The Meaning of Grandparenthood:Do Adolescent Grandchildren Perceive

the Relationship and Role in the Same Wayas Their Grandparents Do?

Carme Triadó, PhDFeliciano Villar, PhD

Carme Solé, PhDMaría-José OsunaSacramento Pinazo

ABSTRACT. This work aims at studying the meaning of the grandpar-ent role both from the grandparent’s and the grandchild’s point of view,and at assessing the effects of gender and age in this meaning. To do so,data were collected from a sample of 154 grandparent-grandchild dyads,who filled in a questionnaire with the same items adapted to their respec-

Carme Triadó (E-mail: ctriado@ub.edu) is Professor of Developmental Psychologyand Feliciano Villar (E-mail: fvillar@ub.edu) is Professor of Developmental Psychol-ogy, Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, University of Barce-lona, Passeig de la Vall d’Hebron 171, 08035 Barcelona, Spain.

Carme Solé is Professor of Developmental Psychology, Blanquerna–Faculty ofPsychology, Educational Sciences and Sport, Ramon Llull University, Císter 34,08022 Barcelona, Spain (E-mail: carmesr@blanquerna.url.es).

María-José Osuna is affiliated with the Department of Developmental and Educa-tional Psychology, University of Barcelona, Passeig de la Vall d’Hebron 171, 08035Barcelona, Spain (E-mail: mjosuna@ub.edu).

Sacramento Pinazo is affiliated with the Department of Social Psychology, University ofValencia, Avenida Blasco Ibáñez, 21, 46010 Valencia, Spain (E-mail: sacramento.pinazo@uv.es).

This research has received financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Scienceand Technology (Grant BSO2002-02604).

Journal of Intergenerational Relationships, Vol. 3(2) 2005Available online at http://www.haworthpress.com/web/JIR

© 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.Digital Object Identifier: 10.1300/J194v03n02_07 101

tive perspectives. The answers were submitted to a principal componentanalysis. Results seem to point at the perception of the grandparent rolebeing similar from both points of view. In general, our results suggestthat grandparents and grandchildren get on well together and enjoy theirrelationship, but the degree of mutual understanding and intimacy is notvery high. Finally, some implications of this study with regards to futureresearch in this field are described. [Article copies available for a fee fromThe Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address:<docdelivery@haworthpress.com> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com>© 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS. Grandparenthood, grandparent-grandchild dyads, ado-lescent grandchildren, family relationships

INTRODUCTION

The study of intergenerational relationships within the family and,particularly, of the relationship between grandparents and grandchil-dren, has experienced an increasing interest in the last decades. As lifeexpectancy has increased, the number of old people who become grand-parents is larger and larger, and they are grandparents for a longer time.These tendencies enhance the importance of grandparents within thefamily structure and allow the grandparent role to be ascribed to devel-opmental changes as grandparents and grandchildren grow older.

Nevertheless, some authors observe a certain vagueness in the defini-tion of the grandparent role within the family, at least in comparisonwith the clearer expectations particular to other family roles such as par-ent or child (Pinazo, 2000). Perhaps as a result of this, the most studiedaspect in relation to grandparenthood has precisely been how grandpar-ents and grandchildren perceive the meaning of grandparenthood, whatis expected from grandparents, and what are the typical behavioural pat-terns of grandparenting. Most studies acknowledge the complexity ofsuch a role, and propose typologies to define different ways of grand-parenting. However, the criteria used to propose these typologies arevery different in one research or another.

Firstly, some studies base these classifications on determined key di-mensions, such as emotional closeness or the instrumental or expressivecharacter of the relationship, which act as a continuum where the differ-ent grandparenting styles are located. A prototypical classification in

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this sense is the one proposed by Robertson (1977), who uses the per-sonal and social meaning of grandparents as key points to distinguishtypes of grandparents. The personal dimension refers to the contribu-tion of grandparents to their grandchild’s personal satisfaction, whereasthe social dimension refers to their role as models and moral guides.Thus, Robertson describes four grandparenting styles: apportioned grand-parents (with high scores in both dimensions), individualised grandpar-ents (high in the personal dimension, low in the social dimension),symbolic grandparents (low in the individual dimension, high in the so-cial one), and distant grandparents (low in both dimensions). This clas-sification has been widely used in later studies (see, for instance, Block,2000).

