Homeless Women's Perceptions about Their Families of Origin

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine descriptively the families of origin of women who are, or who had been, homeless. The research was done using a descriptive qualitative research design; specifically, intensive interviewing. A feminist framework guided the research process. Lofland and Lofland's (1984) conceptualization of units of social settings was used as the basis for analysis of the data. The sample consisted of 20 women who had been homeless. Twelve of the women were interviewed individually. Six of those 12 women and an additional 8 women were later interviewed as part of two focus groups. Themes within each social unit included: meanings--homelesness, home, family of origin, lack of connectedness, and being without; practices--male privilege, transiency, and abuse issues; episodes--loss of family and being homeless; roles--traditional female-male, scapegoating, and little adult; and relationships--mother/daughter, father/daughter, and sibling. Within the mother/daughter relationships, the dominant themes were betrayal, devaluation of self, enmeshment, emotional void, longing for, emotional cutoff, and destructive coalitions. The themes from the father/daughter relationships social unit were abuse issues, differential treatment, idealized father figure, and banished daughter. Criteria for transferability and adequacy were used to determine scientific rigor.