Exam 1 – Family Relationships: Middle and
Later Years
Instructions: Each
of the four essay questions below are worth 25 points each. Your job is to write essay questions
answering each of the parts of the question (A. B. etc.). Use as much of your education and experience
as possible when answering, and support your answers with the text, online readings,
and outside references. Full credit
deserves at least two pages of text for each question (8 pages total). Double spaced, 1” margins.
Name on your paper - Copy the text below and paste into your word
processor. After completing your essays either print and bring to
class or email your answers to the instructor as email attachments.
david27@uakron.edu
1. The Setup: Young
adult children sometimes create tensions in the lives of their parents that go
beyond the “normal” tensions of youth, as in the textbook example of the
tension between B, K. Loren's father and mother. To some
extent, this situation is generalizable to some young adult children who seem
to have disappointed or disheartened their parents in other ways, such as poor
performance in school/college, disapproval of a child’s living arrangements,
chosen mate, or they way the adult child earns a living (or fails to earn a
living).
A. What
responsibilities to you see for the adult child in such situations? Similarly,
what responsibilities to you see for the parent(s)?
B. Try to
relate these type situations to the reading by Apfel and Seitz about the
development of parenting skills.
C. How do
you think their attitudes and the intergenerational and marital relationships
might change if and when B. K. and a woman partner have a child?
2. The Setup:
From the text, Caroline Hwang is a woman who hopes someday to marry and have
children. Sandi Kahn Shelton writes
about the change in her relationship to her mother on the eve of her starting
college.
A. How do
you think Caroline’s relationship with her parents would be affected if she
married a White American? What if she married a Chinese or Japanese American, or
if Sandi decides to cohabit with a boyfriend while at college?
B. How does a young person maintain strong
relationships with parents while developing a strong sense of self and
independence?
3. The Setup: In
the United States, it is asserted that when parents divorce, contact and
emotional closeness between fathers and their children are weakened.
Similarly, Rossi and Rossi (1990) argue that the increasing attachment of women
to the labor force may undermine intergenerational ties.
A. Is this
a necessary development? What steps can be taken by parents and their adult
children to maintain relationships.
B. Given
that most help to older adults who need it is provided by family members, how
might divorce earlier in their adult lives affect men in their 80s and 90s who
need care?
C. Identify
examples from your own life, or the lives of people you know, that support or
contradict this view? How could these situations be positively altered?
4. The Setup: Some
families, such as Vietnamese American, have high rates of multigeneration
households, containing children, parents, grandparents, and sometimes even
aunts, uncles, and cousins. This pattern is not common for Japanese Americans.
A. Why
might different ethnic groups vary in their coresidential practices?
B. What
would you think about living with your parents and grandparents?
C. How
might you and your (future) spouse deal with an aging parent in need of
custodial care?