Why LGBTQ adults don’t end troubled ties with parents and why (perhaps) they should
Families We Keep is a surprising look at the life-long bonds between LGBTQ adults and their parents. Alongside the importance of “chosen families” in the queer community, Rin Reczek and Emma Bosley-Smith found that very few LGBTQ people choose to become estranged from their parents, even if those parent refuse to support their gender identity, sexuality, or both.
Drawing on interviews with over seventy-five LGBTQ people and their parents, Reczek and Bosley-Smith explore the powerful ties that bind families together, for better or worse. They show us why many feel obliged to maintain even troubled—and sometimes outright toxic—relationships with their parents. They argue that this relationship persists because what we think of as the “natural” and inevitable connection between parents and adult children is actually created and sustained by the sociocultural power of compulsory kinship. After revealing what holds even the most troubled intergenerational ties together, Families We Keep gives us permission to break free of those family bonds that are not in our best interests.
Reczek and Bosley-Smith challenge our deep-rooted conviction that family—and specifically, our relationships with our parents—should be maintained at any cost. Families We Keep shines a light on the shifting importance of family in America, and how LGBTQ people navigate its complexities as adults.

"Three decades after Families We Choose showed that "ties that bind" are not to be taken for granted, Families We Keep offers a nuanced account of what happens when LGBTQ+ people decide to stick with their parents, even in the face of misunderstanding. Reczek and Bosley-Smith are careful not to romanticize these enduring solidarities. It takes hard work to work through conflict, in ways profoundly shaped by race and gender. Social compulsion intertwines poignantly with qualities more conventionally considered virtues, such as patience and respect for the uniqueness of relationships that find no counterpart elsewhere. At a time when so much research focuses on loss, breakdown, and disruption, this book makes a compelling case for why relationships that persist merit much closer inspection." - Kath Weston, author of Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship