Parenting of adult children in an Israeli sample: parents are always parents.

This qualitative study examines the role of parents with regard to their adult children, by exploring parents' experiences, meanings, and the underlying psychological processes of their parental role. In-depth interviews with healthy Israeli parents (N = 23) aged 56 to 69 explored their perceptions about their parental role. Narrative analysis techniques focused on the content and on the form of the narratives were applied. Five important internal dialectic dimensions emerged: emotional connection and separation; the child as narcissistic extension of the parent and the parent's desire to let the child individuate; growing importance of familial connections and the perceived generation gap; parents' balancing personal needs and the children's needs, and finally, maintaining a hierarchical stance and an equal stance. The results are integrated into the developing theory of intergenerational ambivalence, suggesting a dialectical configuration for the role of parent to adult children.