Son Relationship Research Articles

An Analysis of the Alleged Skeletal Remains of Carin Göring

In 1991, treasure hunters found skeletal remains in an area close to the destroyed country residence of former Nazi leader Hermann Göring in northeastern Berlin. The remains, which were believed to belong to Carin Göring, who was buried at the site, were examined to determine whether it was possible to make a positive identification. The anthropological analysis showed that the remains come from an adult woman. The DNA analysis of several bone elements showed female sex, and a reference sample from Carin's son revealed mtDNA sequences identical to the remains. The profile has one nucleotide difference from the Cambridge reference sequence (rCRS), the common variant 263G. A database search resulted in a frequency of this mtDNA sequence of about 10% out of more than 7,000 European haplotypes. The mtDNA sequence found in the ulna, the cranium and the reference sample is, thus, very common among Europeans. Therefore, nuclear DNA analysis was attempted. The remains as well as a sample from Carin's son were successfully analysed for the three nuclear markers TH01, D7S820 and D8S1179. The nuclear DNA analysis of the two samples revealed one shared allele for each of the three markers, supporting a mother and son relationship. This genetic information together with anthropological and historical files provides an additional piece of circumstantial evidence in our efforts to identify the remains of Carin Göring.

Maternal Enmeshment

This contribution will undertake a discussion of emotionally incestuous mother–son relationships. After a brief, but general discussion that defines such concepts as enmeshment, differentiation and individuation, the discussion will focus on how family system breaches adversely affect children’s social and emotional development. Then specific attention will be given to the long-term adverse impacts of unhealthy mother–son relationships.

Split Shadows

This article explores a father–son relationship and the death of the author’s father through mythically framed autoethnographic stories. The author confronts persistent anxieties that haunt him, as he struggles with his initiation into “maturity,” an initiation that began with his father’s death and continues today—fifteen years later. By juxtaposing intimate stories of his father with classic, archetypal exigencies of the human quest for meaning in a troubled, limited world, the author seeks to open up multiple layers of possibilities: personal and collective, autoethnographic and mythic, comic and tragic, masculine and feminine. This piece is a tribute to the author’s father and their love that also explores shadowy, unconscious complexities. The author finds wisdom and insight in reclaiming and recasting an ancient, archetypal orientation to myth in the interdisciplinary world of qualitative inquiry. Simultaneously, through crafting a myth of a fallen hero/trickster, the author embraces the transformational process of facing his personal splits while suggesting possibilities for mending splits that still frame and divide our world today.

Stumbling Into Relating

Father–son relationships can be tricky, often fraught with tension or bogged down in painful shared histories. Writing about these relationships is similarly tricky, and fraught with various tensions. As an accidental ethnographer who follows the organic flow of my own emergent writing—and who wholeheartedly embraces writing into and through communication problems—I have written my way into some messy little corners while writing about others. But I have also stumbled into some intriguing, deep, and powerful relational turning points. In this essay, I stumble into writing my relationship with my father, and thus toward re-writing the terms of our relationship.

Reconciling the Relational Echoes of Addiction

This article explores the negotiation of a father–son relationship in the context of addiction, as conveyed from the vantage point of the relationship the author maintains with his father. The author conveys narrative fragments to explore a range of facets of the relationship and to illustrate how relationships of this kind often resist easy answers. Indeed, they are multifaceted interactional processes confounded by the powerful grip of history and emotion. In seeking a clearer understanding of the complexities of the father–son relationship within addiction, the author aims for a fuller understanding of the difficulties that motivate and complicate his own recovery.

Fathers and Sons

In this article the author seeks to explore the dynamics of father–son relationships by calling upon bits and pieces of memory and representing them through poetic forms and vignettes. Issues of embodiment, ageing, social class, masculinity, sport, and vulnerability as multilayered and interrelated phenomena pervade the text. The constraining and enabling influence each of these can have on emerging senses of body-self and how they are transmitted across generations is hinted at throughout. It is hoped that readers might add their own bits and pieces in the full acknowledgment that memories are tricksters and shape shifters.