A second way of establishing grandparent typologies, perhaps morefrequent than the previous one, is to propose grandparenting styles asqualitatively different and mutually exclusive categories. In this case,the different grandparenting types tend to be greater in number than inthe previous approach, and each type has its sense regardless of theother ones, without any reference to any underlying dimension they couldhave in common. For example, the classical proposal by Neugarten andWeinstein (1964) may be said to follow this approach. These authorsdistinguish five different grandparenting types: formal grandparents,fun-seeking grandparents, surrogate parents, reservoir of family wis-dom grandparents, and distant grandparents. This approach has beenvery productive, and some research use the dimensions proposed byNeugarten and Weinstein or even add some others (see, for example,Cherlin and Furstenberg, 1986).

However, this proliferation of grandparenting roles and styles makesit difficult to maintain them as mutually exclusive typologies. On thecontrary, it enables a vision of these dimensions as typical traits thatmay be present at the same time, although in different degrees, in onegrandparent (see, for example, Mueller, Wilhelm and Elder, 2002;Mueller and Elder, 2003).

Gender and Grandparenthood

Some studies on grandparenting styles have attempted to isolate thedifferent factors determining the kind of relationship between grandpar-ents and grandchildren. In this sense, gender is one of the most studiedvariables. Associated with gender, there are at least three kinds of possi-ble influences: the grandchild’s gender, the grandparent’s gender, andlineage, which may be maternal or paternal.

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With regards to the grandparent’s gender, most research seems topoint out that the relationship between grandmothers and their grand-children entails a greater component of emotional closeness and affec-tive support than in the case of grandfathers, who would be moreemotionally distant from their grandchildren and more focused on theinstrumental aspects of their relationship (Eisenberg, 1988; Spitze andWard, 1998). Thomas (1989) presents similar data, as he found thatgrandmothers were much more satisfied with their role than grandfa-thers, with the perceived intimacy and influence on their grandchildrenbeing also higher. When grandchildren classified their grandparents inrelation to their importance in their lives, maternal grandmothers usu-ally were first (Kennedy, 1992). However, other research works warnus about making excessive generalizations. For example, Roberto,Allen and Blieszner (2001) found that many grandfathers had intenseaffective relationships with their grandchildren, comparable to thoseestablished by grandmothers.

With regards to lineage, we can also find in literature differencesbetween grandparents on the father’s side and grandparents on themother’s side. It is generally acknowledged that, traditionally, thefamily relationships are more intense among the mother’s side thanamong the father’s side, which makes it not surprising that some find-ings show that maternal grandparents, in general, have more frequentcontact with their grandchildren, closer relationships than the paternalgrandparents (Chan and Elder, 2000; Uhlenberg and Hammill, 1998;Kivett, 1996).

Finally, the grandchild’s gender can also have an influence on thekind of relationship they establish with their grandparents. Followingprevious arguments, it is to be expected that, if within families themost frequent and closest relationships have traditionally a femalecharacter, granddaughters value the relationship with their grandpar-ents more than grandsons. This is precisely what most research in thisfield has concluded. Creasey and Koblesky (1991), for example,found that granddaughters preferred being with their grandparentsmore than grandsons, and they stated they received more help fromgrandparents than grandsons. According to their data, this effect of thegrandchild’s gender surpassed in different dimensions of the relation-ship the effects of the grandparent’s gender or lineage. Similarly,Triadó, Martínez and Villar (2000) observed that, in comparison to ado-lescent girls, adolescent boys perceive their grandparents as distant fig-ures more frequently.

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Age and Grandparenthood

Besides gender, age has been one of the factors taken into accountwhen studying the relationship between grandparents and grandchil-dren. Thus, it seems reasonable to think that, as grandchildren growolder, the kind of activities they share with their grandparents is verydifferent, which could have an effect on the kind and perhaps the qualityof their relationship. For example, some activities concerning grand-child rearing seem logically restricted only to some early stages in thegrandchild’s life, and then disappear. Moreover, the frequency of con-tacts between grandparents and grandchildren tends to decrease asgrandchildren grow older (Field and Ninkler, 1988). Adolescence, be-ing a period when the person experiences many changes and gets in-volved in new relationships and contexts demanding more time andenergy, may involve a certain sacrifice of the relationship they used tohave with grandparents (Roberto and Stroes, 1992; Tyszkowa, 1993).As young people acquire independence in this period, the frequency ofthe relationship is not dependent on the generation of parents or grand-parents themselves, but becomes more voluntary. However, some au-thors such as Silverstein and Long (1998), in a longitudinal study, suggestthat, after the decrease in frequency of contact during adolescence, thisfrequency tends to increase once grandchildren finish their transitioninto early adulthood.

