Emotional relationship quality of adult children whith ageing parents: On solidarity, conflict and ambivalence.

Emotions toward a relationship partner provide relevant and specific information about relationship quality. Based on this assumption the present study was performed to identify different types of emotional relationship quality of middle-aged adult children with their aging parents. This was done by cluster analytic procedures in a sample of 1,208 middle-aged adult children (482 men, 726 women). Using ratings of positive and negative emotions toward their mother and their father as grouping variables, the same four-cluster solution emerged for both the child-mother relationship and the child-father relationship. Clusters were labelled as amicable, disharmonious, detached, and ambivalent relationships. Results showed that especially amicable relationships clearly prevailed followed by ambivalent, detached, and disharmonious relationships. Clusters differed significantly with respect to gender of adult child, willingness to support, expected parental support, and overt conflicts. In a cross-classification of cluster membership regarding the child-mother relationship (4 clusters) and the child-father relationship (4 clusters), all possible 16 combinations were observed, with a considerable degree of divergence regarding the type of relationship quality within the same family. Results are discussed with respect to types of emotional relationship quality, within family differences, and the intrafamilial regulation of relationship quality.