A STUDY ON FATHER AND SON RELATIONSHIP IN NICHOLAS SPARKS' DEAR JOHN

Dear John is a novel American writer Nicholas Sparks.The relationship between father and son in this novel is one of the most important element that makes the story develops. It is an interpretation of the intrinsic elements of the story.The objective approach is chosen because the analysis deals with the intrinsic elements of the story. The method used in the study is library research which focuses on the literary work itself and the written material found in the library and the internet to support the analysis. The final result shows that there are a lot of factors that influence the development of the father and son relationship. The communication and the ability of each person to understand each other are two of the most important factors that influence the relationship of the father and son.

"Between Death and Life": Mobility, War, and Marshallese Women's Songs of Survival

Q: Can you tell me about Marshallese music before the missionaries? A: I'm not sure about music before the missionaries, but I know that the women always made battle songs. --Bikinian councilman Majuro, interview by the author, 2009 In 2006 Women United Together in the Marshall Islands (WUTMI), the nongovernmental umbrella women's organization from the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), released video intended to address the pervasive domestic violence severely compromising the lives of women throughout the developing island nation. (1) WUTMI translated the title of the film from Marshallese, Ekakwikwi Jinen Emmaan, to English, A Call to Arms. (2) The longer, more accurate translation, a call to sons to become angry through jealousy and avenge the injuries that have been done to their mothers, echoes the mother son relationship central to Marshallese cosmology. The film draws on traditional narrative and the rhetoric of warfare that reveal the customary power of women in Marshallese society to secure resolution following conflict. The film also evidences shifting gender roles as women have expanded their traditional vocal and musical roles intimes of conflict to include sounding symbolic and literal ekakwikwi (call to arms). Framed by modern ideological terrain, the film self-reflexively locates in global context where male-dominated hegemonic warfare as source of power is normalized. As the film progresses, domestic violente becomes the intelligible analogue for imperial violence, and the women call on their sons to confront the damages done by both the legacies of colonial involvement and current US militarism and neocolonialism. (3) The destabilization of women is presented as the destabilization of Marshallese culture in its entirety. (4) And what we hear are women assuming the responsibility to sound battle calls amidst unceasing violente with no end in sight. Cultural productions such as A Call to Arms participate in the complex processes of Marshallese indigenous identity construction by emphasizing the stability of traditional gender relations as an extension of the stability of the traditional Marshallese woman. When the viewer becomes attuned to the significations, many of which are referenced through sound-symbolism associated with traditional instruments that are rarely used today, she can then understand stability as host of multivalent mobilities afforded to women through their customary attributes that create and maintain affective alliances. Academic literature has, however, reproduced dichotomous gender associations, depicting the women as in opposition to the mobility of men, at times positing the complementarity of this gender relation and at other times failing to address the distinction between relational versus oppositional identities. (5) While there is historical and evidence to connect women to stability (and social efficacy in doing so), I argue that by examining women's traditional musical and vocal gender roles, specifically during warfare, we can better explore how women have regenerated culture as mechanism of stability during times of instability by maintaining situational flexibility, or the ability to maneuver and negotiate between multiple identities and identifications. (6) I suggest that this reading of women's traditional roles breaks from Western conceptualizations of bounded identities replete with polarized binaries, such as mobile and immobile or stable and unstable. Failing to address, in Joshua Tucker's terms, how cultural performances can clarify the ongoing resignification of indigeneity itself runs the risk of marking political projects of indigeneity as dictated solely by the conditions that have necessitated such projects rather than understanding the projects in, or on, indigenous terms, as negotiations of these conditions within spaces that archive the unique traditions and histories of Marshallese and other indigenous populations more broadly. …

Modeling and Compensatory Processes Underlying Involvement in Child Care Among Kibbutz-Reared Fathers

This study examined modeling and compensatory processes underlying the effects of an early paternal model on father involvement in child care. Drawing on social learning theory, it was hypothesized that father–son relationships would moderate the association between a father’s involvement and his own father’s involvement. A sample of 136 kibbutz father–son dyads completed extensive questionnaires. Findings provided evidence for modeling effects on the socioemotional care dimension, whereas imitation of highly involved fathers occurred simultaneously with compensation for relatively uninvolved fathers on the physical care and responsibility dimensions. As predicted, imitation was more likely in close father–son relationships. These findings shed light on the role of paternal model and attest to the importance of differentiating various forms of involvement.

