Studying the family in development in social and cultural contexts that are in constant transformation constitutes a challenge for the psychologists who study the family development. This article aims to describe the environment in which Brazilian families lived when the Questionnaire of Ideal Father was administrated to young university students from Pasquali’s research. The structure and the parental and gender relations that characterize the families in the second half of the XX century are highlighted. The sistemic theory and the family ecopsychological definition are pointed out as promising ways to guide the research about the family functioning and the current conceptions of family, mother and father.
Family; System theory of family; Parental relations; Conceptions of father and mother
