AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
CHOSEN ASPECTS OF THE PARENTAL ROLE FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THREE
GENERATIONS
a
ELEONÓRA MENDELOVÁ
Department of Pedagogy, Faculty of Education, Constantine the
Philosopher University in Nitra, Dražovská 4, 949 74 Nitra,
Slovakia
email:
a
emendelova@ukf.sk
Abstract: Parental activity is an elementary assumption of the existence and continuity
of the society. Parents are supposed to bring up their children in a correct way, to look
after their nutrition, education, health and adequate opinion orientation. They are
responsible for fulfilling of these social tasks. In the article we present our research
aimed at examining the chosen aspects of the parental role and
childlessness as its
alternative from the point of view of three generations. In our research participated a
chosen sample of respondents, consisting of representatives of three generations -
students, parents and grandparents. The research results were processed by means of
chosen statistical methods - methods of qualitative analysis. The research confirmed
that opinions of respondents on the current parental role, i.e. its chosen aspects,
statistically significantly depend on the fact which generational group they belong to -
students, parents and grandparents.
Keywords parental role, child, marriage, childlessness,
- test
Introduction
A parental role is an important part of the identity of adult
people. This role is primarily a biologically-conditioned role
and, at the same time, it is also mentally and socially significant
because it represents a key change in the life of every person
(Vágnerová, 2000; Knoester, Eggebeen, 2006; Kurincová,
Turzáková, Turzák, 2018). Its impact on the people’s
personalities and their subjectively perceived happiness or life
satisfaction is really evident (Hansen, 2011). Parenthood is a
transformative experience imposing a unique mix of stress and
rewards for those who enter (Nomaguchi, Milkie, 2003). The
birth of a child is a major life course transition that requires a
reshuffling of roles, routines, and schedules (Vágnerová, 2000;
Umberson, Pudrovska, Reczek, 2010).
1 Parental role, its transformation and realization
The tradition of parenthood has its uninterrupted, continuous
line. Despite this fact, there have occurred many qualitative
changes in the character of parenthood. One of them is the
altered motivation to parenthood. According to Dytrych (In
Dunovský et al, 1999, p. 111), it was thought in the past that
parenthood was guided by instincts and, therefore, the role of
maintaining the lineage was very important in this perception.
People believed that there existed almost omnipresent maternal
instincts that influenced the woman in such a way that she felt an
irrepressible desire or urge at certain age to enrich her life with
the birth of a child. In the past, children were considered to be
part of a natural process because they guaranteed the care about
their retired parents, they were the heirs of the family property
and they were also the working force (already at a relatively
early age). However, these aims do not represent the
motivational basis of the parenthood anymore. Nowadays, there
is characteristic a transition from the economic points of view to
the emotional ones. The importance of the child for the life
satisfaction and happiness of parents is a subject of many studies
(Hansen, 2011; Pollmann-Schult, 2014; Ruppanner, 2018). They
all emphasize the psychological and emotional aspects of
parenthood. According to
Matějček (2017, p. 25), the worldwide
tendency is oriented to the psychologization and
emotionalization of the family relationships. This attitude
supports the satisfying of personal psychological needs of adult
people in their coexistence with children.
Changes have also occurred in the contents and performing of
the parental role. The current society tends to equalize the roles
of both parents gradually and they become mutually
substitutable. Maternal and paternal roles have been influenced
by the fact that many women do not consider the maternal role
as the only role for them and they want to grow also
professionally. In our society the roles of both genders have been
changing and for this reason many women want to shorten the
time of performing the maternal role in favour of professional
and other activities. Such an attitude has been typical mainly of
men until very recently. Several years devoted to the
motherhood have changed from the lifelong task
into a
significant but only short episode in the prolonging life. As a
consequence of the changed maternal role, fathers have been
taking over some traditional tasks which were reserved only for
mothers before. Sociological researches confirmed that the
function of a father has changed more significantly than the
function of a mother during the last decades (e.g. Možný, 1990;
Miller, 2011; Bosoni, 2014).
Family is the framework for performing the parental role.
Demographic changes, occurring in our society after the year
1989, caused the pluralization of the forms of family where the
parental role is carried on. We think about the increase of
nonmarital cohabitation, single-parent families, as well as
homosexual partnerships. Whereas in the past the majority of
children was born into a married family, nowadays it has become
a trend (mainly in the case of the first child) that the child is born
to unmarried parents. According to Tydlitátová (2011), the
number of children born outside the institution of marriage has
been growing continually and incessantly in Slovakia after the
year 1989. In the period shortly after the Velvet Revolution, the
marker showed the value of less than 10%, in the year 1991 there
were 19,7%, in 2009 the number has overpassed the level of
31% and the last data (Šprocha, Šídlo, 2018) state that the
number of these children has already reached almost 40%. The
consequence of these demographic changes in current families
can be seen in the altered structure of families, i.e. the decreasing
number of complete, two-parent families and the increasing
number of single-parent families. Zartler (2014) says that the rise
in single-parent families by way of increases in divorce and
nonmarital childbearing has been one of the most strongly
pronounced trends in family behaviour over the past decades.
The fact that children are brought up just by one parent does not
cause any deviation in their development. According to Kendig,
Bianchi (2008) single mothers do not spend less time with their
children than married mothers, but they have more problems in
the economic and social areas (
Neises, Grüneberg, 2005)
.
“Parenthood is associated with higher levels of distress for the
unmarried than the married“ (Evenson, Simon, 2005), single
mothers reporting worse mental and physical health outcomes
for this group, compared to married mothers (Davies, Avison,
McAlpine, 1997).
Parenthood brings in positive experience, but it is also a certain
burden. For this reason, it does not have to be completely
accepted. In certain circumstances adult people can postpone
parenthood or they prefer childlessness. According to Umberson,
Pudrovska, Reczek (2010), recent decades have witnessed a
trend toward increased childlessness and delayed childbearing.
This fact is confirmed by statistics, as well as by several authors
(Vajda, Kósa, 2005; Matějček, 2017). According to them,
despite relative well-being in the western cultures the number of
born children has had a descending tendency in the last decades.
Therefore, the postponing of parenthood to higher age (
Mills et
al., 2011)
and the increase of (un)voluntary childlessness
(Hašková, 2009;
Beaujouan et al., 2017) have become very
discussed topics in the current society. Mills et al. (2011) see the
reason of postponed parenthood mainly in the growing
educational level of women and their increasing participation at
the labour market. According to
Matějček (2017, p. 19), some
people think that children will endanger their inner balance.
However, the reasons do not have to be only negative ones, but
also positive ones - not only egoism, but also responsibility.
Hašková (2009) studied factors influencing the voluntary
childlessness and she mentions the following factors as the most
decisive ones: the level of education, type of education, type of
occupation, concentration of young people in big cities and the
family status. Another significant factor is the fact that there
- 181 -