Nevertheless, although the frequency may decrease, it is doubtfulthat the quality of the relationship tends to decrease too. Thus, whereassome studies seem to point at this decrease (Creasey and Kobleswki,1991; Silverstein and Long, 1998), others, such as the one by Field andMinkler (1998), stand out that the satisfaction remains stable in time. Inthis same sense, many studies observe that, even during adolescence,the grandchild’s perception of their grandparents is usually ruled byfeelings of affection and by the importance of the emotional help fromgrandparents, in a vision of grandparents as encouraging self-esteemand their role as allies in problematic situations (Van Rast, Verschuerenand Marchen, 1995; Hyde and Gibbs, 1993; Tyszkowa, 1991).

The grandparent’s age could also have some influence on the rela-tionship with their grandchildren. Triadó, Martínez and Villar (2000)observe that, the older the grandparents are, the more likely their grand-children are to consider them as a distant figure, maybe as a reference ofthe family past and of old age, but with less close relationships. In a sim-ilar study, but using a sample of grandparents, Triadó and Villar (2000)

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show how older grandparents are also less emotionally close to theirgrandchildren than younger grandparents.

Studying the Relationship from Both Sides

As reviewed above, research carried out so far have showed the di-versity of the kind of relationship between grandparents and grandchil-dren, and how factors related to gender and age, among others, have aninfluence on it. However, a much more fundamental issue has not beenpaid much attention to yet: the different perspectives the relationship isperceived from and their congruence or not. Thus, the relationship canbe observed in very different terms depending on whether it is assessedby grandparents or by grandchildren. In spite of this, most research ontypologies or components of the grandparent role spring from researchcarried out with grandparents exclusively, with a lesser number ap-proaching this issue from the grandchild’s perspective (see, for exam-ple, Schultz, 1980; Harstshorne and Manaster, 1982; Triadó, Martínezand Villar, 2000).

A first approach to this difference of perspectives is to ask grandpar-ents or grandchildren not only for their perception of the relationship,but also how they believe the other perspective to be like regarding thesame relationship. An example of this kind of study can be found inLanger (1990), who observed that, when a sample of grandparents as-sessed their relationship with adult grandchildren, they perceived whatthey gave to their grandchildren, both as instrumental and expressivesupport, was more than what their grandchildren gave them.

However, the most precise way to approach this issue may be by usingsamples consisting of grandparent-grandchild dyads. These studies withdyads, where each partner assesses the same relationship, thus obtainingdata that can be compared, are the only ones that enable us to analyze thepossible discrepancies between grandparents and grandchildren when as-sessing the meaning of their relationship. By examining and confrontingthis double-sided perspective we can get a deeper understanding of the re-lationship. We can see, for instance, the importance that grandchildrenand grandparents give to such a relationship, how they interpret theother’s behaviour and what each expects from the other member of thedyad. Coincidence could indicate the existence of a shared ground in therelationship while discrepancy could indicate potential sources of dissat-isfaction or conflict. In addition, knowing both perspectives may helpwork out better ways to optimize such a relationship.

Nevertheless, this kind of studies using dyads has been scarcely con-ducted so far. In one of them, Block (2000) observed that, while in some

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dimensions of the relationship, such as the role attributed to grandpar-ents or the perception of emotional closeness, the congruence betweengrandparents and grandchildren was high, in other dimensions that wasnot the case. For example, grandparents reported less contact with theirgrandchildren than what the latter admitted. At the same time, the dis-satisfaction with the current level of contact and their wish to increase itwas greater in grandparents than in grandchildren. On their side, Crosnoeand Elder (2002) stand out that certain changes, such as the grandchil-dren going into secondary school, may reinforce some qualities of therelationship according to grandparents, emphasizing for example the in-crease in the importance of their role as mentors. At the same time, forthe other partner in the dyad, grandchildren, this change does not existand they may even perceive these attempts of being mentors on the partof grandparents as an interference rather than some help. Such studiesshow that, in spite of their difficulty, research with dyads is a promisingpath in the study of the complex relational dynamics between grandpar-ents and grandchildren, revealing domains of shared understanding andmisunderstandings.

In summary, this study has two main objectives. Firstly, it aims atexamining the meaning of the grandparent role and its different di-mensions, by using grandparent-grandchild dyads and paying specialattention to similarities and discrepancies between the perspectives ofboth partners. Secondly, it aims at examining to what extent thesemeanings, whether shared or not, may be influenced by factors relatedto both grandparent’s and grandchild’s gender or age. In this case, wewill also take into account the differential effect that these factors mayhave depending on the perspective considered, the grandparent’s orthe grandchild’s.

