Role Reversal and Conflict Between Aged Parents and Their Children.

The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the problems between aged parents and their adult children in the light of the experiences of one counseling agency and previous research and theory in family sociology. That this change in the composition of the American population will have increasing effects upon child-rearing families and family life in general seems unquestionable. This problem has already been reflected in social agencies, many of which have found it necessary to set up special departments to work with the increasing number of aged clients and their married children. However, specification of the types of problems they present, and the relation of these problems to the social system of the family remain unclarified. The estimated median income of the sample studied was between $2000 and $2500. The income was derived from the following sources in descending order of frequency: children, social security, savings, employment, Old Age Assistance, income property, retirement and pension funds, and a variety of other sources.