Parental role responsibilities, performance and satisfaction of the rural elderly

노부모의 역할인지, 역할수행 및 역할수행 만족도: 농촌 노부모가정을 대상으로

Have elderly parents parted with parental role after the children were grown up? If they still have, what kinds and degrees of parental responsibilities endured? Do they actively perform the role? Do they satisfy to engage in parenting? The main purpose of present study explored these questions conceming rural old-aged families using data of 143 elderly parents aged 60 years and above. The results indicate that elderly parents perceived parenting adult children to be very important, regarding themselves as househeads to teach family members how to integrate together. The results also demonstrate that elderly parents performed parental role actively in teaching family rituals and providing emotional support. The elderly parents also report that they were fairly satisfied with involvement in adult children's lives. Our findings suggest that further in-depth research is required in eliciting the role parameters of elderly parents based on our social and cultural changes. In addition, it is encouraged to examine the adult children's expectation of their elderly parents for renegotiating and restructuring parent-child relationships when both are adults.