We Are Family

Our understanding of what makes a family has undergone a revolution in the last few decades, from same-sex parenthood to surrogacy and IVF. But what has the impact been on children?

In We Are Family, Professor Susan Golombok visits lesbian mothers, gay fathers, single parents, co-parents, trans parents, surrogates, and donors, and, more importantly, their children, to find out if they are as well-adjusted, happy, and emotionally stable as children from traditional nuclear families. And she discovers that the answer is yes — and sometimes even more so.

Susan's work at the Centre for Family Research at Cambridge proves that any family set-up can provide a loving, secure home for a child — although, inevitably, the children from these families will often face prejudiced attitudes from others. Since the 1970s, when she was first drawn to this area of research after reading about lesbian mothers whose children were being removed from their care, Susan has worked tirelessly to challenge outdated attitudes and prevent families being split up for no good reason. This book tells the stories of those families — their struggles and their triumphs — while celebrating love and family in all its wonderful variations.

'In this important and compelling book, Professor Susan Golombok gives evidence that the expansion of domestic structures represents not the downfall of family, but the expansion of it to include previously unfathomed, rich possibilities. She explains the new ways people find to reproduce and to be parents, examines how the changes evolved over the last forty years or so, and illuminates the workings of previously undocumented kinds of households. In doing so, she supplies fresh and exquisite narratives of intimacy; this is, at heart, a book about love.' — Andrew Solomon, author of Far from the Tree

'Brilliant ... Professor Golombok takes you on a powerful journey in this moving account of her tireless work with LGBTQ+ and other families.' — April Guasp, head of research, Stonewall

'In this compelling book Susan Golombok draws on decades of research into lesbian mothers, IVF families, gay father families, single-mother families and trans families to measure the impact on children of these non-traditional family forms.' — Fiona Capp, The Age