Exploring parent-child relationships in families with advanced age parents: An interview study with adult offspring of ‘older’ parents in Switzerland

Nathalie Bettina Neeser; Andrea Martani; Kato Verghote; Bernice Simone Elger; Tenzin Wangmo

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0340365

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJuly 4, 2025
17 Nov 2025 Decision Letter - Adetayo Olorunlana, Editor Dear Dr. Neeser, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 01 2026 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org . When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols . Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols . We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Adetayo Olorunlana, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. In the online submission form, you indicated that [The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.]. All PLOS journals now require all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript to be freely available to other researchers, either 1. In a public repository, 2. Within the manuscript itself, or 3. Uploaded as supplementary information. This policy applies to all data except where public deposition would breach compliance with the protocol approved by your research ethics board. If your data cannot be made publicly available for ethical or legal reasons (e.g., public availability would compromise patient privacy), please explain your reasons on resubmission and your exemption request will be escalated for approval. 3. Your ethics statement should only appear in the Methods section of your manuscript. If your ethics statement is written in any section besides the Methods, please move it to the Methods section and delete it from any other section. Please ensure that your ethics statement is included in your manuscript, as the ethics statement entered into the online submission form will not be published alongside your manuscript. 4. If the reviewer comments include a recommendation to cite specific previously published works, please review and evaluate these publications to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. There is no requirement to cite these works unless the editor has indicated otherwise. 5. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Additional Editor Comments (if provided): [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? -->?> Reviewer #1: I Don't Know Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available??> The PLOS Data policy Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??> Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** Reviewer #1: This article is very interesting and I like it very much. It's quite different from the ones I have reviewed before. However, I think it leans more towards the field of psychology. I suggest having it reviewed by an expert in psychology. Thank you! Reviewer #2: This manuscript addresses an important and understudied phenomenon—the lived experiences of adult offspring born to parents of advanced parental age (APA). Comments are below: -The authors claim "inductive thematic analysis" but acknowledge starting with Szydlik's predetermined categories (opportunity, need, family, cultural-contextual structures). This is actually deductive or framework-based analysis. Cab you please clarify whether you used a deductive approach with some inductive elaboration, or explain how themes genuinely emerged from data before being mapped to theory? -Given rising parental ages globally, is 40 still meaningfully "advanced"? Can you please clarify? I'm curious if you could add discussion in the limitation section on your findings whether findings differ for parents at 40-43 vs. 50+ years? - How do the team ensure data were saturated? -Some participants (e.g., Anna, Nicolas, Vanessa) are quoted extensively, while others appear only once or not at all. This raises questions about whether all 20 participants contributed equally to theme development or if findings are driven by a subset. ****** what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] To ensure your figures meet our technical requirements, please review our figure guidelines: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures You may also use PLOS’s free figure tool, NAAS, to help you prepare publication quality figures: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures#loc-tools-for-figure-preparation. NAAS will assess whether your figures meet our technical requirements by comparing each figure against our figure specifications. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0340365.r001
Revision 1
12 Dec 2025 Author Response 05.12.2025 Dear Editor, Thank you for your consideration of our revised manuscript. We are pleased to submit a new version of our manuscript titled “Exploring parent-child relationships in families with advanced age parents: an interview study with adult offspring of ‘older’ parents in Switzerland” to PLOS ONE. Based on the much-appreciated feedback and the helpful suggestions of the two reviewers, we have carefully considered the valuable comments and adapted the manuscript where necessary accordingly. Below, we copy-pasted all the comments of the reviewers and explained how their comments have been implemented in the revised version with track changes. We thank you and the reviewers for raising important issues and helping us refine the manuscript. With sincere wishes, The Authors *** Responses to the Reviewers Reviewer #1 This article is very interesting, and I like it very much. It's quite different from the ones I have reviewed before. However, I think it leans more towards the field of psychology. I suggest having it reviewed by an expert in psychology. Thank you! Authors’ response: We would like to thank Reviewer #1 for taking the time to read our manuscript and are pleased to hear that they find it interesting. Reviewer #2 This manuscript addresses an important and understudied phenomenon—the lived experiences of adult offspring born to parents of advanced parental age (APA). Comments are below: 1. The authors claim "inductive thematic analysis" but acknowledge starting with Szydlik's predetermined categories (opportunity, need, family, cultural-contextual structures). This is actually deductive or framework-based analysis. Can you please clarify whether you used a deductive approach with some inductive elaboration, or explain how themes genuinely emerged from data before being mapped to theory? Authors’ response: Thank you for bringing up this important matter. We have specified what we have done exactly; in the abstract, the introduction and in the methods section of our manuscript. For example, in the introduction, we had previously written that “this paper is based on applying Szydlik’s theory of intergenerational solidarity to analyse interviews with adult offspring born from particularly old parents and investigates their views on parent-child relationships” and have now specified this part of the last paragraph of the introduction as follows: “This paper is based on an inductive thematic analysis of interviews with adult offspring born from particularly old parents and investigates their views on parent-child relationships. Although the analysis was conducted inductively, the resulting themes showed strong resonance with Szydlik’s theory of intergenerational solidarity, which subsequently informed the presentation of the findings in a manner informed by this framework.” 