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Donor-conceived (DC) offspring raised in lesbian-parent and heterosexual-parent families have different historical chronologies, which are clusters of events that provide frameworks for shaping contemporary views of sperm donors and donor siblings. Using surveys collected by the Donor Sibling Registry (DSR), the largest U.S. web-based registry, we found that DC offspring from different family forms have somewhat different views about meeting both the donor and donor siblings. In general, all offspring are curious about the donor. All offspring want to know what the donor looks like and they believe that even minimal contact will help them understand themselves better. However, when compared to offspring from heterosexual-parent families, offspring from lesbian-parent families are less likely to want to have contact with the donor. For offspring from lesbian-parent families, donor conception is considered a normal and accepted part of family life and the donor is deemed irrelevant to the family’s construction. Especially among those who live with two heterosexual parents (where both parents are often assumed to be genetic relatives), offspring want to know the donor because they believe he holds the key to important information that the legal (or social) father cannot provide. Most DC offspring want to meet donor siblings although the interest is somewhat weaker among the offspring in lesbian-parent families. Offspring regard donor siblings as special relations who will not disrupt the natal family and who might even become part of a new kind of “extended family” network.

Drawing on accounts from 22 lesbian couples with children conceived using donor insemination, this chapter explores how the respondents’ selection of parent terms, such as “momma” and “mommy,” influences day-to-day negotiation of parenthood. Term selection was affected by personal meanings respondents associated with terms as well as how they anticipated terms would be publicly received. Couples utilized personalized meanings associated with terms, such as terms used by families of origin or reflected in a parent’s cultural background, to help non-biological mothers feel comfortable and secure in their parenting identities. Some families also avoided terms that non-biological mothers associated too strongly with biological motherhood and felt uncomfortable using for themselves. Families also considered whether parent terms, and subsequently their relationships to their children, would be recognizable to strangers or cause undue scrutiny to their family. However, not all of the families selected terms that were easily decipherable by strangers and had to negotiate moments in which the personal meanings and public legibility of terms came into conflict. Overall, these accounts illustrate the importance of parent terms for lesbian-parent families, and other nontraditional families, as a family practice negotiating both deeply personal meanings surrounding parent–child relationships and how these terms, and the families, are normatively recognizable in public spaces.

The legalization of same-sex marriage changed the parenting landscape for LGBTQ parents in a variety of ways. Parenthood is presumably different now that same-sex marriage is officially legal. Experiences among LGBTQ couples in the post-legalization of same-sex marriage era raise questions about the context of growing recognition and cultural acceptance of same-sex relationships. I conducted in-depth interviews with LGBTQ parents to learn how they navigate parenting and the construction of parenting roles in the context of a society that has legalized same-sex marriage, yet still is rooted in heteronormative notions of family and parenthood. Specifically, I ask: How do LGBTQ couples construct and make sense of their roles as parents, particularly within the contemporary context of the legalization of same-sex marriage? Understanding the contexts that shape LGBTQ parents’ experiences aids in not only understanding the lives of LGBTQ parents and their families better, but also developing a deeper understanding of contemporary parenting identities and experiences more broadly.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how traditional definitions of family, in the context of employment, have not kept pace with actual family formation in the USA and much of the rest of the world, and how this disadvantages individuals from atypical (i.e. non‐nuclear), but increasingly common, families.

A wide range of literature from disciplines spanning industrial relations, gerontology, management, and family studies is invoked to illustrate how employers' definitions of “family” are often incompatible with actual contemporary family structures, and how this poses difficulties for employed individuals in non‐traditional families.

Many family structures are not accounted for by employment legislation and thus organizational work‐family policies. These include same‐sex couples, multi‐generational and extended families (e.g. including parents or other elders; members from outside the bloodline or with grandparents providing primary care for grandchildren) and virtual families.

The authors discuss a number of problems associated with current provision of work‐family policy and practice among organizations, and recommend that governments and organizations expand upon the traditional definition of “family” to better enable employees in a variety of familial configurations to successfully balance their work and family demands.

This paper identifies current failings in employment legislation and suggests improvements so that both governments and organizations can better facilitate employees' work‐life balance. As such, it will be of use researchers, practitioners, and policy makers interested in the interface between work and family.