METHOD

Sample and Procedure

A sample made of 154 grandparent-grandchild dyads took part in thisstudy. The sample of grandparents consisted of 61 grandfathers (39.6% ofthe sample) and 93 grandmothers. Their mean age was 74.1 years old, withthe youngest grandparent being 57 and the oldest one being 90. Fifty-fourpoint nine percent of the grandparent sample only had primary education,and 33% secondary education. Only 3.2% of grandparents had universityeducation. As for their marital status, 55.8% were married, and 42.9% werewidowed. In the sample of grandchildren, their mean age was 16.4 years

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old, with the youngest grandchild being 12 and the oldest being 20. Thesample consisted of 69 grandsons (44.8%) and 85 granddaughters (55.2%).

According to the grandparent’s and grandchild’s gender and lin-eage (maternal or paternal), the grandparent-grandchild dyads can bedistributed into eight types. The frequency and percentage of eachtype in our sample is shown in Table 1. It can be observed that thenumber of couples with the same gender was practically the same asthe number of couples with different gender (80 versus 74), whereascouples from the mother’s side widely surpassed those from the fa-ther’s side (103 versus 51).

The 308 participants lived in Barcelona and its area of influence. Toobtain their participation, a two-phased procedure was followed.

Firstly, researchers went to the high schools where the grandchil-dren of the age group in this work (12 to 20 years old) studied. Theadolescent answered the instruments proposed individually, havingin mind only one of their grandparents (always the same one), andthey also provided us with the necessary data (address and telephonenumber) to get in touch with their grandparent. The grandparent wasfreely chosen by the grandchild, with the only condition that he/shelived in the same city where the study was conducted or in aneighboring town.

In a second phase, and from the data provided by the grandchild,the researchers got in touch with the grandparents and asked them toparticipate in the study. The grandparent had to answer the instru-ments having in mind the grandchild who had given their data. In thecase of grandparents, the researcher administered the instrumentspersonally, making sure that the participants understood each itemcorrectly.

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TABLE 1. Grandparent-grandchild dyads depending on lineage, grandparent’sgender and grandchild’s gender.

Lineage Type of dyad Frequency Percentage

Paternal Grandfather - grandson 14 9.1 %

Grandfather - granddaughter 7 4.5 %

Grandmother - grandson 16 10.4 %

Grandmother - granddaughter 14 9.1 %

Maternal Grandfather - grandson 14 9.1 %

Grandfather - granddaughter 26 16.9 %

Grandmother - grandson 25 16.2 %

Grandmother - granddaughter 38 24.7 %

Measures

To assess the different aspects of the grandparent role a questionnairewas constructed. It consisted of 41 items to be answered with a 6-pointLikert scale (from 0–never–to 5–always).

The items of the questionnaire were intended to be as varied as possi-ble in order to collect the different dimensions and typologies ofgrandparenting described in literature. Thus, items referring to such di-mensions as surrogate caregiver, emotional closeness, guidance and par-ticipation in rules, mediator, link with the past or offered and requestedhelp were included.

Some items of the questionnaire were presented in the negative, thatis, answering “always” implied a low level in the dimension the itemwas ascribed to, and answering “never” represented a high level (for ex-ample, the item “My grandchildren worry about me much less thanwhat I worry about them,” included in the “Mutual trust” component).The inclusion of such kind of items contributes to avoid automatic an-swering patterns, which may be the case in long questionnaires after an-swering the first few items. Scores in these items were then inverted tocarry out the appropriate analysis.

The 41 items were randomly distributed in the final questionnaire.This questionnaire was tested in a previous research (see Triadó andVillar, 2000), where it was guaranteed that grandparents understood theitems, and some preliminary results were collected.

For this current research, together with this questionnaire, anotherparallel questionnaire was created where all items were modified to beanswered by the grandchildren rather than by the grandparents. For ex-ample, such an item of the original questionnaire as “I tell my grand-child our family story” became in this questionnaire for grandchildrenthe item “My grandparent tells me our family story.” This conversionwas carried out for all items. In this sense, for each dyad the grandparentanswered the original questionnaire, whereas the grandchild answeredthe parallel adapted version. The final order of items in this second scalefor grandchildren was the same as the one established in the originalscale for grandparents.

As well as answering that questionnaire, participants rated, on an8-point scale, the amount of contact they have with the paired grandpar-ent or grandchild. The scale was coded as follows: I live with him/her,every day, several times a week, once a week, several times a month,once a month, several times a year, once a year or less.

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RESULTS

The Grandparent Role from the Grandparents’and Grandchildren’s Perspective

The first research question under study was how the grandparent roleis perceived, and whether this perception is similar between the twomembers of the grandparent-grandchild dyad.

To do so, a principal component analysis was carried out with the an-swers to the questionnaire by grandparents and grandchildren. Usingthe Varimax extraction method and being the main criterion the pres-ence of eigenvalues over 1.5, both questionnaires seemed to be de-scribed optimally from a 7-component structure. In both cases, similarlabels for components as the ones used in previous research have beenused when content seemed to coincide.

