Reinventing the Family: The Emerging Story of Lesbian and Gay Parents - Hardcover

Benkov, Laura

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0517587432 ISBN 13: 9780517587430

Publisher: Crown, 1994

Synopsis

A close-up look at the changing face of the modern family examines the growing numbers of gay and lesbian parents, discussing such issues as how to raise a child in a homophobic world, custody, foster parenting, and child development. 15,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Laura Benkov is Supervising Psychologist at Children's Hospital in Boston, and an instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Reviews

Gracefully written and lucidly argued, Benkov's study is the first sustained analysis of the emerging phenomenon of lesbian and gay parents and of the considerable obstacles they must surmount in reinventing the family. Benkov, a Boston psychologist, draws upon case studies that dramatize the ingrained antipathy of the larger society toward homosexuals that pervades the psychiatric community, courts and social service system. At the same time, her case studies refute the detrimental assumptions hampering wider acceptance of gay parenting: children raised by homosexuals do not have significantly greater problems growing up than do those reared by heterosexuals, nor are they any more likely to be gay--though, as Benkov asks, what would be wrong with that? Author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A stirring but ponderous study of legal and psychological issues facing homosexual parents, by an uncloseted psychologist and teacher (Psychology/Harvard Medical School). Benkov's struggle with her own ``unwavering passion'' for motherhood led her to conduct ``discussions'' (under unspecified conditions) with gays and lesbians who achieved parenthood by various methods: artificial insemination, surrogacy, fostering, joint-parenting arrangements, adoption. She found that despite the ``lesbian baby boom'' of recent years, homophobic judges and state bureaucrats continue to presume homosexuals unfit as parents and seldom grant them custody. Those who bypass the courts confront a yawning chasm of novel questions: What should the parents be called? Whose surname should the child have? What role, if any, should a sperm donor play in the family? How should the nonbiological mother cope with her partner's breastfeeding? How should the parents deal with homophobia in the child's public school? Benkov is best at depicting how an apparently unscientific sampling of parents have answered such questions for themselves and their ``reinvented'' families. She also provides shattering accounts of ``children at risk,'' such as Kristen, the little girl from Florida whose biological grandparents wrested her away from her nonbiological lesbian mother after their daughter died. But the author's legal analysis consists mainly of rehashing law review articles and incredulously quoting the homophobic dicta of unnamed judges. Her scholarship is further undercut by a tendency to hyperextend her metaphors and to comment periodically on her own ``urgent move toward self-integration.'' Benkov doesn't know who her audience is: the unconverted straights whom she harangues with platitudes (e.g., ``In the end, our families will be what we make them'') or homosexual mothers and fathers craving practical and spiritual guidance. An overdue examination of gay and lesbian family life, better for its privileged glimpses into kitchen windows then for its scholarship. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In this wide-ranging work, Benkov attempts to examine all aspects of gay and lesbian parenting. Among her topics are the experiences of gays and lesbian parents "coming out" of heterosexual marriages; legal developments in adoptions, foster care, and custody battles; artificial insemination; society's view of parenting roles; children raised by homosexuals; and the influence of homophobia. The author's research is combined with illustrative case studies. A supervising psychologist at Children's Hospital, Boston, and a lesbian, Benkov argues that our society must learn to accept nontraditional families and that children raised in a loving environment-no matter what its composition-will become well-adjusted adults. Recommended for lesbian/gay and parenting collections.
January Adams, ODSI Research Lib., Raritan, N.J.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0517587432
• ISBN 13: 9780517587430
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 289