Caring for your loved ones?

Parent-child relationships are among the first and most important relationships humans develop. Within these relationships individuals usually experience support and protection. The quality of these relationships plays an important role in child and adult development and is strongly associated with wellbeing of parents and children throughout the whole life course. The current work studied characteristics and changes of the intergenerational relationship in terms of quality and support exchange. Within an attachment theoretical framework the study provides insight in the developmental nature of balancing support and care in the very special relationship between parents and children throughout the life course. Based on data from two large scale surveys, one Dutch and one American, the centrality of affective relationship characteristics for wellbeing of the child and parent generation could be accentuated. High-quality parent-child relationships have been found to be a resource of important relevance for the life of humans during all phases of the life course.