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Grandmothers - The Changing Culture (Paperback)
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Grandmothers - The Changing Culture (Paperback)
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The traditional role of the grandmother in contemporary Western
society is changing. Driven in part by the increasing participation
of women in the workplace, as well as declines in family stability,
grandparents are taking on new responsibilities as family
caretakers. This is of special interest in modern Britain.
"Grandmothers" is a collection of essays reflecting on the
experience of being a grandmother in modern Britain (plus, in one
case, France). It follows a study of grandparenting-the first
national study on the subject in the UK-carried out by the editor
as part of the British Social Attitudes Survey.
Over the past few years there has been a surge of interest in
Britain on grandparenting-although it is still a long way behind
the United States and several European countries in research. The
driving impetus for research is coming from parenting organizations
and government departments concerned about the effects on female
employment of shortages in nursery places, and about the effect of
"parenting deficits" on children. Greater involvement of
grandmothers in caring for children has seemed to offer a solution
to many related problems. It promises to improve care within the
family, and enable mothers to take on paid work with fewer fears
for the consequences, without removing other working adults in the
family from their jobs.
The original study found that the great majority of British adults
thought that providing childcare support was an important part of
the grandparent role. At the same time, it revealed that
grandmothers' involvement was very diverse, and that many
grandmothers who would like to be more active in caring for their
grandchildren were excluded as a consequence of family breakdown.
While comprehensive, inevitably the survey could not deal with
questions about change over the last few generations. The personal
case-studies in this volume fill that gap.
The generation now moving into grandparenthood was active in
restructuring personal relationships when younger. Several of the
contributors to the book were prominent members of the women's
movement in the late sixties and seventies. Inevitably there are
more novelists, academics, and activists than is representative of
the general population. But the volume manages to collect together
a very wide range of lifestyles and views. Collectively, they show
how far the revolution of their youth into senior family roles, and
how their new roles may be encouraging them to question and revise
their former attitudes.
Geoff Dench is a senior research fellow at the Institute of
Community Studies and professor of sociology at Middlesex
University. He is the author of "Transforming Men" and "Rewriting
the Sexual Contract," both published by Transaction.
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