Chosen Family

The word family pops up everywhere, from campaign slogans to dating profiles. But what does it really mean? Most of the time, it's used in the context of a very particular kind of family: one man, married to one woman, living in a home with their shared biological children. That leaves out a whole lot of households, especially since, as of 2019, unmarried couples were announced to be the fastest growing family type in the UK, while 2021 was the first year on record in which more babies were born to unmarried, cohabiting couples than to married couples. It is high time we stopped automatically assuming that, as Tolstoy put it, 'all happy families are alike', and started looking towards ways of co-creating a healthy, inclusive society that supports both traditional and non-nuclear visions of a bonded life. Enter Diana Adams, who has committed their work not only to advocating for collective equality, but also offering practical advice and tools from her mediation practice on asking better questions, thinking differently, and approaching family life with the intention of making it more fulfilling, equitable, and supportive - with their first book making those game-changing strategies accessible to every family, spanning the readership of Esther Perel, Philippa Perry, and Dossie Easton & Janet W. Hardy. Chosen Family is a thoughtful guide to thriving with your chosen, modern family, as well as a rallying cry for equality and expansion of family laws. In it, Diana will take readers into the heart of the life-changing conversations they've guided clients through, and illuminate the assumptions, fears, and emotional aspects involved in family-building, not leaving out practical considerations and constraints. They will present a vision for how laws can benefit all families - from same-sex bonds to multi-parent partnerships - and explain how a more inclusive definition of family can strengthen our current relationship and community, all the while guiding the reader to find their own definition of a happy family and put it into action.