With regards to the questionnaire for grandparents, the total varianceas explained by the seven-component solution accounted for 53% of to-tal variance. Once suppressed the 9 items that seemed not to load clearlyinto any component, the total reliability of the scale, as measured byCronbach’s alpha, was 0.84. The calculation of Cronbach’s alpha foreach of the components ranged from 0.82 (“Link with the past”) to 0.63(“Fun-seeking”) (see Table 2).

For the version of grandchildren, the statistics were very similar.Variance explained by the 7-component solution reached 52%. Oncesuppressed the 8 items with low or confusing loading values, the statis-tical calculation of Cronbach’s alpha was 0.85. Taking components in-dividually, their reliability ranged from 0.82 (“Link with the past”) to

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TABLE 2. Results of principal component analysis on grandparent role ques-tionnaire, from grandparents’ perspective.

Component Num. items % variance Alpha

Mutual trust 6 9.89 0.75

Link with the past 3 8.30 0.82

Counsellor 6 8.19 0.68

Distant 6 7.53 0.67

Caregiver 4 7.03 0.78

Fun-seeking 3 7.03 0.63

Indulgent 5 5.89 0.68

Total 32 53.80 0.84

0.59 (“Mediator”). The latter component was also the one with a lowerlevel of explained variance (see Table 3).

Comparing the components extracted from both perspectives, it canbe observed that six of them are repeated (“Mutual trust,” “Link withthe past,” “Distant,” “Caregiver,” “Fun-seeking,” and “Indulgent”).The items that are part of these components are practically the sameboth from the grandparents’ and grandchildren’s perspective, and thecorrelations between repeated components in grandparents and grand-children were, as well as statistically significant, clearly the highestones in the intercorrelation pattern between components from grandpar-ents and grandchildren. There were only two unique components, onefor grandparents and one for grandchildren. Thus, grandparents seem todistinguish a component associated to giving advice that grandchildrenseem not to perceive, whereas grandchildren distinguish a mediating di-mension regarding family conflicts that grandparents seem not to takeinto account.

When means of different components were compared between grand-parents and grandchildren, the results for equivalent components werequite similar (see Figure 1). Both for ones and for the others, the highestmean scores were obtained for the components “Fun-seeking” and“Link with the past,” whereas the lowest scores corresponded to thecomponent “Mutual trust.” In the case of grandparents, they also ob-tained high scores in the component “Counsellor.” The other compo-nents present scores very close to the median point in the Likert scaleused. Although, as mentioned before, the score pattern is similar forgrandparents and grandchildren, there is a significant difference in themean comparison through Student t-test: the score of grandparents in

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TABLE 3. Results of principal component analysis on grandparent role ques-tionnaire, from grandchildren’s perspective.

Component Num. items % variance Alpha

Mutual trust 7 11.05 0.80

Fun-seeking 6 8.75 0.74

Link with the past 3 7.51 0.82

Caregiver 4 7.24 0.77

Distant 5 6.38 0.68

Indulgent 5 6.13 0.61

Mediator 3 5.45 0.59

Total 33 52.52 0.85

the component “Fun-seeking” is significantly higher than the score ofgrandchildren in this component (t = �9.82; p < 0.0001).

Analysing these discrepancies item by item, in nine of the 41 itemsthe scores of grandparents and grandchildren in equivalent questionswere significantly different. In general, these discrepancies seem to in-dicate that grandparents perceive they give more than what they get inthe relationship, whereas in grandchildren this perception is lessstressed. For example, grandparents agreed more with such items as“I go to my son/daughter’s house to see my grandchild,” “I enjoy my-self being with my grandchild,” “For my grandchild, visiting me ismore a duty than a pleasure,” “I tend to allow my grandchild to dothings that his/her parents don’t allow him/her,” “My grandchild istoo young to understand me” or “I give pocket money to my grand-child,” than grandchildren in the equivalent items of their question-naire. These items are “My grandparent comes to see me at my home”(t = 3.25; p < 0.001), “My grandparent enjoys him/herself being withme” (t = 6.15; p < 0.000), “Visiting my grandparent is more a duty thana pleasure” (t = 3.87; p < 0.000), “My grandparent tends to allow me todo things that my parents don’t allow me” (t = 5.77; p < 0.000), “I amtoo young to understand my grandparent” (t = 4.63; p < 0.000), and “Mygrandparent gives me pocket money” (t = 2.10; p < 0.05). It can be simi-

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grandparents

grandchildren

Mea

nS

core

s

5

4

3

2

1

0Mutualtrust

Fun-seeking

Link withthe past

Components

Caregiver Distant Indulgent Mediator Counsellor

FIGURE 1. Mean scores of principal components of grandparenting, fromgrandchildren’s perspective (dark bars) and from grandparents’ perspective(light bars).

larly interpreted that in the item “I tell my grandparent how things go inmy studies or job” grandchildren agreed more than grandparents in theirequivalent item “My grandchild tells me how things go in his/her studiesor job” (t = �3.48; p < 0.001).