2. Given rising parental ages globally, is 40 still meaningfully "advanced"? Can you please clarify? I'm curious if you could add discussion in the limitation section on your findings whether findings differ for parents at 40-43 vs. 50+ years? Authors’ response: Thank you for this important comment. We have added several sentences to our strengths and limitations section, detailing that “it is possible that offspring with even older parents (e.g. 50+ at the time of becoming parents) might describe different parent-child relationships than our participants. However, we decided to examine the experiences of children born to 40+ parents, since this age was – at the time when our participants were born – much more exceptional than it is nowadays. Moreover, existing literature on the phenomenon is very limited, and previously defined APA as 35 years and older [20,21], so our decision to recruit children born from parents aged 40+ is already a step forward in adapting the definition of APA to demographic changes.” 3. How do the team ensure data were saturated? Authors’ response: Thank you for raising this important issue in qualitative research. We have specified our process in the methods section of the manuscript, detailing that “More specifically, data saturation was ensured by iterative analysis and reflexive team discussions, deciding whether new interviews were still generating new insights, or whether thematic saturation was reached.” 4. Some participants (e.g., Anna, Nicolas, Vanessa) are quoted extensively, while others appear only once or not at all. This raises questions about whether all 20 participants contributed equally to theme development or if findings are driven by a subset. Authors’ response: You are correct, that some participant’s wordings and detailed explanations are displayed and discussed more often than the one of others. However, the findings are not driven by a subset, but rather by the sample in its entirety. We chose to display these participants’ words in particular, because they reflected in depth and at length about different issues and articulated themselves exceptionally well. However, all participant contributed to the development of the findings. *** Journal requirements In the online submission form, you indicated that [The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.]. All PLOS journals now require all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript to be freely available to other researchers, either 1. In a public repository, 2. Within the manuscript itself, or 3. Uploaded as supplementary information. This policy applies to all data except where public deposition would breach compliance with the protocol approved by your research ethics board. If your data cannot be made publicly available for ethical or legal reasons (e.g., public availability would compromise patient privacy), please explain your reasons on resubmission and your exemption request will be escalated for approval. Authors’ response: In the consent forms that participants signed, we asked them to sign twice, once for the use of the interview data within the project and once to put their anonymized data on an open repository after the end of the project. Since not everyone decided to consent to having their data put on an open repository and the project has not yet come to an end, the data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. We take informed consent very seriously. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Responses to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0340365.r002
21 Dec 2025 Decision Letter - Adetayo Olorunlana, Editor Exploring parent-child relationships in families with advanced age parents: an interview study with adult offspring of ‘older’ parents in Switzerland PONE-D-25-33579R1 Dear Dr. Neeser, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. For questions related to billing, please contact billing support . If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Adetayo Olorunlana, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS One Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions??> Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? -->?> Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available??> The PLOS Data policy Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??> Reviewer #2: Yes ****** Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy Reviewer #2: No ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0340365.r003
Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Adetayo Olorunlana, Editor PONE-D-25-33579R1 PLOS One Dear Dr. Neeser, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS One. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset You will receive further instructions from the production team, including instructions on how to review your proof when it is ready. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few days to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, if your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. You will receive an invoice from PLOS for your publication fee after your manuscript has reached the completed accept phase. If you receive an email requesting payment before acceptance or for any other service, this may be a phishing scheme. Learn how to identify phishing emails and protect your accounts at https://explore.plos.org/phishing. If we can help with anything else, please email us at customercare@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Associate Professor Adetayo Olorunlana Academic Editor PLOS One https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0340365.r004

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .