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Recently, childfree people have been foregrounded in mainstream media. More than seven percent of Western women choose to remain childfree and this figure is increasing. Being childfree challenges the ‘procreation imperative’ residing at the center of our hetero-normative understandings, occupying an uneasy position in relation to—simultaneously—traditional academic ideologies and prevalent social norms. After all, as Adi Avivi recognizes, "if a woman is not a mother, the patriarchal social order is in danger." This collection engages with these (mis)perceptions about childfree people: in media representations, demographics, historical documents, and both psychological and philosophical models. Foundational pieces from established experts on the childfree choice--Rhonny Dam, Laurie Lisle, Christopher Clausen, and Berenice Fisher--appear alongside both activist manifestos and original scholarly work, comprehensively brought together. Academics and activists in various disciplines and movements also riff on the childfree life: its implications, its challenges, its conversations, and its agency—all in relation to its inevitability in the 21st century. Childfree across the Disciplines unequivocally takes a stance supporting the subversive potential of the childfree choice, allowing readers to understand childfreedom as a sense of continuing potential in who—or what—a person can become.

Love songs and Hollywood romances make it all sound so simple: You find your soul mate, move in together, get married, never stray from the path of monogamy, and live happily ever after. But real life tends to be more complicated. Many couples pursue alternative living arrangements, and some even pursue alternative loving arrangements.

The twenty-nine personal essays in this collection offer a variety of perspectives and experiences with nontraditional relationships and forms of cohabitation. The contributors include married couples who live in separate cities and single people who find companionship through communes and cohousing. These essays also present varied outlooks on the practice and ethics of having multiple partners, with some embracing large polycules while others opt for “monogamish” relationships. Everyone has a different story to tell, from close friends living together to form a chosen family to couples navigating the shifting boundaries of their relationship as one partner begins a gender transition. With contributors across generations and representing the full ethnic and cultural diversity of the United States, Loving Arrangements demonstrates the myriad ways that we live and love today. 

A powerful collection of personal essays from lesbian moms who fought for the right to raise children  

For generations, lesbians across the United States were systematically denied opportunities to raise children and build families, opportunities that were readily available to straight people. Radical Family honors the history-making struggles and triumphs of lesbian families in Madison, Wisconsin, who raised children in the 1980s, ’90s, and early 2000s—a time when lesbian motherhood was widely considered extreme and unnatural. In a collection of nine profoundly personal essays, the contributors recount their diverse paths to parenthood, as well as the hopes and challenges each family experienced. While the stories in Radical Family are unique, they all share a common thread: the mothers’ resilience and the risks they took, both small and sweeping, to defend their family’s right to exist.  

For lesbians, the desire to raise children has historically been met with vilification and legal and social prejudice. Adoption agencies consistently rejected applications from out lesbians. Doctors and clinics refused to provide fertility treatments and other medical options to help them get pregnant. Lesbians who were able to raise children commonly lost custody to estranged spouses or grandparents.  

Trailblazing lesbian mothers—and their children—fought to defy and, ultimately, shift this paradigm. Lesbian parents, like those in Radical Family, created informal networks in their local communities, where they could share survival strategies and find acceptance among other families that looked like theirs. With no rule book to guide them, and few laws to protect them, lesbian mothers created a new—some might even say radical—standard for what it means to be a family.  

Over and over, the stories in Radical Family show how families fought back against hatred and homophobia with love, resilience, commitment, and creativity. Their stories deepen our understanding of what it means to be a mother—while showing how safety, belonging, and acceptance are universal human needs.