Anglo and Mexican-American adult children's feelings toward their aging parents

Abstract

This article questions whether Anglo and Mexican-American adult males and females feel and behave differently toward their aging parents. The sample consisted of 315 Anglo and Mexican-American staff and faculty from two universities in Austin, Texas, who were between 35–45 years of age and had at least one living parent. Respondents were given a questionnaire that included information on (a) attachment behavior (proximity of living arrangements between adult children and their aging parents, frequency of visits and phone calls to their aging parents) and (b) feelings of attachment (level of closeness, value consensus, compatibility, and perception of parent's personality traits). A 2 × 2 fixed-effects analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test these hypotheses of the study. Results indicated that there were statistically significant differences in the way Anglo and Mexican-American children feel and behave toward their mothers and fathers. There were no differences between gender groups in the way they felt and behaved toward their mothers and fathers.