The role of grandparents in the family's penitentiary crisis: biographical research

Abstract

This paper focuses on the role and importance of grandparents in the situation of the family's penitentiary crisis. In the light of biographical research carried out with two research groups: (1) adults who experienced a parent's incarceration in childhood and (2) parents of prisoners – the activities and key strategies of grandparents involved in supporting their grandchildren were analysed. The potential of Fritz Schütze's biographical sociology was used to carry out the study, based on the reconstruction of the life history of the respondents. On the basis of the narrative interviews, I described the specificity of two key contexts: (1) the (negative) experience of parentification in the situation of complete takeover of the care of grandchildren, and (2) (positive and negative) aspects of grandparents' occasional participation in family life. The obtained results allow to improve the knowledge about the experiences (needs and difficulties) of prisoners' families, especially focusing on intergenerational relations.