Intergenerational Support in a Daily Context

Purpose of the Study: Using retrospective global reports, studies have found that mid-dle-aged adults in the United States provide intermittent support to their aging parents and more frequent support to grown children. To date, studies have not examined sup-port middle-aged adults provide to different generations on a daily basis. Daily support may include mundane everyday exchanges that may (or may not) affect well-being. Design and Methods: Middle-aged adults (N = 191, mean age 55.93) completed a general interview regarding family ties, followed by interviews each day for 7 days (N = 1,261 days). Daily interviews assessed support (e.g., advice, emotional, practi-cal help) participants provided each grown child (n = 454) and aging parent (n = 253). Participants also reported daily mood. Results: Most participants provided emotional support (80%), advice (87%), and practi-cal help (69%) to a grown child and also provided emotional support (61%) and advice (61%) or practical help (43%) to a parent that week. Multilevel models confirmed genera-tional differences; grown children were more likely to receive everyday support than par-ents. Providing support to grown children was associated with positive mood, wherea