Discussion
The present review aimed at describing the family relationships of
families with emerging adult children in light of the implications that
the new features of the transition to adulthood may present to the
family system. A first conclusion of this review concerns the changes in
the relationships between children and their families in emerging
adulthood, which were found to become more horizontal, closer, and less
conflictual when compared with those during adolescence. In other words,
these relationships appeared to evolve toward a relationship between
adults, an important shift that families with children in the transition
to adulthood are expected to attain (Carter & McGoldrick, 1988). This
review suggested that families proceeded, in fact, to a relational
redefinition that includes changes in the family hierarchy and power
(Author citation, 2000), which is at the basis of Tanner’s (2006)
conceptualization of recentering. Parents’ more optimistic views on
their relationships with children found in this review are in line with
previous literature, being likely to mirror intergenerational
differences (Author citation, 2000): whereas parents are focused on
familial and generational continuity, children strive to create an
individualized self, differentiated from the family of origin.
This review has also provided some insight into the particular
challenges that today’s families with emerging adults face, namely
acknowledging the child’s emerging adult status and managing the
interplay between autonomy and dependency needs. On the one hand,
parents demonstrated some ambivalence regarding children’s growing
autonomy (Kloep & Hendry, 2010; Lewis et al., 2016). On the other hand,
despite attaining a more adult-adult relationship with their parents,
emerging adults continued to feel that they had not reached adult status
(Sestito & Sica, 2014).
A second conclusion of this review comprises the major role that family,
and particularly family support, played in families navigating emerging
adulthood. Underscoring the interdependence among family members in this
joint enterprise (Scabini et al., 2006), findings stressed the
importance of the family (Crocetti & Meeus, 2014; Smit, 2011; Tsai et
al., 2013) to one’s identity and sense of belonging, with support being
a relationship feature of major importance. Current support was
predominantly provided by parents to children, often including financial
assistance and co-residence (e.g., Fingerman et al., 2016). In fact,
parents generally seemed to encourage the exploration process during
emerging adulthood, supporting their children during the protracted
period of transition to adult status in the present day. Additionally,
results suggesting increases in children’s support to parents
(Napolitano, 2015) and the familial obligation to support the family
(Fuligni & Pederson, 2002) might reflect the development of filial
maturity.
A third conclusion of this review concerns the role of different
intervening factors shaping family relationships in varied ways, namely:
family members’ sex, emerging adults’ age, living arrangements, family
structure, SES, ethnicity, and cultural contexts. Female emerging adults
seemed to be more connected to the family than males, as the former, for
instance, reported to have more frequent communication with parents
(Parra et al., 2015), to promote warmer siblings relationships (Milevsky
et al., 2005), and to be more involved in supportive practices toward
the family (Fuligni & Pedersen, 2002). Supporting the view that the
mother-daughter relationship could be more affective relationship as
compared with other parent-child dyads (Author citation, 2000; Scabini,
2000), results of this review showed that female emerging adults were
closer to mothers than to fathers (e.g., Bertogg & Szydlik, 2016). In
addition, results attesting to the more positive views of mothers on
their relationship with offspring compared to fathers (L. J. Nelson et
al., 2011) and separation-anxiety as a typical feature of the
mother-child dyad (Kins et al., 2013) are in line with previous
literature (e.g., Scabini, 2000) suggesting that mothers have a core
role in the parent-child relationship, being more involved in their
children’s lives than fathers. Concerning age, older children were found
to receive less parental support than younger ones across most of the
domains assessed (Fingerman et al., 2016), which might indicate a
progressive successful attainment of an adult status. Moreover, older
participants appeared to endorse warmer and less conflictual
relationships with their siblings (Milevsky et al., 2005), possibly
illustrating the development of more horizontal relationships across
time.
With regard to living arrangements, co-residence with parents could
bring both positive and negative implications for individual and family
development. This intricated picture of results might stem from
geographic and cultural factors, while simultaneously reflecting the new
contours of the transition to adulthood. Accordingly, prolonged
co-residence might be more common nowadays, involving benefits for both
emerging adults and parents, but also potential costs for family
relationships and for children’s autonomy.
Concerning family structure, parental divorce was found to be linked
with negative relationship outcomes for both parent-child dyads (e.g.,
Bertogg & Szydlik, 2016) and siblings (e.g., Milevsky, 2004).