Influence of Gender, Age and Frequency of Contact

The differences concerning the grandchild’s gender, the grandpar-ent’s gender or lineage were less stressed than expected from the analy-sis of previous research.

The only significant differences appeared when analysing the an-swers of grandchildren. Thus, the component “Mediator” is more im-portant for granddaughters than grandsons (t = �2.319; p = 0.022).Similarly, maternal grandparents (regardless of their gender) are per-ceived more as mediators (t = �2.306; p = 0.023) and caregivers (t =�2.263; p = 0.025) than paternal grandparents.

When comparing dyads of the same gender with dyads of differentgender, there were no significant differences, either from the grand-child’s or from the grandparent’s point of view.

In contrast, age did seem to have more influence on how grandpar-ents are perceived. As seen in Tables 4 and 5, regardless of the perspec-tive considered (grandparent’s or grandchild’s), the dimensions thatcorrelate significantly with age tend to do so in the other. This is notstrange, as logically the grandchild’s age and the grandparent’s age arevariables that correlate between them (particularly in our case, the cor-relation was 0.31). Regardless of this, we can observe in the tables thatthe grandchild’s age shows stronger associations with scores in the dif-ferent components, both referring to grandparents’ answers and grand-children’s answers.

Likewise, comparing both tables, we can see that, on the one hand,correlations are negative (that is, the older they are, the lower scores inthe components), and in general they are higher from the grandchil-dren’s point of view (Table 5) than from the grandparents’ point ofview (Table 4). However, the correlation pattern depending on com-ponents is similar: what seems to decrease more as age increases is theaspect of grandparents as caregivers, followed by the indulgent grand-parent. Grandparents also tend to perceive that their role as counsel-lors is lower as their grandchildren grow older. From the point of viewof grandchildren, it is worth standing out how the oldest ones have a

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light, although statistically significant, tendency to score lower in thecomponent “Mutual trust.”

Finally, the frequency of contact between grandparent and grand-child also seems to have an important influence on how the grandparentrole is perceived. Particularly, and analysing the grandchildren’s an-swers, a higher frequency of contact seems to be associated to higherlevels in the dimensions “Mutual trust” (r = 0.29; p < 0.0001),“Fun-seeking” (0.22; p < 0.008), “Mediator” (0.21; p < 0.01) and, espe-cially, “Caregiver” (0.51; p < 0.0001). These tendencies depending onthe frequency of contact were less stressed from the point of view ofgrandparents. For them, the frequency of contact with the grandchildseemed to be associated only to components “Mutual trust” (0.36; p <0.0001) and “Fun-seeking” (0.17; p < 0.05).

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TABLE 4. Pearson’s correlation between role components and both grandpar-ents’ and grandchildren’s age, from grandparents’ perspective.

Component Grandparents’ age Grandchildren’s age

Mutual trust �0.06 �0.12

Link with the past �0.06 0.07

Counsellor �0.25** �0.20*

Distant �0.04 �0.06

Caregiver �0.28** �0.25**

Fun-seeking �0.02 �0.09

Indulgent �0.20* �0.09

Note: *p < 0.01 **p < 0.001

TABLE 5. Pearson’s correlation between role components and both grandpar-ents’ and grandchildren’s age, from grandchildren’s perspective.

Component Grandparents’ age Grandchildren’s age

Mutual trust �0.18* �0.15

Fun-seeking 0.07 0.08

Link with the past 0.04 0.01

Caregiver �0.38** �0.26**

Distant �0.15 �0.06

Indulgent �0.30** �0.19*

Mediator �0.03 �0.02

Note: *p < 0.01 **p < 0.001

DISCUSSION

The perception that both grandparents and grandchildren have oftheir relationship is, on the one hand, complex and, on the other, rela-tively similar.

Complex because there are many dimensions involved in this rela-tionship. Instead of merging into one or a few components, the items in-cluded in the questionnaire tended, on the contrary, to form many coresof content. These cores of content or components tend to reproduce thetypologies of grandparenting described in previous research. However,the relative homogeneity of answers leads us to think that, rather thanqualitatively differentiated types of relationships between grandparentsand grandchildren, both grandparents and grandchildren perceive ingre-dients in the grandparent role that tend to coexist, creating a certain pro-file that characterises grandparents as understood by the dyads in oursample.

