The lived experience of Maltese grandmothers in a near-parental role : a qualitative study

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore in-depth the lived experience of Maltese grandmothers in a near-parental role. Four Maltese grandmothers participated in semi-structured interviews and interpretative phenomenological analysis was adopted as the methodological approach. Following data analysis, seven main super-ordinate themes along with their subthemes were elicited from the interview transcript. These include; feeling satisfied, a similar but a different child care experience, grandparenting fears, the near-parental role challenges, managing the near-parental role, social support and experiencing a good relationship with daughter and son-in-law.