Katie L. Acosta
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781479800957
- eISBN:
- 9781479801015
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479800957.003.0002
- Subject:
- Sociology, Marriage and the Family
In this chapter Acosta explores the various kinds of parenting arrangements that the respondent families maintained. She uses the term plural parenting to describe these arrangements in order to ...
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In this chapter Acosta explores the various kinds of parenting arrangements that the respondent families maintained. She uses the term plural parenting to describe these arrangements in order to emphasize the children’s multiple parents and the varied relationships they maintained. Respondent families had many parenting arrangements, including strong, tolerable, and struggling plural parenting. Acosta found that families formed after a same-sex relationship dissolved were more likely to maintain either a strong or tolerable plural parenting relationship than those families that formed after a heterosexual relationship dissolved.Less
In this chapter Acosta explores the various kinds of parenting arrangements that the respondent families maintained. She uses the term plural parenting to describe these arrangements in order to emphasize the children’s multiple parents and the varied relationships they maintained. Respondent families had many parenting arrangements, including strong, tolerable, and struggling plural parenting. Acosta found that families formed after a same-sex relationship dissolved were more likely to maintain either a strong or tolerable plural parenting relationship than those families that formed after a heterosexual relationship dissolved.
Katie L. Acosta
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781479800957
- eISBN:
- 9781479801015
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479800957.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Marriage and the Family
This work examines the social and legal experiences of lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer stepparent families. The data come from fifty-one interviews with origin and/or stepparents from ...
More
This work examines the social and legal experiences of lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer stepparent families. The data come from fifty-one interviews with origin and/or stepparents from forty-three different families formed after a heterosexual or same-sex relationship dissolved. Study families lived in eighteen states, with most residing in the South. Respondents became parents in a variety of ways. While the stepparents became parents through their romantic partnerships, the origin parents had a wider range of experiences. Some origin parents became parents as teenagers or in their early twenties within heterosexual relationships or nonromantic encounters that led to pregnancy. Others became parents later in life while in a heterosexual marriage. Still others became parents within a same-sex relationship (through birth or adoption). Regardless of their various paths to parenthood, the respondents share the experience of raising in a same-sex family children who were conceived or adopted in a different family structure. In most study families, the parents raising these children engage in various degrees of plural parenting. Queer Stepfamilies is about the complex dynamics that influence parenting under these circumstances and highlights the ingenious ways respondents make their families work. In this book Acosta asks: How do lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer stepparent families forge a path toward plural parenting? How do state family laws shape the respondent families’ parent-child relationships? Are lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer stepparent families formed after a heterosexual relationship dissolved different from those formed after a same-sex relationship dissolved?Less
This work examines the social and legal experiences of lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer stepparent families. The data come from fifty-one interviews with origin and/or stepparents from forty-three different families formed after a heterosexual or same-sex relationship dissolved. Study families lived in eighteen states, with most residing in the South. Respondents became parents in a variety of ways. While the stepparents became parents through their romantic partnerships, the origin parents had a wider range of experiences. Some origin parents became parents as teenagers or in their early twenties within heterosexual relationships or nonromantic encounters that led to pregnancy. Others became parents later in life while in a heterosexual marriage. Still others became parents within a same-sex relationship (through birth or adoption). Regardless of their various paths to parenthood, the respondents share the experience of raising in a same-sex family children who were conceived or adopted in a different family structure. In most study families, the parents raising these children engage in various degrees of plural parenting. Queer Stepfamilies is about the complex dynamics that influence parenting under these circumstances and highlights the ingenious ways respondents make their families work. In this book Acosta asks: How do lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer stepparent families forge a path toward plural parenting? How do state family laws shape the respondent families’ parent-child relationships? Are lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer stepparent families formed after a heterosexual relationship dissolved different from those formed after a same-sex relationship dissolved?
