We examine these hypotheses empirically by using data from the Iowa Youth and Families Project, a study of two-parent families in rural Iowa. The IYFP began in 1989 with a representative sample of 451 two-parent households residing in eight contiguous farm-dependent counties in north-central Iowa. Crossman, Ashley. Taken together, Hypotheses 1 and 2 suggest a link between the unequal relations that mothers and fathers maintain with maternal and paternal grandparents and lineage differentials in the quality of grandchildgrandparent relations. The point of difference from both matrilineal and matriarchal family is the fact that in such families the husband is more or less present at all times, whereas in matrifocal families he is not. Mothers, of course, are not the sole influence on grandchildgrandparent relations. Thus, G2 parents serve as generational bridges whose actions can determine the quality of the grandchildgrandparent bond (Matthews and Sprey 1985). We consider this scale a measure of the congeniality of G2G1 ties because a high score indicates cordial ties (i.e., a happy relation that also lacks tension), whereas lower scores indicate the presence of negativity. The concept of the matrifocal family was introduced to the study of Caribbean societies by Raymond Smith. In . The contrasting differentials for fathers and mothers raise important questions about the type of biases that grandchildren are likely to face within a family. But researchers exploring family affiliations point out that a so-called " matrilineal advantage " does exist. The presence of such an expectation is possible given that daughters have primary responsibility for caregiving and other support activities in the United States (Lye 1996; Spitze and Logan 1990). Chi-square goodness-of-fit tests for each of the variables were statistically significant at = .05. Finally, future studies should investigate matrilineal advantage from the grandparents' perspective. Thus, matrilineal advantage in grandchildgrandparent relations is likely to emerge in a family system when at least one parentusually the motherhas closer relations with the maternal rather than the paternal side. 7 Nuclear and biological are two distinct categories of relationships. Thus, we speculate that matrilineal advantage after marital dissolution may result from a combination of lineage differentials in parentgrandparent relations prior to marital dissolution and maternal custody after dissolution, which brings out or reinforces the preexisting differential. Note also that the congeniality of G2G1 relations had independent effects for fathers and mothers, suggesting that it is important to consider both parents when analyzing the quality of ties between grandparents and grandchildren living in intact families (see Appendix, Note 12). Possible responses range from, G2 reports of grandparents' health. Obviously, you would give your life for your children, or give them the last biscuit on the plate. Given these overall lineage inequalities in parentgrandparent relations, what proportion of fathers and mothers favor maternal or paternal grandparents? Note: Estimates from the Iowa Youth and Families Project. Matrifocality. Any effort to explain matrilineal advantage must begin by considering the role of the middle generationthe parents of grandchildrenfor the grandchild-grandparent connection. Thus, the argument is that these traditions have survived over time and are reflected in contemporary African American families in the strong role of maternal grandparents in the lives of grandchildren. If parents are equally likely to provide support and are equally close to all surviving grandparents, then, in principle, the quality of a grandchild's relationship with each grandparent will be the same, all else being equal. The first measure is social support, a binary variable that is equal to 1 if a grandparent received emotional or material assistance from a parent (see Appendix, Note 4). Indeed, a rough comparison of patterns of proximity and contact in the IYFP with those in the national sample used in the CherlinFurstenberg study (1991) reveals notable differences. Every person has one or more extended families. The typical sample grandchild was about 14 years of age, in the 9th grade, and with aspirations to go to college. Another reason according to him is due to the increase in the acceptance of homosexuality and allowing its practices in various regions, in lesbian marriages the children adopted, are part of households that are run by the women (mother). Mothers are more likely to provide support and have closer relations with maternal grandparents for a number of reasons. That encourages the assumption of heteronormativity in householdsi.e., that sexual and marital relations are . Researchers in the past have drawn on Hagestad 1985, Hagestad 1986 theoretical work on grandchildgrandparent relations to argue that women's kinkeepingthe facilitation of contact among kinexplains close ties between grandchildren and maternal grandparents. This lineage group is then called into action later on after a family crisis such as divorce. Culture, history, and other extrafamilial factors may determine the social norms that guide intergenerational relations, which then generate microlevel group variations in parentgrandparent and grandchildgrandparent relations. In light of these issues, in the present study we examine the sources of matrilineal advantage in grandchildgrandparent relations. They believe that women are being exploited and thus oppressed in the family life. What matters instead are differentials in kinkeeping (as measured by social support) and closer relations between the mother and the maternal side. 1993). In matrifocal family life, the woman and children are the primary focus, with the father playing a secondary role. Why we think