But, on the other hand, this profile is relatively similar in grandpar-ents and grandchildren. In both cases, our results suggest that their rela-tionship is cordial. Both grandparents and grandchildren point out thatthey enjoy this relationship and that the time they share is nice andwished for by both parts. On the other hand, grandchildren see grand-parents (and the latter also see themselves) as a figure that represents thepast and the roots of their family, which helps to understand where par-ents and grandchildren themselves come from, as well as to have a liv-ing memory of the changes the family has undergone.

However, together with these outstanding aspects in the relationship,it is also worth noticing that it is not a relationship characterised by highlevels of intimacy and mutual understanding. Perhaps adolescent grand-children establish these relationships of mutual intimacy, where everyone is able to open himself to the other partner and share feelings andconcerns, with another kind of people, but not with their grandparents.In any case, the latter do not see their relationship in terms of mutualtrust, either.

This profile of the relationship may partially account for some con-tradictory results found in literature on this issue. Thus, when askingwhether the relationship between grandparents and adolescent grand-children is important for both and to what extent, the answer may not bejust “yes” (Van Rast, Verschueren and Marchen, 1995; Hyde and Gibbs,1993) or “not much” (Creasey and Kobleswski, 1991; Silverstein andLong, 1998), but some kind of “it depends on the component studied.”Nevertheless, this profile of relationship seems rather different, at first,

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from what can be imagined for relationships between adolescents andtheir peers (perhaps more characterised with higher levels of mutualtrust) or their parents (perhaps with a higher normative component).From the point of view of grandparents, this singularity of the grandpar-ent-grandchild relationship seems also guaranteed, with this relation-ship being different from the one they can establish with their children(perhaps with a lower fun-seeking component, but with higher mutualtrust) or with their partner (with high mutual trust, but without the com-ponent “link with the past”). This comparison of components and pro-files of the different relationships we establish within the differentsocial contexts we take part in, inside and outside the family, is un-doubtedly an issue worth dealing with in future research.

Despite the fact that, as mentioned above, most components of the re-lationship are similar both for grandparents and grandchildren, somedifferences were also found. The most striking one may be that grand-parents isolate a component related to acting as counsellors that grand-children do not perceive as much, whereas the latter put more emphasison the grandparent role as a mediator element between them and theirparents. A second difference, although small, is the tendency of grand-parents to see the relationship in more intense terms. Especially, forthem it has a greater link with enjoyment than for grandchildren. Simi-larly, when there are discrepancies among answers, practically all ofthem imply that grandparents perceive themselves as the partner givingmore and keeping and feeding the relationship.

A second interesting aspect that our data show is the changing per-ception of some components in the relationship as time evolves both forgrandparents and older grandchildren. Although the transversal natureof our study does not permit to talk of developmental tendencies, it doesseem that, with time, some components of the relationship are modified.Perhaps the clearest one, both from the grandparent’s and grandchild’sperception, is the decrease in the component “Caregiver.” A similar de-crease is found in the component “Indulgent” of the relationship. Bothcomponents seem to be more associated to the relationship with grand-children when they are younger, and day by day they seem to loseimportance.

Also from the grandchildren’s point of view (although not from thegrandparents’ perspective), as they grow older their trust on their grand-parents, which, as mentioned, is not the highest component in the rela-tionship, also tends to decrease slightly, which would account for acertain gap of the relationship in this aspect, although not in others.From the point of view of grandparents, although the component “mu-

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tual trust” does not seem to be associated to age, the component “coun-sellor” is certainly associated to age, which accounts for a similartransformation in the relationship.

In any case, the associations are stronger with the grandchild’s agethan with the grandparent’s age. This difference is coherent with theidea that a certain transformation in the grandparent-grandchild rela-tionship, in the terms observed above, is linked to the set of changes thatgrandchildren experience during adolescence, changes that, as it iswidely known, also modify deeply the relationship with other familymembers, and especially with parents (see, for example, Smollar andYouniss, 1989; Holmbeck, 1996).

The frequency of contact also seems to be associated to certain com-ponents of the grandparent-grandchild relationship. Particularly, it seemsto be highly associated to the component “caregiver” as perceived bygrandchildren. Apart from this relationship, logical as certain caring ac-tivities imply a high frequency of contact, the association, both from thegrandchild’s and grandparent’s perspective, between frequency of con-tact and levels of mutual trust and enjoyment perceived in the relation-ship is also important. Obviously, as these data are in the form ofcorrelations, it is impossible to know whether having a high level ofcontact promotes higher levels of mutual trust and enjoyment, whetherthe direction of the relationship is exactly the opposite (greater mutualtrust and enjoyment lead to higher frequency of contact between grand-parent and grandchild) or whether both aspects depend on a third factor.

