ABSTRACT
One consequence of the aging of Western industrialized societies, together with the tendency for parents to complete their childrearing fairly early on in the life span, is the prolonged length of time many parents and children can share as adult, and even older, individuals. 1 This situation led Shanas (1980) to describe recent cohorts of older children and their parents as “the new pioneers of our era” who have “ventured into uncharted areas of human relationships” (p. 16). A succession of substantial reviews of adult parent–child relationships (see, e.g., Hagestad, 1987; Lye, 1996; Mancini, 1989; Mancini & Bliesner, 1989) testifies to the central place occupied by these relationships within human and social sciences research. However, none of these reviews has been conducted from the perspective that follows—that of a specific interest in the social and discursive construction of relational identities in adulthood and later life.
