How do lesbians decide to become mothers or remain childfree? Why do new families form at particular historical moments? These questions are at the heart of Nancy J. Mezey’s New Choices, New Families. Researchers, politicians, and society at large continue to debate the changing American family, especially nontraditional families that emerge from divorce, remarriage, grandparents-as-parents, and adoption. This ongoing discussion also engages the controversy surrounding the parental rights of same-sex couples and their families. New Choices, New Families enters into this conversation. Mezey asks why lesbians are forming families at this particular historical moment and wonders how race, class, sexual identity, and family history factor into the decision-making process. Drawing heavily from personal interviews, Mezey’s groundbreaking analysis gives voice to groups long underrepresented in similar studies—black, Latina, working class, and childfree lesbians. Some chapters examine how childhood experiences contribute to the desire to become a mother, while others consider the influence of women’s partners and careers. New Choices, New Families provides thoughtful insights into questions about sexual identity, social and cultural expectations, and what and who constitute a family.

A new book based on a groundbreaking cross-generational study reveals both greater freedom and new constraints for men and women in their work and family lives.

Features four hundred recipes suitable for every lifestyle and includes nutrition information, quick-and-easy meals, and ways to introduce healthy food into daily life.

New choices and emerging technologies in reproductive science aren’t just changing the ways we become parents—they’re playing a key role in the evolving definition of “family.” Traditional family structures are adapting to make room for children conceived in previously unimaginable ways. Whole industries and internet-enabled communities are being built around reproductive technologies. And there’s more change coming as science continues to move forward. Combining intimate personal stories with cutting-edge research, Reconceptions invites readers to reconsider their own ideas about parenthood and embrace a new vision of the meaning of family. In 2012, Rachel Lehmann-Haupt, an award-winning journalist, chose to begin a family on her own as a single mother by choice. In the years since her son was born, Rachel’s interest in collaborative reproduction has only grown—leading her to search for pioneers in reproductive science and the different permutations of families that this science is making possible. In Reconceptions, she shares intimate stories from the bleeding edge of society’s redefinition of family—including her own experience of creating a new kind of tribe with her son’s “dosies,” or donor siblings, and their parents. In these pages, readers will meet: Tyra, the egg donor and professional surrogate who doesn’t want kids of her own, but stays in touch with several of the families she’s helped in the conception of their children. Sam, the single father by choice who worked with a surrogate and donor egg to conceive his son who he is now raising with his girlfriend. Rob and Scotty, the gay couple whose egg donor is now a friend and fixture at family social gatherings. The author’s Facebook group of mothers who conceived their children with the same sperm donor—and how the group served as a much much-needed support system through the worst of the COVID pandemic. Reconceptions offers a compelling vision of what advances in reproductive science mean for the definition of family in the 21st century and beyond, and imparts a modern story for anyone looking to better understand their own familial relationships—no matter what their family looks like.

Part of the Sage Contemporary Family Perspective series, this book presents a comprehensive an understanding of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender families today by drawing upon and making sense of the burgeoning scholarly literature about LGBT families from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Queer Kinship on the Edge? Families of Choice in Poland explores ways in which queer families from Central and Eastern Europe complicate the mainstream picture of queer kinship and families researched in the Anglo-American contexts. The book presents findings from under-represented localities as a starting point to query some of the expectations about queer kinship and to provide insights on the scale and nature of queer kinship in diverse geopolitical locations and the complexities of lived experiences of queer families. Drawing on a rich qualitative multi-method study to address the gap in queer kinship studies which tend to exclude Polish or wider Central and Eastern perspectives, it offers a multi-dimensional picture of ‘families of choice’ improving sensitivity towards differences in queer kinship studies. Through case studies and interviews with diverse members of queer families (i.e., queer parents, their children) and their families of origin (parents and siblings), the book looks at queer domesticity, practices of care, defining and displaying families, queer parenthood familial homophobia, and interpersonal relationships through the life course. This study is suitable for those interested in LGBT studies, sexuality studies, kinship and Eastern European studies.