Family members tend to live near each other, and Guatemalans rarely live or spend much time alone. An invitation to a party or social function, for example, would be interpreted to include all the family members, including children and grandparents. Most families consist of parents and their unmarried children, though may include a married son or daughter and their family. Families also care for elderly relatives, and godparents (padrinos) are considered an important part of the family. However, traditional family patterns are changing as Guatemalans adopt more North American values.

Guatemalan women tend to marry young and have many children. In rural areas, some couples cannot afford or access a church wedding, and often live in common-law marriages. Mayan couples may also perform different commitment ceremonies other than church weddings. Women give birth at home, though in cities they may go to a hospital.

Guatemala's population is unique in Central America for its strong resistance to assimilation; even today, there are as more indigenas than ladinos. A fundamental split has developed in Guatemala between indigenas, those who have continued to follow their traditional Mayan lifestyle and speak their traditional languages, and ladinos, Hispanics and people of Mayan descent who have adopted a Westernized lifestyle and use Spanish as their primary language. Guatemalan ladino culture has been characterized as urban-oriented, receptive to new (especially foreign) ideas and impatient with the slow, unchanging patterns of traditional life.

Most Guatemalans have adopted some forms of Western clothing, though some men still wear the sandalsor or sash and woolen ponchito, which identifies them as Mayans. Mayan women use tzutes, a type of blanket, for cushioning baskets on their heads or swaddling infants.

Did you know?

Some homes still have an outdoor steam-bath hut or temaxcal, used since ancient times. The hut has an outer adobe shell around an inner stone structure. Bathers light a fire inside to heat the stones, then throw water against them to produce steam.