This book offers a look at the various ways that two moms can start their family, told through the eyes of a girl with two moms who is tired of other children asking for details of how her family is made and saying “I don’t get it.” She is motivated to write a book laying out all of the various family-making methods that her moms and other two-mom families they know have used, including reciprocal IVF, regular IVF, “artificial” insemination at both a clinic and at home (although the more accepted term today is “assisted insemination”), adoption, blending families, and having a parent transition to being a woman. It’s a lot to pack in to one book, which may overwhelm some readers, although others may appreciate the range of methods covered here.
The book mostly uses accurate terminology for the various methods, and that’s commendable, although I think it perhaps takes this a bit too far and again risks overwhelming children of the picture-book age group, who probably don’t need to know, for example, that “reciprocal IVF (in vitro fertilization)” is also called “Reception of Oocites (eggs) from Partner.”
Questioning the validity of a queer family, too, is an old trope used in many of the early (and some later) books about LGBTQ families, including Lots of Mommies, Asha’s Mums, Molly’s Family, Antonio’s Card/La Tarjeta de Antonio, Love Is Love, Papa, Daddy, & Riley, and Who’s Your Real Mom?. While many children with LGBTQ parents do encounter such invalidation, I wonder whether we really need more books that dwell upon what others think of our families. For the children who have not yet encountered such invalidation, too, it might also introduce fears where none were before. I would rather have seen the girl simply showcasing her knowledge about her family and others like it, without needing others’ invalidating comments to trigger it.
The book could have used a good editing as well, as it is often overly wordy, words are sometimes oddly capitalized, and terms like “sexual relations” are not explained (and seem only to refer to relations that can create a child). And no method of family creation has a “scientistic name,” since “scientistic” is not a word (and doesn’t seem intended for comic effect).
The book is a positive one, overall, and may be of some use to those seeking a book that lays out many forms of two-mom family making, but should be used with caution.
