This anthology features stories of 19 couples (and co-parenting units of more than two) telling us in their own words about the obstacles and triumphs of forming their families in a variety of ways. A list of legal tips and questions to ask in choosing a parenting path add to its practical, how-to feel.
We meet parents from around the U.S., as well as the U.K., Ireland, and South Africa. Their conversational and candid essays are grouped by type of family formation: Open Adoption, Foster Parenting and Adopting from Foster Care, Surrogacy, and Assisted Reproduction. Rosswood explains that he wanted to include all these approaches in one volume to help others who are starting their parenting journeys but unsure of which way to go. After reading through these stories, prospective parents should indeed have a better sense of what’s involved with each method and be better prepared to make their own decisions.
For each section, Rosswood provides a brief overview of what each path to parenthood involves. The section on “Open Adoption,” however, is misleading. His introduction there implies that all open adoptions happen immediately after the birth of the child. All of the stories in that section do involve parents who adopted newborns—but the fact is, open adoptions (which allow some form of association among the adoptive parent(s), birth parent(s), and child) can occur with children adopted at any age, as well as with those adopted from foster care (whom Rosswood puts in a different section). (See, for example, the section on open adoption in the Child Welfare Information Gateway’s brochure on foster parenting, and “Risks and Benefits of Open Adoption,” Marianne Berry, The Future of Children Vol. 3, No. 1, Spring 1993.) The section would have been better titled “Adoption at Birth.”
And in his introduction on Assisted Reproduction, when discussing the “do-it-yourself” option, he notes that intercourse isn’t necessary, but that a woman can call a male friend for assistance. “Use your imagination,” is all he says about that. In a book that’s supposed to be offering guidance, that seems rather vague. At the very least, he should mention the need for a syringe rather than the folkloric turkey baster.
Nevertheless, many same-sex couples considering parenthood will find the wide range of first-person stories in this book immediately useful, both for their practical tips and for the comforting sense they convey that others have been there before.
