A new book by Rin Reczek and Emma-Bosley Smith with NYU Press
Praise for Families We Keep
"In this bold reconsideration of kinship, Families We Keep bravely asks a question that most people dare not ask: why do so many of us stay in toxic relationships with our parents when we could, at least theoretically, sever ties and walk away? Through interviews with LGBTQ adults struggling to sustain connection to their homophobic parents, Reczek and Bosley-Smith point to the difficult truth that lifelong parent-child relationships are so revered in the broader culture that many of us are coerced into keeping them--even when they cause us suffering. By exposing the false promise of cultural myths about the unconditional and irreplaceable love forged by blood connection, Families We Keep issues a powerful warning against investing too much labor, or hope, in relationships that cause us harm."
— ~Jane Ward, author of Not Gay and The Tragedy of Heterosexuality
“Contrary to news stories about adult children callously estranging themselves from parents, this book reveals how GLBTQ individuals put up with disapproval, rejection, and even abuse in their effort to maintain family ties. Why do they persist, the authors ask, and at what point does such filial commitment become self-destructive?”
— Stephanie Coontz, author of The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap
"This remarkable book probes the complexities of relationships between adult LGBTQ people and their families of origin, particularly their parents. The qualitative analyses are rich, and the personal stories and discoveries folks share as they navigate these important adult relationships are moving. Families We Keep offers insights that are compelling and relatable to people with a variety of identities and structural locations in society. It brings a fresh new vantage point from which to study familial relationships, sexualities and gender expression."
— Mignon R. Moore, author of Invisible Families: Gay Identities, Relationships, and Motherhood Among Black Women
"Three decades after Families We Choose showed that "ties that bind" are not to be taken for granted, Families We Keep offers a nuanced account of what happens when LGBTQ+ people decide to stick with their parents, even in the face of misunderstanding. Reczek and Bosley-Smith are careful not to romanticize these enduring solidarities. It takes hard work to work through conflict, in ways profoundly shaped by race and gender. Social compulsion intertwines poignantly with qualities more conventionally considered virtues, such as patience and respect for the uniqueness of relationships that find no counterpart elsewhere. At a time when so much research focuses on loss, breakdown, and disruption, this book makes a compelling case for why relationships that persist merit much closer inspection."
— Kath Weston, author of Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship
Families We Keep Book Synopsis
There is no “till death do us part” vow between parents and children.
And yet, parent-child relationships are far more enduring than the marital relationships that made this phrase famous. The lifelong parent-child tie is so taken for granted that it doesn’t need an oath. This unspoken pledge is our birthright; in times of good and bad, sickness and health, parents and their children are bound for life.
But, not every parent-child tie is healthy and helpful. And this intergenerational imperative persists even when these relationships are unsatisfactory or even deeply damaging. Why do we stay in these parent–adult child relationships? And how do we stay bonded amid rejection and pain? Families We Keep answers these questions. Drawing on interviews with seventy-six LGBTQ adults and forty-four of their parents the book explains that conflictual, rejecting, or even abusive ties with parents endure because of what is named “compulsory kinship”: the overarching sociocultural forces that tell us we must maintain this bond, no matter what. This book shows that what we think of as the “natural” and inevitable connection between parents and adult children is actually created and sustained by sociocultural forces of compulsory kinship. By shining light on the forces that hold intergenerational ties together, Families We Keep aims to help us break free of those family bonds that are not always in our best interests.
Families We Keep Book Preview
When she was nine, Vicky realized she was attracted to girls. But, Vicky’s budding sexuality was crowded out by her overwhelming experiences of racism as a Black teen living in a predominantly white Midwestern town. “The big thing was that I didn’t have an identity,” Vicky, now a forty-seven-year-old gay cisgender woman, explains. The kids in Vicky’s school taunted her because of her dark skin and ostracized her for using African American Vernacular English . “The struggle was on so many different levels from skin color to just overall identity with who I was,” Vicky laments. “All of that played into me acting out and always trying to just fit in.” Vicky didn’t have time, energy, or resources to think about the fact that she liked girls.
Alongside constant racism at school, her home life further stunted her sexual awakening. Following her parents’ divorce when Vicky was four, Vicky went to live with her mom and grandparents. Vicky rarely saw her dad after he quickly remarried and had two children with another woman. In her new home environment, Vicky’s mother and grandparents emphasized the importance of being seen as a “normal” and “respectable” religious Black family. “As in most homes of people of color in the South upper middle class,” she explains, “you’re expected to get married after you get out of college, have children, be a part of the church.” Vicky conformed to her family’s standards by doing “the typical”: getting married to a man, having children, and ignoring her attraction to women.
It wasn’t until she was in her thirties—after her father passed away, her kids became teens, and she went through her own divorce—that Vicky started to come to terms with her sexuality. “I think emotionally a milestone was coming to the realization that I needed to address where I was and begin to entertain, ‘Okay, I like looking at a woman . . .’ Then acting upon it. Then marrying a woman.” When she told her mom and grandma about her new identity and partner, the triad’s relationship changed irrevocably. Their response was “like, ‘WHAT!?’ It broke them,” and it especially shocked her mom. “It was very challenging for my mother because the first thing she said was, ‘You are not a lesbian,’” Vicky recalls. After the initial disbelief and denial, her mom condemned Vicky’s sexuality, telling Vicky she was going to hell, that her kids would be socially and spiritually bankrupt, and that she would ruin her family’s respectable reputation they worked so hard to maintain.
This rejection and shaming continue today, making the relationship between Vicky and her mom, in Vicky’s words, “not good whatsoever.” They are still regularly in touch, but their relationship remains on a surface level. “That guilt, that shame, that emotional blackmail—that persisted,” creating a deep barrier between the two. Vicky’s mom remains profoundly homophobic and “still harbor[s] those feelings of me being gay.” And yet, coming out engendered Vicky’s own self-acceptance and love—something she had always longed for. “It was also relieving because now I’m like, oh, I can be who I am. I can be okay with who I’m attracted to. So, it was freeing yet confining or stressful because of that duality of the situation.”
Still, despite the rejection from and strain with her mom, the intergenerational tie persists. When asked why this tie persists despite the homophobia and conflict, Vicky explains, like so many people we will introduce you to throughout this book, that she just can’t stop talking to her mom. “I can’t not care about my grandma or my mom or my sister. That’s a full-blown, I’m not going to say obligation, that’s part of it, but that’s a compulsory caring to me. I have to.”
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Families We Keep explores the stories of people like Vicky, who explain with such clarity why and how they stay in their parent-adult child relationships.