Families We Keep

Book excerpt: "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 life-long parent-child tie is so ubiquitous and 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 what's remarkable is this 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 amidst rejection and pain? This book answers these questions. Drawing on interviews with 76 LGBTQ adults and 44 of their parents, the authors explain that conflictual, rejecting, and even abusive ties with parents endure because of what they call compulsory kinship: the overarching socio-cultural forces that tell us we have to stay in this bond, no matter what. That is, 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. With their empirical data the authors show why LGBTQ people justify their adherence to the specific compulsory kinship, using the rationales of love and closeness, parental growth, and the uniqueness of the parent-child tie. Further, they reveal how LGBTQ people stay in difficult relationships with parents through a new type of family work called "conflict work.""--