That's a family. Well, no, it isn't, says Academy Award-winning filmmaker Debra Chasnoff, ready with statistics to prove her case. Her company, Women's Educational Media, points out that only 28 percent of U.S. households consist of married children with their own biological children. The majority of households include children living with a single mother, children whose parents have divorced, children in adoptive or foster care, children being raised by grandparents, children living with interracial and inter-group couples, and six to 10 million children living with lesbian, gay, and bisexual parents. Books, media, popular culture, the political landscape mirror that back.
People talk about family and leave out huge pieces of the real story.
Combing hundreds of schools and congregations, advertising on the Internet and in parenting magazines, she searched for children who would tell their family stories on camera. Responses came, some hesitantly, and Chasnoff set to work. She broke the film down into segments devoted to the varied family situations now on the landscape and let the children speak. That means they only like men for friends. It's them describing their reality.