Importantly, stemming from the study of Wells and Johnson (2001),
differences between divorced and non-divorced families could be related
with weaker bonds established between children and non-custodial
parents. The findings of this review have also called attention into
potential specificities of adoptive families’ relationships (e.g.,
higher conflict, more negative perceptions of the mother-child
relationships).
Regarding SES, emerging adults from lower SES might be more aware of the
need to assist their families and thus feel more constrained with regard
to their individual pursuits (e.g., Fuglini and Pederson, 2002;
Napolitano, 2015). This can be accentuated in contexts of economic
crisis, which might restrict these emerging adults’ opportunities and
potentially expose them to situations of social inequality. Finally,
differences in family relationships related to ethnicity and cultural
contexts were found in some studies (e.g., Fuligni & Pedersen, 2002;
Levitt et al., 2007). However, the results revealed to be somewhat
inconsistent, highlighting the need to examine racial and ethnic
diversity in research dealing with family relationships in emerging
adulthood (Aquilino, 2006).
Research Critique and
Future Directions
The first critique to the reviewed research lies in the participant
profile in the selected studies, which was mainly emerging adult
children. Collecting data from only one family member to describe family
relationships can be considered a research limitation, as we merely have
a single family member’s particular view of the relationships (Scabini
et al., 2006). Additionally, when other family members were included in
the studies, these individuals were mainly mothers; fathers and/or other
family roles appeared less frequently. Future studies on family
relationships during the transition to adulthood would benefit from
including more than one family members as participants and considering
the family as the unit of analysis in order to understand relational
dynamics. Moreover, the observed discrepancies between parents and their
offspring regarding their relationships reinforce the relevance of this
recommendation.
Secondly, little research attention has been given to family
relationships beyond the parent-child dyad, namely that reflecting
sibling and grandparent-grandchild relationships. As people grow up,
sibling relationships become a matter of choice, in contrast to
childhood (Aquilino, 2006). With life expectancy on the rise, and
inextricably linked with the current common model of a family
incorporating three or four generations (Author citation, 2000),
grandparents are likely to become increasingly important providers of
family support. Future studies may adopt a systemic and
intergenerational approach, with the aim to identify the specificities
of sibling and grandparent-grandchildren relationships in emerging
adulthood and the role of these family members in the transition to
adulthood.
Another research critique involves the frequent use of the terms
‘emerging adulthood’ and ‘young adulthood’ in an undifferentiated
manner. For some authors (e.g., Arnett, 2015; Shulman & Ben-Artzi,
2003) it is important to emphasize that emerging adulthood represents a
distinct life period, which precedes young adulthood. Moreover, studies
were not all restricted to the 18-25 age range, which in our view
represents a strength of this review. According to Arnett (2015, p. 7),
“nothing magical happens when individuals reach age 25”, showing that
the cutoff age for the end of emerging adulthood can vary. Researchers
ought to carefully select the participants’ age ranges in their future
studies, paying attention to the topic being addressed and to the
specificities of their national contexts (e.g., median ages of
marriage/parenthood).
Furthermore, we have reasons to assume that our reviewed research was
international in scope, in that we found a higher percentage of studies
developed outside the US as compared with the number found in Swanson’s
(2016) review. Nevertheless, there was still a predominance of study
samples involving White emerging adults attending college, which
reflects a demographic pertaining to middle-class families in the US and
might constitute a research bias in this review. These sociodemographic
features are likely to influence the way in which both emerging adults
and their families navigate this time of their lives. Future research
attention on the experiences of those who do not attend higher education
– the “forgotten half” (Arnett, 2000, p. 476) – as well as of social
and ethnic minorities is warranted.
Additionally, our review included studies with participants from
different family structures, which could be regarded as a literature
strength. Considering the increasing diversity of family structures in
today’s society and that family structure emerged in this review as an
intervening factor likely to influence family relationships, future
research would benefit from including participants from single, step,
and extended families. Moreover, further studies are needed to grasp the
benefits and drawbacks of the variety of living arrangements that may
occur during emerging adulthood.
In sum, it is of utmost relevance that novel studies include more
heterogeneous samples and provide clear descriptions of participants’
sociodemographic characteristics – an important procedure at which some
of the reviewed studies failed. Finally, most of reviewed studies were
cross-sectional. Longitudinal research would be valuable to map the
changes and processes that occur during emerging adulthood within the
family system.