Chosen Family: A Guide to Building Your Village Beyond the Nuclear Family

A visionary call and empowering guide to building your own "chosen family" For generations, the nuclear family - one mother, one father, and their children - has been seen as the gold standard. But in 2019, unmarried couples were announced to be the fastest growing family type in the UK, and in 2021 more babies were born to unmarried, cohabiting couples than to married ones. It is high time we stopped assuming that, as Tolstoy put it, "all happy families are alike", and worked towards creating a healthy, inclusive society supportive of both nuclear and non-nuclear visions of a bonded life.

Enter lawyer and family mediator Diana Adams. Drawing on twenty years of helping couples, platonic partners, and the polyamorous community, Adams takes readers into the heart of a series of life-changing conversations. Chosen Family illuminates the key assumptions, fears, and emotions involved in family-building, acknowledges practical considerations and constraints, and addresses key questions that arise when creating one's chosen family, such as: Do I want to structure my family around a romantic partner? What does it look like to co-parent with a friend? And how do I ask for and offer more mutual care?

We don't have to allow society's expectations to keep us trapped in structures that don't support us. Chosen Family invites readers into a new, positive movement - so that everyone can find their own definition of a happy family and put it into action.