ABSTRACT
American women report great problems in the role of mother, in spite of their increasing competence in other roles. Some children of the Chicago area respondents had died after their mothers became widowed. Having been accustomed to the role of mother as dependent upon the presence of a father, many widows experienced and reported great changes in relations with their children after the death of the husband. The kind and amount of help an offspring can give his widowed mother is dependent on the match between the child's abilities and the mother's needs. The independence of widows is reflected by the fact that 49 percent of them are able to live alone. The unwillingness of widows to live with their married offspring is primarily a consequence of the shift of home management and was investigated through interview questions. In general, contact with offspring tends to be asymmetrical, in that widows see some of their adult children more often than others.