Finally, perhaps the most surprising result of our study is the relativesmall importance in the relationship perceived both by grandparentsand grandchildren of the different variables associated to gender. Thedifferences associated both to grandparent’s gender, grandchild’s gen-der and lineage are marginal and only the latter can determine differ-ences in the components “mediator” and “caregiver.”

Although these effects are in the same line as those observed in litera-ture (greater importance of maternal side than paternal side), in generalthe importance of gender in the grandparent-grandchild relationship isnot confirmed. This could be due to the fact that, as observed byRoberto, Allen and Blieszner (2001), the description of differences inthe grandparent-grandchild relationship coinciding with traditional gen-der stereotypes may not be at present so correct as it was thought before.

However, and before considering this hypothesis, we should alsothink of factors related to the kind of sample that takes part in our study.The dyads, as observed above, were not formed at random, but thegrandchild was the one to choose the grandparent, who the researchers

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got in touch with later. This system of sample collection implies, with-out any doubt, that the kind of relationship more represented is the onethat, at first, is good enough for the grandchild to choose it (above theother relationships they have with their other grandparents) and for thegrandparent to agree to answer the parallel questionnaire.

Thus, the effects associated to gender can already be observed in thekind of dyads we had: as observed in Table 1, there were twice as manydyads coming from the maternal side of the family as from the paternalside, and the dyads with grandmothers were much more than dyads withgrandfathers. Thus, what the relative absence of differences associatedto gender in our results may really mean is that, in those relationshipsbetween grandparents and grandchildren that are good a priori (amongwhich there may be more maternal relationships and with grandmoth-ers), there are few differences associated to the grandchild’s gender, thegrandparent’s gender or lineage.

This bias in the sample collection is very common in available stud-ies on grandparents and grandchildren. Whether they use dyads or not,in most of them the participants are voluntary, assessing their relation-ship with only one grandchild or one grandparent. In this sense, the dataavailable with regards to this relationship may be excessively optimistic.A certain kind of grandparent-grandchild relationship is well-known,when this is generally good, but when the relationships are not the ones“preferred” by grandparents or grandchildren, there is little knowledgeabout them. To solve this flaw, future research should explore systemat-ically the differences among the relationships that a grandparent estab-lishes with his/her grandchildren (or that a grandchild has with allhis/her grandparents), or they should explore one of the possible grand-parent-grandchild relationships at random, not chosen by the grandchildor the grandparent. This kind of research would inform us with greaterprecision on the different kinds of relational patterns between grandpar-ents and grandchildren and on what factors make the relationship with agrandchild (or with a grandparent) better or worse, more or less pre-ferred, than the relationship with another. The inclusion of a greaterrange of relationships could also help to tackle aspects that do not ap-pear when using privileged relationships.

In any case, it is also worth standing out that there should be morestudies with grandparent-grandchild dyads. In spite of their difficulty,which can increase especially if dyads without a “privileged” relation-ship have to be included, this kind of studies, as shown above, may pro-vide us with a much more precise image of the relational dynamicsbetween grandchildren and grandparents, of the areas of agreement and

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disagreement, and of their understandings and misunderstandings. Ap-proaching in this way issues that go beyond the perceived grandparentrole and encompass such aspects as, for example, shared activities, top-ics of conversation and discussion, the appraisal of each partner by theother, or what each partner perceives the other gives, may help us tohave a wider and more realistic vision of the intergenerational relation-ships between grandparents and grandchildren.

This type of study suggests reasons why such a relationship can bevery successful and contribute to growth of both the grandparent andgrandchild; and additionally, how–even when contact is frequent–thefailure of the grandparent-grandchild relationship can lead to dissatisfac-tion and frustration. Furthermore, this type of study has important impli-cations in the design of curriculum, workshops, programs or other kindsof activities aimed at optimizing intergenerational relationships, particu-larly inside the family. Knowing both perspectives of the relationship,and being aware that they can change as grandchildren age, should be re-membered by professionals who develop such activities. Also, takinginto account sources of agreement and disagreement between grandpar-ents and grandchildren can indicate topics to be treated in such programs,skills to develop, or resources that can be used to improve the relation-ship. For instance, our study has shown how grandparents emphasizetheir role as a counsellor, and probably most of them would like to bementors for their grandchildren. However, many grandchildren do notsee their grandparents this way, and this should be taken into account ifthe aim of the program is to facilitate the emergence of a successful coun-selling relationship.

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