Fairytales from Cinderella to Snow White, rituals such as “white weddings”, the valorisation of biological parenthood in mainstream culture, all reinforce a narrow idea of family as heteronormative and reproductive.
But our closest and most meaningful bonds need not be nuclear, biological or indeed romantic. We’re shaped in profound ways by families we choose or that choose us. Not only adoptive families, but friendship circles, queer kinship groups, and the people we spend our working days with can affect us deeply. It’s in these ties that new blueprints for love and connection come into being. And, as with biological family, it’s also there that pain and suffering can unfold.
