American Children View Their Grandparents: Linked Lives Across Three Rural Generations.

The article examines differences between rural farm and nonfarm families on the extent and quality of relations between adolescents and their grandparents. The article is based on survey of 398 families. It is found that grandchildren in farm families live closer to their grandparents and have more contact with them when compared with nonfarm rural adolescents. Grandchildren in farm families also rate the quality of their relationship with paternal grandparents higher than those in nonfarm families. For farm families, work and family roles are interwoven in social and physical space. This collective enterprise has important implications for relations between grandparents and their adult children and grandchildren, from frequent social interactions to shared experience and understandings. Grandparents who visit often are more likely to establish a qualitatively stronger relation ship with grandchildren than those who rarely visit. The parent generation serves as an important mediating link between grandchildren and grandparents, either facilitating or hindering interaction and the quality of their relationship.