The launching family: A study of the developing relationship between young male adults and their original families

The remarkable achievement of the launching family is the cohesiveness and cooperation which occurs in spite of the increasing complexity of its members. The young male adult member(s) is increasingly a strong yet relaxed complex adult and the parental couple relationship is deepening and expanding. Generally there has been a period of conflict or greater emotional distance between the young male adult and at least one parent during launching.;An exploratory study was made of ten families with a young male adult member participating in a structured interview focused on how family relationships change during the period when there is a young male adult present in the family. Families ranged from upper level working class to upper middle class in socioeconomic status. Ethnic origins of the families were very diverse. The young male adults ranged in age from 21 to 25. Six of the young male adults graduated from college within the year following the interview and four graduated during the 6 months preceding the interview. Eight of the young male adults resided at college and two lived at home during college.;FACES III was administered to all family members primarily in order to give information about the characteristics of this sample in relation to the general population of families. No families fell in the extreme categories of the Circumplex profile which is an indication that these are relatively healthy families. None of the sample families fell in the connected-enmeshed/structured-rigid quadrant of the Circumplex profile. It is speculated that high cohesion and low adaptibility are rare in the launching family, although it is possible that such families would have selected themselves out of the present study.