THE OBSERVATION that deviant children have deviant parents has been made in a near-astronomical number of studies.' The path to this conclusion has almost always been through the comparison of parents of deviant children (particularly juvenile delinquents) with parents of control subjects. Studies which have proceeded from the other end-i.e., by using the parents as the index case in order to estimate the probability that deviant behavior in the parent will be reflected in the child's behavior-have been negligible in number. Among the rare studies of this kind are Anne Roe's study of children of alcoholics, Wilson's study of delinquency in children whose parents were referred for child neglect, Geismar's study of juvenile delinquency in multiproblem families, and Lewis' study of mental illness in the offspring of mentally ill parents.2 Studies