Nowadays, Family is the most important social institution; therefore, it serves as a fruitful source of research. Since a family consists of parents and their biological or adopted children, it is interesting to see its representation in different media. Besides, parent’s fundamental task and responsibility is a child’s upbringing which is usually carried through the reading of picture books that become extremely valuable didactic materials. Since a picture book represents child’s first encounter with letters and words, and since family members are one of the most common figures in picture books as well as the majority of the plot revolves around family relationships, this research analyzed family relationships and forms through the analysis of content in ten children’s picture books in Croatian language. Picture books are divided into old and contemporary, and pre-set codes matched research tasks: family form, family power structure, upbringing methods and principles, upbringing style, passing down of family values. The results showed that old picture books show incomplete family with traditional values, while at the end of the old and the beginning of the contemporary picture books a shift can be seen towards democratic values and partner relationships in the family (marked by father’s involvement in children’s upbringing), which leads to gradual abandonment of stereotypes discussed in previous research.