A phenomenology of Filipino military grandparents’ disciplinary practices to their grandchildren

Abstract

ABSTRACT While scholars recognize that great diversity exists in how grandparents are involved in their grandchildren’s lives, grandparenting in the military context remains a blank spot in the literature. This paper argues that investigating the dynamics of grandparenting in a highly collectivist society like the Philippines could generate valuable insights and perspectives, thus expanding the knowledge frontiers on skipped generation grandparents. Driven by a phenomenological design, this study sought to characterize the disciplinary practices of a select group of military grandparents. Six (6) purposefully recruited military grandparents were invited to participate in a semi-structured interview. Field texts gathered in this study were subjected to phenomenological reduction via cool and warm analyses. Interestingly, this study afforded the development of a clear-cut Taxonomy of Military Grandparents According to Disciplinary Practices, which is an intersection of the involvement of both grandparents and parents in the lives of their grandchildren. Implications of the emerged typologies of grandparents, namely: independent, involved, intrusive, and inclusive, are discussed in this paper.