“Nobody Else Could Tell Those Stories”: Exploring Recollections of Grandparental Narratives in Early Adulthood

Abstract

Existing research on grandparental narratives, or family stories told by grandparents, often centers accounts relayed by youth in adjacent-generation family structures where grandparents serve auxiliary roles; less is known about narratives shared by young adults from more diverse family structures—like grandfamilies (i.e., grandparents as primary parental figures)—which may have distinctive characteristics given differences in grandparent roles. Interviews with young adults (N = 12) with varying life satisfaction and grandparent-grandchild family structure (i.e., adjacent-generation or grandfamily) revealed distinct grandparental narrative characteristics (e.g., content, structure, storyteller) by family structure and identified their function as relationship reinforcement, memorialization, and connection to roots. While contributing new voices to the intergenerational narratives literature, this work suggests grandparental narratives could be used as tools by researchers and practitioners.