This paper uses the parent's “image of an adaptive adult” (Roer-Strier & Rosenthal, 2001) within an ecological, cultural framework to examine research findings from a study of Jewish families from South Africa and the United States in which an adult daughter has changed from the family's secular or moderate religious orientation to strict, Orthodox Judaism. The study found both similarities and differences in the South African and U.S. mothers’ images of their daughters that are related to the ecological contexts in the 2 countries. The partial congruence of the mothers’ images with the culture the daughters joined may explain mothers’ relatively positive coping with the religious change. The authors show that the concept of adaptive adult is a useful vehicle for practice with families coping with religious and other kinds of cultural change.
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