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We Are Family: The Modern Transformation of Parents and Children - Hardcover | Diverse Reads

We Are Family: The Modern Transformation of Parents and Children

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From one of the world's leading experts, this absorbing narrative history of the changing structure of modern families shows how children can flourish in any kind of loving home.

The past few decades have seen extraordinary change in the idea of a family. The unit once understood to include two straight parents and their biological children has expanded vastly—same-sex marriage, adoption, IVF, sperm donation, and other forces have enabled new forms to take shape. This has resulted in enormous upheaval and controversy, but as Susan Golombok shows in this compelling and important book, it has also meant the health and happiness of parents and children alike.

Golombok's stories, drawn from decades of research, are compelling and dramatic: family secrets kept for years and then inadvertently revealed; children reunited with their biological parents or half siblings they never knew existed; and painful legal battles to determine who is worthy of parenting their own children. Golombok explores the novel moral questions that changing families create, and ultimately makes a powerful argument that the bond between family members, rather than any biological or cultural factor, is what ensures a safe and happy future.

We Are Family is unique, authoritative, and deeply humane. It makes an important case for all families—old, new, and yet unimagined.

ISBN-13: 9781541758643

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Publication Date: 10-06-2020

Pages: 320

Product Dimensions: 5.50(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.10(d)

Susan Golombok is one of the world's leading experts on new family forms. She is Director of the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge, a Professorial Fellow at Newnham College, Cambridge, and was a Visiting Professor at Columbia University in New York in 2005-2006 and retains an affiliation there. Golombok has often testified before governments and her research was used as evidence in the US Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage in 2015. She lives in Cambridge, England.

Table of Contents

Preface 1

Chapter 1 Lesbian Mothers: 'Uncharted Waters' 7

Chapter 2 Donor Conception Families: 'Made Out of Love' 39

Chapter 3 Sperm, Egg, and Embryo Donors: 'Missing Branches' 73

Chapter 4 Surrogates: Tummy Mummies' 101

Chapter 5 Surrogacy Families: 'No Accident' 129

Chapter 6 Gay Father Families: 'Beyond Our Wildest Dreams' 151

Chapter 7 Single Mothers by Choice: 'Different Shapes' 177

Chapter 8 Trans Parent Families: 'Same Person, Just Happier' 199

Chapter 9 Future Families: 'Pioneers' 227

Chapter 10 Conclusions 249

Further Reading 273

Research cited 273

Resources for children 283

Acknowledgements 287

Index 291