This chapter explores family language policies (FLPs) in Adygea, one of the national republics in the North Caucasus and the traditional homeland of the Circassian people. Local discourses in education, media, and scholarship emphasize the family’s pivotal role in preserving the Circassian language, often blaming parents for the language shift to Russian. However, these narratives rarely account for external forces shaping FLPs, portraying families as isolated units unaffected by broader factors. Drawing on interview data collected in Adygea in 2019–2021, the chapter discusses how Circassian parents in urban and rural areas, dedicated to passing Circassian on to their children, face multiple challenges caused by larger socio-historical, economic, and political factors. The combination of these factors makes speaking Russian to children a societal norm, undermining Circassians’ aspiration to maintain their ancestral language. Critical evaluation of current unfavorable conditions for Indigenous language preservation is unwelcome in modern Russia’s repressive political climate. Therefore, exerting pressure on families might be seen as a community’s attempt to preserve Circassian without provoking the federal authorities. However, the disparity between local rhetoric emphasizing the importance of Circassian and the reality of Russian dominance may lead some to reject emotionally charged appeals to speak Circassian to their children.