Bert N. Adams

The Middle-Class Adult and his Widowed or Still-Married Mother

In this paper the relations of a sample of middle-class adults and their widowed mothers are compared with relations between an age-matched sample and their mothers when their fathers are still living. Balance appears crucial to satisfactory relations with the widowed mother; and this tends to be achieved between daughters and their mothers. Young adult males, however, find their relations with a widowed mother characterized primarily by keeping in touch with her and by one-way aid. Such obligation and imbalance result in less enjoyment of and affection for the mother on the part of the male when the father is no longer alive. Other aspects of young adult-aging parent relations are incorporated into the discussion.

Structural Factors Affecting Parental Aid to Married Children

The presence of a help pattern between parents and their married children has been established. This paper seeks to determine the effects of four factors upon parental aid to married children: residential propinquity, length of the childs marriage, occupational stratum, and sex of the child. Important findings include: (1) the verification of Litwaks statement that residential distance need not inhibit the giving of financial aid and gifts; (2) the use of indirect means of financial help, such as gift-giving, by the young wifes parents; and (3) the independence of the young working-class male from his parents when he is compared with the other three sex stratum groups.

Family Theory and Methods in the Classics

Great strides have been made in family theory and methods in the past 30 years. The works of W. J. Goode, Bernard Farber, Reuben Hill and recent feminist scholars have advanced theories concerning many aspects of the family. This chapter is intended to remind us that theorizing about the family has a long and rich history. The sociocultural milieu surveyed here is primarily that of the great thinkers of Western civilization such as Plato, Aristotle, and Rousseau, who described, defined, and commented on family life. While we would like to avoid continuing a Euro-Caucasian focus in the study of human thought, our own education and experiences have this bias. Non-Western thinkers are incorporated whenever possible, but we must acknowledge that the classical theories discussed here were promulgated by theorists who were primarily male, white, and Western, for the consumption of an audience that was primarily male, white, and Western.

Cross-Cultural and U.S. Kinship

Kinship units in certain societies, especially agricultural, play economic, political, religious, and other institutional roles. Additional characteristics of kin units in some societies include property-holding and inheritance, housing, need-obligation, and affective or emotional ties. There is, however, no simple linear disappearance of these characteristics as one moves from the kin-based society to the “originally solidary” or differentiated modern industrial state. Yet, compared to agricultural societies, kin units of the United States are less central to society’s operation, fulfilling an affective function to differing degrees and a need-obligation function to some extent and performing idiosyncratically in the areas of housing and inheritance. In the middle section of this chapter the significance of kin terms, the relative as a person, and the meanings of kin “distance” are considered. The last section of the chapter is given to a characterization of relationships among the following kin: parents and adult offspring, siblings and grandparents, secondary kin, and in-laws, with some attention to kin-keeping and to gender and ethnic differences in the United States.

The Family: Problems and Solutions.

Coming across such a title, one would very likely expect to read about what is wrong with the family today and what should be done about it. That, however, is not the intention of this paper. Rather, I want to raise the issue of what is meant when the language of problems and solutions is used. The aim is to stimulate our thinking about the value-ladenness of the institution with which we deal as professionals. I organize this discussion under three possibilities: (a) the same set of circumstances or conditions may be a problem but also a solution to another problem simultaneously; (b) the objective solution to one persons problem may cause that person, or someone else, another problem; (c) whether a phenomenon is viewed as a problem or a solution may not be an objective reality at all, but may be determined by the observers values. We examine each of these below.

Urban Skills and Religion: Mechanisms for Coping and Defense Among the Ugandan Asians

The Asians of Uganda were a middle-man minority under great pressure during 1971. Many were leaving the country each week, and most viewed themselves as having no future in East Africa. A random sample of 190 Kampala, Uganda, Hindus, and 104 Ismaili Muslims was used to test, in this natural setting, several hypotheses concerning coping ability and defenses among a minority under stress. Findings were (1) religiosity reduces anxiety or insecurity, but tends to be accompanied by feelings of empirical fatalism in a stressful situation; (2) those Asians with high socioeconomic status and local investments see themselves as more vulnerable and are thus more emotionally insecure, but high SES also makes them feel more able to cope or change their situations if necessary. The significance and implications of these findings are explored in closing.