Love and duty can bind generations together, but what happens when caregiving turns that bond into resentment?  

In many families, love does not always come without frustration, and fulfilling one’s responsibilities does not always feel rewarding. An adult child may genuinely want to care for an ageing parent while simultaneously feeling overwhelmed, restricted, or resentful about the responsibilities that come with caregiving. Kurt Luescher and Karl Pillemer argue that such contradictions are not necessarily signs of a dysfunctional family, rather they are a natural feature of parent-child relationships. 

In their 1998 article, Intergenerational Ambivalence: A New Approach to the Study of Parent-Child Relations in Later Life, Kurt Luescher and Karl Pillemer introduce intergenerational ambivalence as an alternative way of understanding relationships between parents and their adult children. Rather than viewing these relationships through the traditional categories of either solidarity or conflict, they argue that both positive and negative experiences can coexist. They define ambivalence as the coexistence of contradictory emotions, thoughts, and motivations within an individual, as well as contradictions within the social roles and expectations that shape family relationships.  

They suggested that these contradictions appear in three aspects of parent-child relationships:  

1. Dependence and Autonomy 

As parents grow older, they may become increasingly dependent on their adult children for financial, physical, or emotional support. At the same time, adult children may be establishing their own careers, relationships, households, and identities. 

This creates a difficult contradiction where adult children may feel a fervent desire to support their parents but may also feel that caregiving is taking away their time, freedom, or opportunities, while the parent may want to remain independent but increasingly require assistance. Both generations therefore experience conflicting desires. 

This tension becomes particularly visible during major life transitions. A parent’s retirement, widowhood, illness, or increasing dependence can suddenly change the relationship between parent and child. This shift in roles can create both closeness and discomfort as a child navigates their gratitude for the relationship while struggling with the demands of caregiving. 

2. Conflicting Norms Regarding Intergenerational Relations 

Ambivalence can also appear when different expectations about what parents and children owe each other come into conflict. Luescher and Pillemer distinguish between the expectations of solidarity and reciprocity. Solidarity refers to the expectation that family members should support one another because of their family connection, while reciprocity is based more on fairness, balance, and mutual exchange. 

These two expectations do not always align. A child may believe that they should care for their ageing parents simply because they are their parents, even when the care they provide is not equally returned. At the same time, modern ideas of independence and fairness may lead the child to question how much responsibility they should be expected to take on. 

In Singapore, filial piety continues to influence expectations of family responsibility. Rooted in Confucianism, filial piety emphasises respect, obedience, and care for one’s parents and elders. Children are traditionally expected to repay their parents for the care and sacrifices they received growing up. In practice, this can involve providing financial assistance, physical care, emotional support, or making significant personal sacrifices for ageing parents. 

However, contemporary Singaporean society also places considerable value on individual independence. Adult children may be expected to pursue their own careers, relationships, and aspirations, this can create a form of intergenerational ambivalence: one may genuinely value filial responsibility while questioning how much of their own independence should be sacrificed to fulfil it. 

Neither choice is necessarily free of emotional consequences. Prioritising family obligations may produce exhaustion or resentment, while prioritising personal independence may create guilt or a sense of inadequacy. The conflict therefore lies not simply between the parent and child, but between the different expectations placed upon the child. 

3. Solidarity 

The third source of ambivalence is solidarity itself. Solidarity refers to the closeness, commitment, and sense of responsibility that hold family members together. It is often assumed that strong family relationships are characterised by shared values, mutual support, and affection. However, the authors argue that strong ties can generate tension. 

The closer family members are, the greater the expectations they may have of one another. A parent may expect an adult child to be available because they are family, while the child may feel that refusing to help would make them selfish or unfilial. The desire to maintain family harmony can therefore discourage individuals from expressing negative emotions or establishing boundaries. Over time, continually prioritising family responsibilities without acknowledging personal limits may lead to exhaustion, resentment, or conflict. 

The authors challenge the assumption that closeness and conflict are opposites. A relationship can be deeply loving while also having negative feelings. In fact, acknowledging these negative emotions may allow family members to develop a more realistic and sustainable relationship. 

The authors therefore suggest that families find ways to manage and negotiate ambivalence. One possible strategy is keeping appropriate boundaries, including physical or residential distance. As adult children establish their own families and lives, having separate spaces can allow them to remain connected without becoming overwhelmed by one another’s needs. Where physical separation is not possible, rituals, etiquette, and predictable patterns of interaction can help reduce tension by establishing boundaries within the relationship. 

Most importantly, families can learn to discuss their responsibilities and expectations more openly than keeping a façade of perfect harmony. Acknowledging these ambivalences allows family members to negotiate what they can realistically provide. Setting boundaries does not mean abandoning one’s responsibilities; it prevents caregiving from becoming so overwhelming. 

Conclusion 

The study’s concept of intergenerational ambivalence offers a more realistic way of understanding parent-adult child relationships. Recognising this complexity is particularly important in Singapore, where traditional expectations of filial piety intersect with modern ideals of individual autonomy.  

The goal is not to eliminate ambivalence, but to learn how to manage it. Healthy intergenerational relationships are not those without contradictions, they are relationships where family members can acknowledge those contradictions, establish proper boundaries, and negotiate their responsibilities honestly. In doing so families may be better equipped to maintain relationships that are not only dutiful, but also sustainable and genuine.