Methodological issues which confront researchers using the concept of the family career include the selection of appropriate dependent variables; the efficacy of historical versus immediate effects; and scaling the family career (a proposed replacement for the "family life cycle"). The issue of which dependent variables should be explained by the family career rather than by the present stage of the career was found to be unresolvable, partially due to the paucity of empirical research on the family career in relation to these variables. In addition, a more substantial problem underlies the selection of dependent variables: the issue of immediate and historical effects. Many researchers appear to assume effects to be the result of the immediately previous stimuli. However, these effects might result from historical effects or an interaction of both historical and immediate causes. The third issue is scaling the sequencing of the family career stages, since the timing dimesion is already at an adequate level of measurement. Sequencing is treated as a normatively regulated process such that deviations from the modal procession of stages implies deviations from the norms. The family career scale developed is a measure of deviations from the normative family career. (CM)