ABSTRACT
As a family policy specialist, I often find myself asked to define family policy. My friends often joke that family policy begins at home with decisions about whether to leave the toilet seat up or down. Granted, that decision is a humorous example of one specific family policy, but the lack of clarity in definitions of family policy is no joking matter. Family policy scholars have been unable to agree on definitions, but they have agreed that an essential first task in moving the field forward is to reach consensus on definitions (Aldous, Dumon, & Johnson, 1980; Moen & Jull, 1995; Monroe, 1995; Wisensale, 2001b)—a task that has proved so difficult that it has been likened to “swimming in molasses or nailing Jello to a tree” (Blankenhorn, 1990, p. 5).