‘Shameful work’: A psychosocial approach to father–son relations, young male unemployment and femininity in an ex-steel community

Using a psychosocial approach, this paper explores young unemployed men's resistance to work they describe as ‘embarrassing’ and ‘feminine’. The context is the closure of a steelworks in a town in the South Wales valleys, in which their resistance is mediated by father–son relationships that dictate what counts as proper manly work. In this study, young men, as well as their mothers and (where possible) their fathers, were interviewed. The interviews reveal a community suffering the effects of intergenerational trauma and riven with complex feelings about masculinity and femininity. These feelings are projected onto the young men, who feel bullied and shamed by their families, peers and others in the community because they are unable to find gender-appropriate work. The implications of these findings for understandings of youth male unemployment are considered.

The Influence of the Early Rearing Environment on the Development of Paternal Care in African Striped Mice

In some biparental mammals, paternal care is important for offspring development and survival. We investigated the influence of the early post-natal environment on the development of paternal care in the naturally paternal desert-dwelling African striped mouse (Rhabdomys pumilio). Our aim was to establish whether the expression of paternal care in adult sons is influenced by their experience of paternal care. Offspring were raised in one of three conditions: both parents raised young; mothers raised young alone; and mothers raised young alone but were separated from the father with a barrier. The paternal care behaviour of sons was investigated when they were adults. Contrary to expectations, adult sons raised by the mother alone displayed greater levels of huddling behaviour of their own pups compared to sons raised by both parents. This response appears to be influenced by the early mother–son relationship, because mothers raising pups alone compensated for the absence of fathers by increasing the time spent with pups compared to mothers raising pups with fathers. The mechanisms underpinning the development of paternal care are not apparent in our study. Nonetheless, the development of paternal care is condition-dependent in male striped mice, indicating that the potential for greater levels of care occurs in the absence of the father and concomitant compensation of maternal care during early development.

Changing images of the USA in German media discourse during four American presidencies

•This article presents a study of how images of the United States have changed in German media discourse since the end of the Cold War. Two leading German news papers, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Süddeutsche Zeitung, have been analysed during four time periods — from 1984 to 2009 — covering four American presidencies. The results show that the image of the USA was far more critical in 2004, during the Bush era than during the other presidencies, where positive and trustful images had a more prominent place in the discourse. Even anti-American images were found. However, the critical images were, in general, more focused on what the USA does, not what it is — even during the Bush era. Furthermore, the relationship between the USA and Germany was portrayed as being close and friendly — like a father—son relationship — with the exception of 2004, when relations were presented as somewhat strained. •

An unusual nursing interaction between two adult Cape fur seals Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus

Given the high costs of lactation and the importance of milk for pup growth and survival in pinnipeds, nursing behaviour directed by a lactating female towards another adult is unexpected. Here, details were noted of a nursing interaction that occurred between two Cape fur seal Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus adults. After discussing the event in the light of various hypotheses that have been previously proposed to explain uncharacteristic nursing behaviour in pinnipeds, a mother–son relationship between the interacting pair was considered to be the most likely explanation.

Parental Influences on Memories of Parents and Friends

ABSTRACT The authors evaluated the role parent–child relationship quality has on two types of memories, those of parents and those of friends. Participants were 198 Italian university students who recalled memories during 4 separate timed memory-fluency tasks about their preschool, elementary school, middle school, high school and university years. Half were instructed to recall memories involving parents and the remainder memories involving friends. Moreover, parent–child relationships were assessed by the Network of Relationships Inventory (NRI; W. Furman & D. Buhrmester, 1985) and Adolescents’ Report of Parental Monitoring (D. M. Capaldi & G. R. Patterson, 1989). Results showed that men with positive parent–son relationships had more memories of parents and more affectively positive memories of friends, supporting a consistency model positing similarity between parent–child relationships and memories of friends. Women with positive parental relationship quality had more affectively positive memories of parents but for friends, positive relationship quality only predicted positive memories when young. At older ages, especially middle school-aged children, negative parent–daughter relationships predicted more positive memories of friends, supporting a compensatory model. The gender of parent also mattered, with fathers having a more influential role on affect for memories of friends.

Mother–son relationship as a risk factor for depressive symptoms among methamphetamine users

Retrospective reports of children's relationships with their parents have been associated with increased risk for depressive symptoms in adulthood. This study examined four dimensions of the current mother–child relationship (affection, criticism, over-involvement and conflict) in relation to depressive symptoms in a sample of 270 HIV-positive men who have sex with men (MSM). Depressive symptoms were positively associated with overt conflict or disagreement with mothers and perceived over-involvement by mothers, and inversely related to frequency of contact with mothers. These findings suggest that clinicians who treat HIV-positive methamphetamine-using MSM with depressive symptoms should evaluate issues in the mother–son relationship and consider family-based therapies as an adjunct to treatment.

