Balancing Family Life: How Adult Children Link Elder-Care Responsibility to Service Utilization

The purpose of this article is to examine the links among adult children's perceived responsibil ity to care for elderly family members, otherfamily needs, and their use offormal services. Care givers in 15 families providing assistance to a parent or parent-in-law were interviewed about their responsibilities to their relatives and their reasons for using or not using community ser vices to help with caregiving. The results indicated that perceived responsibility included responsibility both to the parent and to other family members. Reasons for using services included both care recipient considerations as well as caregivers' personal and marital con cerns. Respondent families sought assistance from formal services in order to balance parental safety needs with caregiver needs for personal and marital fulfillment. When caregivers experi enced physical or emotional limitations, they hired help. Implications for practitioners provid ing services to caregiving families are discussed