Understood as the simultaneous experience of necessarily conflicting attitudes, wishes, feelings, or intentions, the concept of ambivalence has a complex history in psychological and social analysis. Lüscher (2000) reviewed the history of this concept, initially used in the study of abnormal states, and then generalized to the realm of the usual and expectable in social life. It should be noted at the outset that the term “ambivalence” presents two problems for social analysis: adoption of a term initially intended to portray abnormal states for the expectable course of adult life, and the extension of a concept founded on the study of personal states to social analysis. Consistent with Bleuler’s (Riklin, 1910/1911) initial discussion of the term ambivalence,¹ Freud (1909, 1912, 1912–1913, 1914) attempted to resolve the first problem by showing that ambivalence – as the experience of mixed and conflicting sentiments regarding those who are particularly important in one’s own life – inevitably emerges out of the child’s effort to resolve the tension between social reality and his or her own desire focused on the parents of early childhood. At the same time, Freud compounded the second problem by regarding the realm of the social as the personal writ large.

This chapter uncovers the destabilizing and transformative dimensions of a legal process commonly described as assimilation. Lawyers working on behalf of a marginalized group often argue that the group merits inclusion in dominant institutions, and they do so by casting the group as like the majority. Scholars have criticized claims of this kind for affirming the status quo and muting significant differences of the excluded group. Yet, this chapter shows how these claims may also disrupt the status quo, transform dominant institutions, and convert distinctive features of the excluded group into more widely shared legal norms. This dynamic is observed in the context of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights, and specifically through attention to three phases of LGBT advocacy: (1) claims to parental recognition of unmarried same-sex parents, (2) claims to marriage, and (3) claims regarding the consequences of marriage for same-sex parents. The analysis shows how claims that appeared assimilationist – demanding inclusion in marriage and parenthood by arguing that same-sex couples are similarly situated to their different-sex counterparts – subtly challenged and reshaped legal norms governing parenthood, including marital parenthood. While this chapter focuses on LGBT claims, it uncovers a dynamic that may exist in other settings.

Among the most consistent predictors of work‐family conflict for working parents are the number of hours worked, job role autonomy, and degree of support managers offer parents. Yet, little is known about the unique work experiences of lesbian women in terms of work‐family conflict. This paper seeks to identify correlates of work‐family conflict, specifically work interference with family (WIF), among lesbian mothers and identifies the role that being “out” at work plays in their experience of WIF.

A survey of 58 working lesbian mothers engaged in long‐term, same‐sex relationships that they categorized as a family was used to collect data on constructs related to work‐family conflict and related variables. The vast majority of the sample were managers or professionals.

Analyses indicate that increased job role autonomy, fewer hours worked, and increased managerial support are associated with less overall WIF. Additionally, the extent to which participants are “out” at work is associated with reduced WIF, and explains variance beyond the other constructs examined.

Managers can play an essential role in helping reduce WIF among lesbian women via formal steps including offering written support for non‐discrimination policies and benefits for domestic partners. Managers can also take more informal steps such as role modeling acceptance. Finally, managers can modify features of the work environment and jobs themselves.

Being “out” at work can be advantageous for lesbian workers as a strategy for ameliorating WIF. Managers are in a position to make this kind of disclosure possible.

Purpose – Historically, the gay and lesbian community has been divided over same-sex marriage along gender lines, with gay men its most frequent supporters and lesbians its most frequent critics. In recent years, however, in localities where same-sex marriage has been available, the gender polarity around same-sex marriage has reversed, with lesbian couples constituting the majority of those married. Although same-sex marriage is framed in a gender-neutral way, the higher rate of lesbians marrying suggests that gay men and lesbians may have different stakes in, demand for, and benefits from access to marriage.Methodology – Drawing on interviews with 42 participants (24 women; 18 men) in the 2004 San Francisco same-sex weddings, I qualitatively analyze how and when gender comes to be salient in the decision by same-sex couples to marry.Findings – Explicitly attending to the intersections of gender, sexual identity, and family, I find that lesbians and gay men did not systematically offer different narratives for why they married, but parents did offer different meanings than childfree respondents: the apparent gender gap is better described as a parenthood gap, which has a demographic relationship to gender with more lesbians than gay men achieving parenthood in California. Scholarship on the gendered experience of reproduction suggests that the importance of gender in the experience of queer parenthood may persist even if parity in parenthood were reached.Originality/value – Findings attest to the importance of attending to the intersections of gender, sexual identity, and family for scholars of same-sex marriage.