We examined whether parents' stressors and avoidance coping when offspring were children helped to explain associations between parent depression at baseline and offspring's avoidance coping and depression in adulthood. Self-report data were collected at baseline and 1 year from parents (N = 326) and at 23 years from adult offspring (N = 326). Associations between parents' depression symptoms at baseline, and their adult offspring's depression symptoms and avoidance coping 23 years later, were partially explained by parents' reliance on avoidance coping in response to negative events at 1 year after baseline.