Attachment bonds between adult daughters and their older mothers: associations with contemporary caregiving.

Abstract

This study examined associations between attachment bonds and the care that daughters were providing to their community-dwelling mothers. Adult daughters (40 African American, 40 European American) completed assessments of adult attachment, instrumental and emotional caregiving, and caregiver burden. The author performed hierarchical linear regressions to examine the relationships between attachment dimensions (Security and Anxiety) and the provision of instrumental and emotional care. Both attachment dimensions were unrelated to the provision of instrumental care. In contrast, high scores on the Security dimension and low scores on the Anxiety dimension were associated with the provision of more emotional care to mothers. A final analysis revealed that high scores on the Security dimension were associated with less caregiver burden. These results suggest that practical care that daughters provide to their mothers may be independent of attachment patterns within the child-parent relationship, whereas affective, discretionary care may be promoted or hindered by attachment patterns. Moreover, the stress of caregiving may be mediated by a more secure attachment bond. The potential impact of adult attachment patterns has implications for both family intervention and public policy, given that more families are expected to participate in caregiving in coming decades.