ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses families with adult children as a place of safety and security. The relationship between parents and adult children can invite conflicts, misunderstandings, intense disappointments, unresolved differences and even estrangement.
This chapter uniquely explores four attachment strategies and their application to the relationship between parents and adult children. For the first time, this relationship is included in the lifecycle of the family. Several typical relational elements between parents and adult children are discussed, for example punishment, money as a force, and intergenerational differences.
The family is described as containing strong and long-lasting relationships, for members to be able to rely on one another and spend time together making possible the inclusion of an ongoing attachment that can be revised, repaired or even reversed. This characterisation of ‘family’ is deemed to be culturally inclusive, action driven and in continual movement.
Independence still seems to hold up as the highest success marker for parents and adult children no matter that lived experience evidences ongoing contact, proximity and interdependence between parents and adult children. This research offers evidence to support the integration of ‘being connected’ into wider narratives of second phase parenting.
