ABSTRACT
This chapter compares the properties and achievements of each of the three generation (grandparent generation, parent generation, married child generation) groups, and examines the transactions with each other and the extent of interdependence which binds them together. From the findings of extensive intergenerational visiting three generations in depth, and high participation in common social activities, the chapter concludes that the vast majority of the families in this three generation sample are caught up in an extended network of kin which resembles more closely the modified extended family than the type of discrete boundary maintaining insulated nuclear families which Talcott Parsons has alleged would best fit our urban industrial society. Only the married child generation appears high both in giving and receiving, a status of high reciprocity and interdependence within its social network. The chapter demonstrates that the modified extended family network relies on the middle or parent generation to serve as the lineage bridge across the generations.
