ABSTRACT
Research on family dynamics and family processes has usually focused on young families, those including infants and young children, or sometimes adolescents. This is not surprising, for, as the readers of this volume are well aware, the majority of interactions between the generations, and the greatest amount of influence across the generations, occurs during the earlier years. Nevertheless, we are coming to understand that a family is “forever” in many important ways. As soon as researchers began to look at the dynamics of the empty nest family, they found that family interactions continue virtually unabated throughout the adulthood of the second generation, so long as the first generation is alive (Troll, Miller, & Atchley, 1979). Although individual differences are great, of course, stability of family interactions is the rule.
