Families and Choice: Disassembling Same-Sex Families with Children

Abstract With the proliferation of same-sex families, same-sex separation has expanded, creating diverse parenthood-related issues. Yet, little is known about how these family dissolutions are perceived and enacted by parents and children. This article reports on a descriptive qualitative study under the constructive phenomenological approach conducted in Israel that explores the disassembling of families of choice and its impact on involved parties. The study examined choice as construed in 20 cases, narrated in 18 interviews with lesbian and gay separated parents, supplemented by two case outlines from a psychotherapist treating separated gay couples with children. Three major themes emerged: parents choose parents; children choose parents; and parents choose children. The study reveals how genetic relatedness was taken for granted as the most solid basis for parenthood, granting parents greatest privileges and widest choice range. However, it also shows that the prominence of genetic relatedness surfaced when relationships deteriorated. Legal parenthood provided another solid foundation, going nearly unchallenged through separation. Social parenting proved the most uncertain, where parents lacked genetic or legal ties and contributed “solely” to childrearing. Despite these complexities, separated couples aspired to create families that would be largely considered normative by local middle-class terms, while maintaining tight relations with their families of origin.