about motherhood the way we do. In many cases, this impact leaves a deep wound that echoes beyond childhood years. [2] In later work, Smith tends to emphasise the household less, and to see matrifocality more in terms of how the family network forms with mothers as key nodes in the network. [1] Smith emphasises that a matrifocal family is not simply woman-centred, but rather mother-centred; women in their role as mothers become key to organising the family group; men tend to be marginal to this organisation and to the household (though they may have a more central role in other networks). However, the contingent nature of grandchildgrandparent ties suggests that close parentgrandparent need to exist before grandchildgrandparent relations can be established. Consequently, their childrenthe grandchild generationare likely to have unequal relations with the grandparent generation. According to Smith, this type of organization is functionally re- lated to a status system in which important jobs in the villages are held by "strangers" or members of non-Negro ethnic groups. Thus while matrifocal households have been traditionally called single-parent households, we see that there are households which are present where both the parents may be women. The importance of blood relations over affinal ties, the strength of the parentchild bond, and other factors suggest the following: Hypothesis 1: Fathers and mothers in the middle have unequal relations with the grandparent generation, with mothers having closer ties and a greater likelihood of providing support to the maternal side and fathers favoring paternal grandparents. On the contrary, our analyses indicate that few grandchildren faced conflicting biases and most grandchildren faced only one type of G2G1 inequality, with matrilineal biases being most prevalent in the case of congeniality. In the case of single parenthood resulting from a mother giving birth outside of marriage, close ties between the grandchild and maternal grandparents may simply be the result of intergenerational coresidence between the mother and the grandparents. However, in another case, perhaps it's two women raising children, with one taking on more of the mother role. Definition: Matrifocality is a concept referring to households that consist of one or more adult women and their children without the presence of fathers. Controlling for relations between mothers and grandparents explains away or accounts for the effects of maternal lineage on grandchildgrandparent relations. Results were also similar when we only focused on lineage differences between grandmothers or between grandfathers or when we only looked at situations in which the grandchild had an equal number of grandparents on each side. Lineage variations in fathers' and mothers' relations with grandparents could develop separately, such as when norms of obligation to blood kin lead each parent to independently develop closer ties to their own side of the family. There are no particular advantages or disadvantages to an extended family. the family. In these kinship groups, childrearing is not the sole responsibility of parents but a shared task that is also performed by aunts, uncles, grandparents, and other members of the larger extended family unit. A traditional nuclear family, with two parents and a couple of dependent children. Social support, on the other hand, had a nonsignificant effect, perhaps as a result of its association with levels of congeniality. Money saving Common activities. In conclusion, we have found strong empirical evidence in our sample of rural Iowans suggesting that lineage differentials in the relations of parents and grandparents explain the emergence of matrilineal advantage in grandchildgrandparent relations. We addressed these questions by cross-tabulating the lineage differentials of fathers and mothers. Thus, matrilineal advantage may have emerged because grandchildren with a strong potential for developing a matrilineal bias in grandchildgrandparent relations outnumbered children with the potential for developing lineage differentials going in other directions. Specifically, lineage differences in parentgrandparent relations promote closer ties between grandchildren and maternal grandparents, thereby turning this set of grandparents into latent resources. Their relevance depends on lineage differentials in parent-grandparent ties prior to family change. Matrifocal family: A matrifocal family consists of a . While relatively little has been written about it historically, current global conditions suggest that matrifocal family life is becoming the norm. Matrilineage is sometimes associated with group marriage or polyandry (marriage of one woman to two or more men at the same time). The Iowa sample is probably less diverse than the national population of grandchildren and grandparents (see Appendix, Note 3). Although the effects of social support were not statistically significant in any of the models, fathers' and mothers' congeniality had strong positive effects, indicating that the more congenial or friendly the relationship between parent and grandparent, the more positive the relationship between that grandparent and a grandchild. Accounting for variations in G2 mothers' support and congeniality reduced the lineage coefficient by more than 60%, from .263 to .101, clearly indicating that mothers' friendlier ties and a higher likelihood of providing support to the maternal side accounted for a large portion of the matrilineal advantage. The dependent variable is relationship quality, a measure of the affective dimension of grandchildgrandparent bonds (Rossi and Rossi 1990). A majority of fathers and mothers provided the same levels of support to both sides of the family, but those that had unequal relations by lineage tended to favor their own side of the family.