[The feeling of responsibility as core motivation for care giving--why daughters care for their mothers]

The willingness of daughters to care for their mothers in Germany is still very high. Time and again daughters cite as reasons a certain self-evidence and a moral duty as core and relatively unspecific motives. A reconstructing case study which had as primary goal the analysis of the transition from daughter to caregiving daughter (Geister, 2004) offered the possibility to research the motives of these women more precisely. This paper, which focuses on only one aspect of the study, shows the correlation between the feeling of responsibility and the motivation to caregiving, utilizing the example of two women. The data was obtained by biographical narrative interviews with twelve caregiving daughters. Evaluation was done in accordance with the method of biographical case reconstruction by Gabriele Rosenthal (1987; 1995). The results of the two case reconstructions led to the conclusion that the motivation of these women to care for their mothers was embedded in their life history. These findings also apply to the other ten interviewed women. During the course of their lives a feeling of responsibility arose usually long before the necessity for caregiving occurred. The feeling of responsibility nurtured the development of a caring attitude towards the mother, which was expressed in caring and increasingly help providing activities by the daughter. Caregiving embodied the intensification of this responsibility motivated care. The awareness of personal responsibility for the mother implicits the acceptance of possible caregiving. Further concept developments about the support for caregiving daughters should more strongly consider their individual motives of responsibility.