ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the life course overview of the emotional closeness between parents and children. It proposes a causal model that specifies a sequence of analyses that can explain variation in the degree to which the early family was a cohesive social unit or one fragmented by tension. The chapter analyzes several other variables that will be brought into the analysis of contemporary relations between the generations. It explores the role of early family life variables in an interpretation of current Affective Closeness, to test whether past family variables have direct persistent effects on contemporary relationships over and above circumstances and characteristics of the parents and the children. The chapter is concerned with intergenerational influence. It addresses the quality of the parental marriage and how this affects the parent-child relationship as well as the relationship between alternate generations. The chapter explores the emotional intimacy between parents and children under conditions of happy or unhappy parental marriages.
