While many studies focus on the impact of social change on younger generations, Family Ties deals comprehensively with family relationships over a longer period of the life cycle and reveals misconceptions about grown children caring for their aging parents. John R. Logan and Glenna D. Spitze offer conclusive evidence that relationships between parents and their adult children remain intact and challenge other myths of isolation and neglect of the older generation.

The authors reveal that parents are not dependent on help from their grown children, as was previously assumed; in fact they contribute more assistance than they receive until the age of seventy-five. Also, while daughters are still the dominant care-givers, other forms of support like visiting and providing transportation are given almost equally by sons and daughters.