Practices of childcare are organized around cultural values and belief systems. In this chapter we challenge the universalized parent-centred models of care promoted through mainstream psychology by presenting the variations in developmental pathways and strategies of care. We question the dominant discourse around idealized models and arrangements of care and seek an epistemological renewal by reassessing the approaches and assumptions to understanding human systems. Shared cultural meanings and shared practices represent the underlying emphases of a given cultural context as well as the contextual dimensions of specific ecology. The networks of care, the practices followed, and the values and goals towards which these are directed are shaped by the cultural contexts of any given community. In this chapter we examine the cultural mediation of childcare and parenting among families in India, arguing for a deeply contextualized and adaptive basis for the continued prevalence of traditional arrangements and practices of care. We will demonstrate through examples how certain beliefs and conventions of care continue despite an increasing global interface among families both in urban and rural India.