Kinship and Cohort in an Aging Society: From Generation to Generation

5. The Role of Grandparents in the Transition to Adulthood: Grandparents as “Very Important” Adults in the Lives of Adolescents

chapter five The Role of Grandparents in the Transition to Adulthood Grandparents as “Very Important” Adults in the Lives of Adolescents Miles G. Taylor, Peter Uhlenberg, Glen H. Elder, Jr., and Steve McDonald Demographic shifts over the past century have increased the percentage of grandchildren who have living grandparents, and these historical changes are especially impressive for young adults. For example, in 1900 about half of all 20-year-olds had at least one living grandparent; in 2000, 90% did. For 30-year-olds, these chances increased from 21% to 75% (Uhlenberg, 1996, 2004). Heterogeneity of the grandparenting role has notably increased across time and across age (Silverstein & Marenco, 2001). Reports on grandparentgrandchild interaction indicate that frequent contact is common, but substantial variation exists across individuals (Cherlin & Furstenberg, 1986; King & Elder, 1995; Uhlenberg & Hamill, 1998). Grandparent involvement has been seen as important both for the development of children and for the social support it provides for parents (McCluskey & McCluskey, 2000). Reciprocally, grandparent-grandchild contact tends to increase satisfaction with the grandparent role (Mueller & Elder, 2003; Peterson, 1999). Research has mainly focused on the grandparent-grandchild relationship when grandchildren are under 18 (Connidis, 2001). Far less is known about how these relationships change as children transition into adulthood or whether predictors of relationship quality change during this transition. The Role of Grandparents in Transition to Adulthood 105 increasing number of young adults with living grandparents and the previous research on the importance and variability of the grandparenting role suggests that more research is needed to understand this relationship as children become adults. The importance of grandparents to children’s well-being on the whole, and their role as custodians specifically, has gained attention in recent years (Fuller-Thompson & Minkler, 2001; Henly, 1997; Jendrek, 1993). Living in multigenerational households can benefit children from female-headed families so that their outcomes are no different from those of children who reside with both parents (Deleire & Kalil, 2002). In addition, the added social capital provided by grandparents to at-risk youth has been shown to be significant in predicting the well-being of this group (Furstenberg & Hughes, 1995). The research surrounding grandparent and great-grandparent custodial or caregiving relationships has focused on African Americans in particular, since the increases in custodial relationships have occurred primarily in this group over thepastdecade(McDonald&Armstrong,2001; Minkler &Fuller-Thompson , 2005; Ruiz, 2000). However, the majority of this research remains cursory or relies on small, racially homogeneous, qualitative samples. Little to no research has examined the grandparenting role for at-risk adolescents or for those who experience negative life events such as parental divorce or teen childbearing (Ruiz, 2000). This project will study the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren during the time between adolescence and young adulthood. We focus on the role grandparents play as important adults or mentors. Previous research on relationship quality and closeness between grandparents and grandchildren of this age has relied on either small or homogeneous samples containing rich relationship information or larger samples with few measures of relationship quality or adolescent well-being. Using Add Health data, we recast questions on mentoring at Wave 3 to allow a novel approach to the study of grandparenting. The Add Health data pose a unique opportunity to study the roles grandparents play in the lives of adolescents who are making the transition to adulthood. We proceed by discussing the background literature on the somewhat disparate literatures of mentoring and grandparenting used to address our research questions. Next, we discuss the Add Health data and the process of recasting variables on mentoring to examine grandparents in the transition to adulthood. We move on to descriptive findings and a discussion of future research. 106 Grandparents in a Changing Landscape We address three specific research questions in our larger project: (1) What are the characteristics of grandchildren who report grandparents as their primary mentors, and what roles do mentors play in their lives? (2) What role do grandparents play in the face of negative transitions in young lives, such as parental divorce or teen childbearing? (3) How do grandparent mentors increase the resiliency of young adults in terms of well-being outcomes? Research Questions and Background Literature Research Question 1: What are the characteristics of grandchildren who report grandparents as their primary mentors, and what roles do mentors play in their lives? The themes outlined in Neugarten and Weinstein’s (1964) classic work have persisted across decades of literature...