The research reported here, based largely on open-ended interviews with elementary school children at several grade levels, examines the measurement and correlates of gender role flexibility in children. It explores children's conceptions of "mother" and "father" both in response to questioning about the child's own parents and in response to depiction of deliberate reversals of the conventionally stereotyped roles of mother as child caretaker-houskeeper and father as breadwinner. This investigation suggests some methodological innovation and contributes to theoretical clarification of sources and mechanisms of early gender role learning by exploring the impact of the concrete unique example of the child's own parents as gender role models. (Author/YRJ)