Introduction to the special issue: Eldering in family law

Interrelationships between younger and older family members are vital to maintaining family cohesion, transmitting values, fostering support, and nurturing a legacy for future generations. When these relationships have gone awry, the protections, social capital, and other benefits of mutual support and collaboration are disrupted. Multiple generations of the family may be left in shackles, chained to past acute events or burdened by misperceptions and fragmented family narratives. Whether these relationships are more positive or negative, it seems that multidisciplinary family law professionals often ignore or disregard the influences, interconnections and interdependence of multigenerations in a family, leaving older adults out of the equation when working with parents and their minor aged children. We feel honored to be guest editors of this special issue of the Family Court Review, “Eldering in Family Law,” which emphasizes the inclusion of multiple generations to forward the Association of Family and Conciliation Court's mission to “improve the lives of children and families.” “Eldering,” as presented in this special issue, is a concept that extends beyond simply aging; it involves the growing development of an intended or unintended legacy of a family for its future generations. As interdisciplinary family law professionals, we are addressing aspects of developing legacies all the time — how family members communicate and interact, make decisions, raise their children, and view their oldest family members. Eldering elevates the voice, dignity, needs and influences of older generations in family law cases, tuning in family-focused professionals and the court to the multigenerations that impact their clients/litigants (e.g., who is providing support? What is being disrupted?). Those voices can provide reliable information to help us improve our professional responses and enhance our interventional approaches. The articles in this issue discuss the importance of viewing the family as a system, with interrelationships fostering support or eroding family cohesion. Authors were paired to complement each other's professional fields and perspectives. They prompt us to reflect: Are we, as family law professionals, curious and asking questions to provide greater insight of family influences and interrelationships? Do our legal processes, including our courts, recognize the systemic influences of multigenerations and reinforce family strengths; or are we limiting our view of family and therefore our help to those in need? In their contribution, “The coming of age: why aging matters in family law and public policy,” Alexandra Crampton and Judge Randall Fuller write on how age-inclusive approaches and multigenerational perspectives on family cases can facilitate dispute resolution. The authors contend that legal frameworks must adapt to current demographic realities by moving beyond categorical life-stage assumptions and recognize the interdependence of family members. It is incumbent upon us as professionals to further appreciate the influences of one generation upon the next. In their article, “Meeting the health, financial and legal challenges of stepfamilies in later life: White coats, green dollars, and special teacups,” Naomi Cahn and Patricia Papernow integrate legal analysis, clinical insights, and family systems examples to demonstrate the importance of using a stepfamily-specific lens to shift from individualistic or nuclear-family assumptions to recognizing longstanding relational patterns, attachment histories, and role expectations. The role of grandparents can take on many forms and those relationships can offer myriad benefits or, at times, major disruptions. April Harris-Britt and Ann Ordway's article, “Safe harbors and stable connections? The relationship between grandparents and grandchildren,” offers a comprehensive view of the relational, psychosocial, and legal dimensions that define these multigenerational households, drawing from research, case law, and real-life narratives. Sarah Whiting and Joshua Coleman authored, “Estrangement is a systems issue,” and describe factors leading to estrangement, inviting the court and professionals to adopt collaborative, interdisciplinary practices to prioritize respect, relational repair, and long-term family resilience. Elder abuse is most often perpetuated by family members and grossly underreported reported. In “Elder justice: Considerations for LGBTQ+ family systems,” Lori Mars, Sherrill Wayland, and Carey Candrian explore the unique challenges and legal vulnerabilities of older LGBTQ+ adults and the role for professionals in supporting strong connections across generations, with practical implications for professional practices. “Psychometric validation and comparative analysis of the Eldercaring Conflict Checklist (ECC): Evaluating the short-form version” presents a structured, validated tool to identify the multifaceted sources of eldercaring conflict in families facing caregiving challenges related to older adults. Michael Saini was gracious in collaborating with us on the creation of the ECC to reduce adversarial escalation by enabling early, targeted responses to family dysfunction, leading to more effective interventions and better outcomes for the older adult and family members of all ages. Researchers of the first pilot of eldercaring coordination in South Australia Eileen O'Brien, Ben Livings, and Dale Bagshaw present “Exploring eldercaring coordination as a way to safeguard the rights of older people: a case study from south Australia,” to describe their case study in South Australia, adapting eldercaring coordination as part of a complementary graduated response system to bridge the gap between balancing autonomy and safeguarding of older adults, offering a tribunal or judicial system a practical solution to improving outcomes for vulnerable older adults and their families in eldercare disputes. Fran Tetunic and DeLila S. Bergan paired to present “Narrative ethics is an eldering paradigm,” positioned to reinforce ethical practice across law, dispute resolution, and mental health fields, with stories treated as the cornerstone of principled and effective professional response. To wrap up, in “Widening our professional lenses: Eldering as a systemic imperative,” we define “eldering” and integrate information gleaned from the groundbreaking articles in this FCR issue to illustrate how we can benefit families and our professional fields by incorporating a family systems perspective with attunement to all ages in the family. We hope this special issue pushes you to think more expansively, question, and challenge your own professional framework by incorporating “eldering,” highlighting the relevance of age-inclusivity benefits to the AFCC international multidisciplinary community. The words “In every conceivable manner, the family is a link to the past, bridge to our future” (Alex Haley, quoted in Dolores Curran, Traits of a Healthy Family, Winston Press, 1985) ring true as ever. If we are to forge brighter paths forward, it is time for us to consider the interdependent nature of contemporary families and influences of multigenerations in our thinking, in our practices, and in our courts, to enhance the legacies of families as well as our professional missions.