Grandparenthood and Family Support

The emphasis that functionalists and the New Right have placed on nuclear family means that extended families are often overlooked in terms of both their emotional and their finanical importance to families. For example, grandparents are a significant and important source of child care and child rearing in modern Britain. Estimates of the average age at which people become grandparents vary between 47 and 54 but the data is not especially reliable. When families breakdown it is often wider family who take over some of the child care or emotional support generations. Increasing numbers of people becoming step-grandparents…