their wives' futures with their children. Both the middle-aged and the elderly rarely talked with siblings or friends about the possibility of their own or their parents' dependency. Discussions that took place were often precipitated by illness. However, children expressed a great deal of concern for parents, especially for older parents. A variety of possible contributing explanations are suggested. These range from unwillingness to acknowledge changing family structure and mortality to parents' view on non-family-provided services.