Lesbian Step Families: An Ethnography of Love explores five lesbian step families’definitions of the step parent role and how they accomplish parenting tasks, cope with homophobia, and define and interpret their experiences. An intensive feminist qualitative study, the book offers guidelines for counselors and lesbian step families for creating healthy, functioning family structures and environments. It is the first book to concentrate exclusively on lesbian step families rather than on le...

Written by two experienced lesbian therapists, Lesbian Couples covers a range of topics-commitment ceremonies and marriage, living arrangements, work, money, togetherness and separate identities, coming out to family and friends, resolving conflict and understanding each other-and uses a variety of helpful examples and problem-solving techniques, drawing from research done on lesbian couples over the past decade. The book pays special attention to differences of race, class, age a...

An empowering guide to creating rewarding relationships between parents and their adult children.Parents work hard to raise their children into adulthood, but popular wisdom tells them to bite their tongues and loosen the purse strings once their child is grown! But increasing life spans mean that parents and children can spend as many as five or six decades as adults together: actively parenting adult children is a reality for many families. Dr. Ruth Nemzoff, an ex...

Death and taxes come later; what seems inevitable for children is the idea that, after spending the day at school, they must then complete more academic assignments at home. The predictable results: stress and conflict, frustration and exhaustion. Parents respond by reassuring themselves that at least the benefits outweigh the costs. But what if they don't? In The Homework Myth, nationally known educator and parenting expert Alfie Kohn systematically examines the usual defenses of...

Life for emerging adults is vastly different today than it was for their counterparts even a generation ago. Young people are waiting longer to marry, to have children, and to choose a career direction. As a result, they enjoy more freedom, opportunities, and personal growth than ever before. But the transition to adulthood is also more complex, disjointed, and confusing. In Lost in Transition, Christian Smith and his collaborators draw on 230 in-depth interviews with a broad cros...

Recently the lives of people from age 18 to 29 have changed so dramatically that a new stage of life has developed, emerging adulthood, that is distinct from both the adolescence that precedes it and the young adulthood that comes in its wake. Rather than marrying and becoming parents in their early twenties, most people in industrialized societies now postpone these transitions until at least their late twenties, and instead spend the time in self-focused exploration as they try out diffe...

Raising a child is overwhelming, thrilling, exhausting, terrifying, and joyous--and all at the same time. In addition to the adjustments that any new parents must make, lesbian mothers face numerous special questions and concerns. From "coming out" to your child to coping with the pressures of trying to be a lesbian super-mom, this wise and reassuring book offers information and support for women forging a new path in what it means to be a family. The authors are uniquely qualified for the...

Cohabitation is hands-down the fastest growing family form in the United States and most Western nations. Most of these couples view the arrangement as a step toward marriage, or as a substitute for marriage. But does living together truly give people what they are longing for? Author Glenn Stanton offers a compelling factual case that nearly every area of health and happiness is increased by marriage and decreased by cohabitation.How can young couples determine if...

Nominated for a Books for a Better Life Award in ParentingBacked by peer-reviewed research, this hotly debated bestseller (San Francisco Chronicle) continues to open eyes with its finding that raising thriving, emotionally healthy sons does not require a man in the house.As the number of single-mom and two-mom households has grown, so have concerns about the possible damage caused by the lack of a stable male role model in the house. Determined to ...

Marriage is an important transition in the life of any adult who marries. But often when a son or daughter gets married, their relationships with their natal families changes. It is often said that a 'daughter is a daughter all of her life, but a son is a son 'til he takes him a wife.' This book examines how marriage changes relationships between adult children and their parents and how this differs for sons versus daughters. Merrill considers the process by which men 'get pulled into' the...

A New York Times contributor offers a radical reexamination of a hot-button issue of the mother and son relationship and advocates the end of the "mama's boy" taboo.New York Times contributor Kate Stone Lombardi unveils the surprisingly close relationship between mothers and sons. Mother after mother confessed to Lombardi that her husband, brothers, and even female friends and family criticize the fact that she is "too close" to her sons. Many of ...

More and more, fathers are deciding to stay at home and care for their children rather than work full-time outside of the home. More and more, Canadian families are lead by single fathers. Shining a spotlight on the lives of stay at home dads and single fathers, Do Men Mother? provides groundbreaking evidence of dramatic changes in mothering and fathering in Canada. Using evidence gathered in a four-year in-depth qualitative study, including interviews with over 100 fathers - from t...