Choosing Children
‘Choosing Children’ focuses on interviews with six lesbian-led families, living in different parts of the USA; the women are African-American, white, Latino; the families include couples, single women, a lesbian and gay man co-parenting, and a group of women who share parenting responsibilities. All the women in the film became parents after coming out as lesbians. They talk of how they became pregnant: some used artificial insemination, some children were conceived in what one mother refers to as “the old fashioned way” – sleeping with a man; one woman preferred to adopt.
The film raises questions about setting up “alternative” family structures and the impact that lesbians choosing to raise children will have on the nature and meaning of “the family” today.
As a lesbian in the sixth month of my first pregnancy, I felt warmed, supported and encouraged by ‘Choosing Children’ ... I remembered my frustrating search for articles, books, anything about lesbians choosing to have children as l began my process of artificial insemination. The richness and diversity of the families... offers much to a lesbian in that same position today
– Ellen Grabiner, Gay Community News
Description Source: Cinenova Catalogue (1994). Edited by Kate Norrish. Editorial committee: Elaine Burrows, Liane Harris, Helen de Witt