Mothers as Mediators of Intimacy between Grandmothers and Their Young Adult Granddaughters

Do mothers mediate intimacy between grandmothers and their young adult granddaughters or is the grandmother-granddaughter relationship direct? It was predicted that the relationship is mediated by the middle generation when contact is low between grandmother and granddaughter, but, when contact is high, the relationship between grandmother and granddaughter is direct and bypasses the middle generation. Using a sample of 126 triads (undergraduate women, their mothers, and maternal grandmothers), the prediction was supported when considering granddaughters'perceptions of intimacy. When considering grandmothers' perceptions of intimacy, however, the oldest generation failed to differentiate at all between their feelings for their daughter and their feelings for their granddaughter. In view of this global family feeling, the issue of mediation for grandmothers is irrelevant. It would appear that a different model is needed to predict grandmothers' feelings for their granddaughters than to predict granddaughters' feelings for their grandmothers.