This paper explores the role of social psychological theory in understanding family life amid societal transformation. It argues that the social psychology of everyday life offers a politically engaged, interdisciplinary framework that foregrounds the lived experiences of individuals within broader social structures. Drawing on C. Wright Mills, the paper positions theory not as detached observation but as a means of engaging with the “troubles” of family life—troubles that are always also societal issues.

The historical development of family studies is reviewed to show how dominant traditions have struggled to theoretically connect the troubles and issues of family life. In response, the paper discusses the concept of “family practices”, and its relevance for a social psychological approach to family life, emphasizing that families are enacted through everyday interactions shaped by cultural ideals, and socio-material conditions.

The concept of everyday life is not merely a backdrop for the study of psychological phenomenon, but lenses through which ongoing processes of societalisation (vergesellschaftung) is explored, informed by Simmils original idea, that persons are never part of a societal order without also to be found in opposition to that very same order.

In dark times, theory must not retreat into abstraction. Instead, it must illuminate how psychological concepts are entangled with lived realities, offering tools to understand—and potentially transform—the conditions of human life.