EXAMPLES Not confiding

# with her mother (girl aged 18):

Interviewer: ’Does your daughter confide in you?’ Mother: ’N o’.

Interviewer: "Do you find it easy to talk to one another?"

Mother: "No, I let her older sisters do it. I pass the buck. That’s not her fault, that’s my fault. I always found that difficult. I was evacuated in the war to an elderly couple, I was always very lonely. Sometimes I wish she would tell me more, but - I don’t know - I think I’m taking the easy way out."

# With her father (reported by mother - girl aged 16):

"I wouldn’t say she loves him, more like she tolerates him. She talks to him, but she’d never, never confide in him’"

Partial confiding:

# with her mother (girl aged 18):

Interviewer: "Is there anyone you can confide in?"

18-year-old: "Well, I suppose I’d tell my Mum most things, but I don’t tell her about (boyfriend) much, because she’d be upset."

Interviewer: "Do you confide things to anyone else?"

18-year-old: "I tell some things to (boyfriend), but really I keep back a lot of things. There’s no-one I’d trust completely, with

everything. I think I sort of divide things up to suit what they want to hear. "

Full confiding:

# with her father (girl aged 19):

Interviewer: "Is there anyone you feel you can confide in?" 19-year-old: "Oh yes, my Dad."

Interviewer: "Do you find it easy to talk to your Dad about personal things?"

19-year old: "Me and my Dad are like that (illustrates with two fingers close together). My Dad’s sweet; 1 could tell my Dad anything - if I was pregnant I would ask him and he would help. Every single problem I have I go straight to my Dad. I just talk to him if something’s bothering me. He knows all my friends -

he’s a diamond, he is. I confide in my boyfriend and if not him, my Dad. I never, never talk to my Mum."

# with her mother

Mother (girl aged 18): "We can talk about anything, anything at all. She didn’t used to tell me - not when she was about 14 or 15, but the last 4 years she’s better. She used to talk to my brother, I talk to

him, too, and he said "your best friend’s your mother". ’

b) Responses to questionnaire on instrumental help: Exploratory work by the author and her colleague (RD) on the patterns of confiding among teenage girls had suggested that choices might be made about confidants according to the nature of the problem. Although this point was not included in the original hypotheses it was decided that we would investigate these ideas further. In the second, intensive interview we therefore gave each girl a short questionnaire on who she would go to for help if faced by four separate problems. These problems were presented as questions:

a) If you had any serious money worries, or got into debt? b) If you got into trouble with the Police (even if it was not your

fault)?

c) If you found you were pregnant when you didn’t want to be? d) If you were having to put up with some sort of physical bullying

(including sexual bullying)?

For each question the girl was asked to name the people she would go to in order of preference; and to indicate whether she had ever experienced such a difficulty. The girls were instructed not to write the personal names of the people from whom they would seek help (eg, Michelle, Sam or Mrs Thomas), but to indicate the rela­ tionship (eg, mother, aunt, grandfather or boyfriend). These data were analysed by gender and by relationship, but are not presented in this thesis (see Monck, 1991- attached as Appendix 11).

v) Relationship between parents.

Aspects of the quality of the relationship the mother had with her husband or partner was assessed through direct questions to both mother and daughter. The information related to the amount of affection, hostility, quarrelling, and joint decision-making in

the partnership. The two interviewers who had carried out the second interview pooled this information in a consensus rating in one of four categories:

i) Marked expressions of enjoyment and sharing. ii) Less marked warmth and sharing - averagely ’good’. iii) Frequent difficulties, apathetic, some positive features. iv) No positive aspects, and/or open antagonism.

vi) Parental rules relating to the index girl in the family

A decision was taken to adopt a direct interview approach to collecting data on teenage autonomy and parental rules, asking questions which were deemed most likely to raise the issue between parents and teenagers. The alternative of pencil-and-paper tests have been used in other studies (eg, Enright, Lapsley, Drivas & Fehr, 1980), but produce a general rather than specific picture of parental control.

Both girls and mothers were asked a general question on whether there were any rules in the family which governed the girl’s life. This question acted as an introduction to asking each informant about 25 separate issues which it was reported might be the targets of parental rule-systems (Fogelman, 1976; Rutter et al, 1976a). Mothers' and daughters' responses were rated separately. The issues are shown in Figure 7.3 in the order in which the questions were asked.