Self-Regulation in Early Adolescence: Relations with Mother–Son Relationship Quality and Maternal Regulatory Support and Antagonism

The purpose of the current investigation was to examine relations among maternal regulatory support, maternal antagonism, and mother-son relationship quality in relation to boys' self-regulation during early adolescence. As part of a larger longitudinal study on 263 low-income, ethnically diverse boys, multiple informants and methods were used to examine associations among parenting practices and mother-son relationship quality in relation to boys' self-regulation at ages 10 and 11. Multivariate analyses indicated that high levels of regulatory supportive parenting and relationship quality and low levels of antagonistic parenting independently predicted high levels of boys' self-regulation at age 10. Only antagonistic parenting and relationship quality explained variance in levels of boys' self-regulation at age 11 after accounting for prior self-regulation. The findings suggest that parenting and the context of the parent-child relationship are linked to self-regulation during early adolescence; however, it appears that parental antagonism and relationship quality, not maternal regulatory supportive parenting, contribute to rank-order change in self-regulation abilities. Implications of these results for research and practice are discussed.

A psycho-discursive approach to analysing qualitative interview data, with reference to a father—son relationship

I want to make a case, following some recent social psychological thinking (Georgaca; Frosh et al.; Hollway and Jefferson), for using psychoanalytic concepts to inform qualitative interviewing and (particularly) the analysis of interview data. More specifically, I wish to advocate the use of both discursive and psychoanalytic perspectives in facilitating qualitative data analysis: the deployment of psychoanalytic concepts directs us to interviewee biographies and subjectivity, complementing the discursive emphasis on the language use and function during interviews. To illustrate the benefits of this ‘psychodiscursive’ approach, I draw upon interview data on a father-son relationship, derived from a wider ESRC-sponsored Node project on family resemblances, to trace defensive as well as discursive patterns in the interview data. I will be arguing that both discursive and psychoanalytic frameworks can offer valuable, and not necessarily incompatible, levels of interpretation, while either perspective presented in isolation will lead to an impoverished analysis.

A Bifocal Landscape of Father and Son Relationship in Irish Plays, Brian Friel's <Philadelphia, Here I Come!> and Hugh Leonard's <Da>

A Bifocal Landscape of Father and Son Relationship in Irish Plays, Brian Friel's <Philadelphia, Here I Come!> and Hugh Leonard's <Da>

Drawn from Memory: Comics Artists and Intergenerational Auto/biography

This article examines the dynamics of father–son relationships and the problems of intergenerational collaboration in Art Spiegelman's Maus I and II, Seth and John Gallant's Bannock, Beans, and Black Tea: Memories of a Prince Edward Island Childhood during the Depression, and Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth. All three authors are critically acclaimed cartoonists and graphic novelists who use the mixed medium of verbal–visual narratives to tell stories about biological and symbolic fathers. These works reject dominant notions of masculinity and fatherhood through various forms of collaborative auto/biography and intergenerational semi-auto/biography that gravitate towards an aesthetics of smallness. The article concludes that, even as these three projects stage a reconciliation between fathers and sons, past and present, public and private, they nevertheless question the politics and practices of representing self and other in popular graphic form.

Gender and Patterns of Concerned Responsiveness in Representations of the Mother–Daughter and Mother–Son Relationship

Given that girls show more interpersonal concern than boys, it was predicted that more mother-daughter than mother-son dyads would develop a relationship of mutual concerned responsiveness (CR). Two hundred and twenty-six Israeli children (7-8 years old) and 91 mother-child pairs provided narratives of mother-child interactions. At high levels of socioeconomic status (SES), descriptions of child but not maternal concern differed by gender; therefore, more mother-daughter narratives described mutual CR and more mother-son narratives described a nonreciprocal pattern of maternal CR. In a low-SES sample, most mother-daughter narratives described mutual CR, but many mothers and sons described little concern by either partner. Results provided clear evidence of gender differences in mother-child reciprocity and confirmed the importance of examining gender influences in different social groups.