A brief introductory review of the literature reveals that research on family influence in the development of political orientations in adult children is inconclusive. This study focused on highly politicized families and examines: (1) the relative influence of family emotional climate versus family political climate; and (2) the relative influence of mothers and fathers on the child's political orientations by college age. The sample consisted of 60 white families from upper middle class communities where the parents were politically visible and were known to be either liberal or conservative. Family emotional climate was measured in terms of permissiveness, warmth, conflict and interaction. Family political climate included: (1) parental dedication to causes; and (2) parental political tutoring. The analysis of these six independent family variables with parent-child political attitude congruence indicated significant association of measures of family political climate with attitude congruence for all dyads except mother-son, with father-son dyads showing the greatest association. Reasons are discussed. (TL)