Checking Accounts: Communication Privacy Management in Familial Financial Caregiving

Abstract

This study explored familial financial caregiving, providing money management assistance to a family member, to determine how families coordinate access to and protection of private financial information during the caregiving process. Using the theory of Communication Privacy Management (CPM), this study analyzed semistructured interviews of 20 familial caregivers near a medium-sized, Midwestern city. The adult children studied perceived that their parents employed thick privacy boundaries and high privacy control goals around their financial information. The parents were also perceived to use risk-benefit and contextual criteria in creating privacy rules regulating revealing and concealing private financial information. Once financial caregiving assistance was required and disclosure was necessary, boundary linkages between parents and adult children were created, and adult children engaged in postdisclosure privacy management. Based on the study results, practical applications were offered for seniors, their families, and eldercare professionals.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Sandra Petronio, Renea Gernant, Marty Birkholt, Paul Schrodt, and the anonymous reviewers for their feedback. The author is also grateful to Donna Washburn for making the project possible and to the participants for sharing their experiences and for serving as family caregivers.

Notes

¹A DPOA or POA is a legal document utilized to appoint a named person to make decisions on another individual's behalf (Delehanty & Ginzler, 2008).