Past/Present/Future: Time and the Meaning of Change in the ‘Family’

Flux is an essential characteristic of ‘family’ life. The inevitable passage of chronological time, characterized by constantly evolving circumstances and life experiences, mean that change and transition are major features of every individual’s life. But such themes are most commonly associated with ‘youth’ as a particular phase of life and studied within the context of the move from childhood to adulthood. Studies tend to focus exclusively on the young person’s experience of change, underestimating the significance of the embedded, relational nature of transitions to adulthood. Consideration of the young person’s social context in the form of ‘family’ relationships is generally confined to a psychological analysis of variables influencing developmental outcomes (Gillies et al. 1999). Yet, such a one-dimensional focus on young people as the sole object of change risks obscuring the important turning points and continuities experienced by other ‘family’ members, concurrent with the process of ‘growing up’