Introduction taking shape

My introduction is starting to take shape, all comments welcome.

1. Introduction 

I feel I hardly need to explain what prompted this book.  I’ll share with you though in case you are wondering what the reasons were specifically for me.  I consider that we were somewhere at the forefront of the gayby boom in Australia and even more so in Queensland.  That’s not to say that there weren’t countless families with at least one gay or lesbian parent already when we decided we wanted to start a family.  I expect there were families in the more ‘gay friendly’ parts of Australia even.  We though have found ourselves navigating many firsts. 

The birth of our daughter and the fact of her having two mothers was something some staff at the hospital had some difficulty with.  When we enrolled her in daycare it was the first time the daycare which had been open for 17 years had an openly lesbian couple with a child at the daycare and the same occurred when our daughter started school. 

Having those experiences now far in the past for us but actually occurring relatively recently, being since 2003, I have continued to find that although we are surrounded by a bubble of friends and family who are very accepting of our family that it is still not unusual to face situations which are awkward or ‘firsts’ for us.  Deciding that we cannot be alone with this and knowing the interest that people having shown in different ways we and other lesbian families handle a range of circumstances I felt it was time to embark on a book.  A book whose roots start in Australia and sharing the common experience of Australians as this is lacking in the resources available to families such as mine.  A book I hope will interest a variety of people interested in learning more. 

The aim of this book is to be a resource for many people.  Lesbian families, parents and children, and families to be, their extended families and finally a resource for teachers, daycare providers and anyone else who wants to learn more about how normal our families are alongside challenges we face.  Heteronormativity is a concept I will talk about many times throughout this book.  That is the unconscious bias within society where the social norms are related to a heterosexual model only and those that fall outside of this model are often not even considered.  Something as simple as filling out a form that lists options of mother and father only. 

Finally it is a book of promise and hope for where we can be in the future.  A place where our families are so much a part of the social fabric that there is no longer a need for books such as this one.  

A 

© Adele Fisher 2014