In the introduction to this volume, I said that one of the things that I am attempting to do here is to link the self, family, and society. Up to this point I have been trying to form some links by examining human development in context and the culture-self interface. Societal conceptualizations of childhood, of competence, and of the self emerged as important, as did the corresponding parental construals of competence and of the self, mediating between societal conceptions and childrearing patterns. Though the family was often invoked in this discussion, this was not explicit. This chapter focuses on the family as the central component ofthe self-family-society relationship.8 I propose a model offamily and family change, through socioeconomic development, entailing a causallfunctional analysis of the development of the self. This model should help throw light on some of the antecedents of the separated and the relational selves.