{"id":3175,"date":"2023-07-11T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-11T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/?p=3175"},"modified":"2023-05-17T16:28:12","modified_gmt":"2023-05-17T21:28:12","slug":"prodigal-children-why-older-mothers-favor-their-once-deviant-adult-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/2023\/07\/11\/prodigal-children-why-older-mothers-favor-their-once-deviant-adult-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Prodigal children: Why Older Mothers Favor Their Once-Deviant Adult Children<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Parents and children. “Untitled” by 460273 Licensed by Pixaby<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Many of us can easily identify which child in our families has kept our parents up the most at night\u2014for example, the one who experimented with drugs early in life, suffered a concerningly long \u201cbad luck streak\u201d at the casino, or has been in trouble with the law. Research shows that older parents often experience more disappointment<\/a>, strain<\/a>, or complicated emotions<\/a> in their relationships to their adult children with these sorts of problems. However, there is also some evidence<\/a> that adult children who reform their deviant behavior are more likely to become their mothers\u2019 favored child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To build on this research, my collaborators (Marissa Rurka, Jill Suitor, Megan Gilligan, Karl Pillemer, Liam Mohebbi, and Nicholas Mundell) and I examined the reasons why adult children\u2019s behavioral reforms are associated with changes in older mothers\u2019 favoritism. More simply, we wanted to know how and why former \u201cproblem children\u201d become \u201cprodigal children<\/a>\u201d in their mothers\u2019 eyes. To answer this question, we used qualitative interview data from the Within-Family Differences Study<\/a> (WFDS). The WFDS contains interviews with older mothers (ages 65-75 at the first interview) and their adult children (interviewed separately) at two different timepoints, seven years apart. This dataset was well suited to help answer our research question because it is the same data that originally produced evidence (mentioned above) of the link between adult children\u2019s behavioral reforms and their mothers\u2019 newfound favoritism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The WFDS measured deviance by asking mothers whether any of their children had experienced trouble with drugs, alcohol, or the law in recent years. Favoritism was assessed by asking mothers to which child they felt most emotionally close. Mothers were encouraged to explain their answers to closed-ended questions like these throughout the interview, thus providing qualitative data for our investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We focused our main analysis on the 20 families that contained a \u201cprodigal child\u201d\u2014a child who was considered deviant and not favored at the first interview, but was no longer deviant, and was favored at the second interview (seven years later). Our analysis revealed two reasons why these children\u2019s behavioral reforms were related to newfound favoritism by their mothers: perceptions of familism and perceptions of need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, as they reformed their behaviors, mothers grew to see these children as more dedicated to their families of origin, and often their mothers specifically. The same children described as having a \u201cmind of [their] own\u201d at the first interview grew to be seen by their mothers as \u201cvery family-oriented,\u201d \u201calways checking on me,\u201d or \u201ca little mother to me\u201d by the later interview. This pattern was especially clear in families that also contained a deviant child who did not reform their behavior..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, Faye had two daughters who were both deviant at Faye\u2019s first interview\u2014both had experienced teen pregnancies, drug issues, and moved away with romantic partners whom Faye felt were poor choices. Describing Kristen, the younger of the two, Faye said, \u201cI don\u2019t think her life is going, well, the way a mother wants for her children.\u201d However, by Faye\u2019s later interview, Kristen recovered from her substance abuse issues and repaired her bond with her mother by moving back nearby and involving Faye in her granddaughter\u2019s life. In contrast to the new warmth Faye felt from Kristen, Faye felt like her older daughter Mary had fully \u201calienated\u201d her by her later interview and had abandoned her family commitments due to her still ongoing drinking problem. Describing her disapproval, Faye said, \u201c[Mary] decided she wanted to\u2026be on her own. She thought, \u2018well, I\u2019m going out drinking again,\u2019 and disrupted her [family], and now she\u2019s getting [divorced]\u2026Nothing to be proud of.\u201d Faye\u2019s remarks about Mary highlight how deviant behavior can weaken family bonds and negatively impact older mothers\u2019 impressions of a child. Meanwhile, Faye\u2019s relationship to Kristen helps us see why an adult child who reforms their behavior and strengthens their family commitments in the process can bring mothers particularly great joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second pattern that emerged from our analysis was these children\u2019s need for their mothers\u2019 support. Mothers often saw their prodigal children as both needing and appreciating their support in ways that their other children, who they saw as more \u201con their own,\u201d had outgrown. Feeling like their help and support played a role in their children\u2019s positive changes made them feel like good mothers and created an emotional bond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, when describing the substance abuse issues her son Joey experienced in early adulthood, Dorothy acknowledged \u201cJoey was straying back then,\u201d but became upbeat as she explained the closeness that came as a result of his behavioral reform, saying \u201cHe had some problems in the past and he came out of them with our help. And he\u2019s been great ever since. He just shows his gratitude a lot\u2026He shows that he came out of it very well.\u201d If children did not change their behaviors, their ongoing need for help could be depleting, rather than affirming to mothers. But, as Dorothy described, if children \u201ccame out of it well,\u201d their changes could be viewed as gestures of gratitude for their mothers. This dynamic allowed mothers to feel that their guiding role in their children\u2019s lives was necessary and valuable, which fostered feelings of favoritism, particularly during a life stage when some had begun to feel like their other children\u2019s need for their guidance and advice was lessening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taken together, our findings suggest that even children who engaged in behaviors that their mothers found troubling can become Mom\u2019s Favorite in adulthood. Simply stopping the troubling behaviors may not be a surefire path to favoritism, but if disengaging from these behaviors is coupled with strengthening your commitments to family and showing your mother that you need (and appreciate!) her support, then there is a good chance that you might just become a Prodigal Child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The full text of our article, published in the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences,<\/em> can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reilly Kincaid<\/strong> is a PhD Candidate at Purdue University. Her research focuses on parenting, gender, social psychology, family relationships across the life-course, and work-family issues. You can follow her on Twitter at @ReillyKincaid.  <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many of us can easily identify which child in our families has kept our parents up the most at night\u2014for example, the one who experimented with drugs early in life, suffered a concerningly long \u201cbad luck streak\u201d at the casino, or has been in trouble with the law. Research shows that older parents often experience […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3175"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3189,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3175\/revisions\/3189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/ccf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}