When she is young, Marjane is outspoken and it is clear she has a unique relationship with her parents and grandmother. How do they influence her and her relationship with changing Iranian culture? How does this help her and hurt her?

Throughout the novel, Satrapi uses her own relationship with her parents as a metaphor for her relationship with her country and the wider world. The conflict and love she experiences with her parents is a necessary part of her growth as a person. Her relationship with her mother and father is both tender and full of tension. Her parents love her and seek to provide her with the best in education and upbringing. They hope to provide her with a life full of privileges.

At the same time, however, Marjane feels a great tension between her parents' political views and their actions. Their belief in equality and liberation for the working classes conflicts with the privilege that they hold and seek in society. On one occasion, Marjane compares her mother to the Guardians of the Revolution, the secret police force of the Islamic regime. The end of the novel is a representation of the eventual break that all children must have with those that raise them. In Marjane's case, she also breaks with the country and culture that raised her.