Care Practices Between Generations: Ambivalence and Meaning-making Process

Relationships of exchange and mutual help between family generations are the main factor of survival at older ages, especially in developing countries. However, the demand for care for older parents is primarily attributed to daughters. In addition to the emergence of intergenerational solidarity to carry out this care task, the fulfillment of this personal-collective expectation of care is permeated by many tensions, conflicts, and ambivalences. Thus, we propose to discuss the ambivalence in care practices and the constructions of meaning related to this field, focusing on daughters who assumed the role of caregivers for their older parents. To understand how women deal with this complex situation of multiple demands, two narrative interviews will be analyzed in the light of the theoretical perspective of Semiotic Cultural Psychology. To guide and structure the data analysis, the Trajectory Equifinality Model (TEM) was used, taking the decision to care for older parents as the point of equifinality of the trajectories. The synthesized personal orientation by the daughters towards caring for their parents was characterized by a pendulum movement of dialogical oscillation between traditional and postmodern values, leading to qualitative intergenerational transformations.