Rin Reczek Author Event
About this Event
FAMILIES WE LOSE charts novel territory for the future of family in the 21st century. As society becomes more polarized around political and cultural beliefs, family estrangement has received increased attention. Going no contact with a parent, sibling, grandparent, or other extended family member is often portrayed as a sign of the further fraying of society or as a result of selfish choices that privilege the rights of the individual over the ability to compromise. In Families We Lose, Rin Reczek takes a different view, arguing that going no contact isn’t done on a whim by selfish people or due only to specific individual circumstances. Instead, she argues that contemporary family estrangement is indicative of a more fundamental culture clash in the very meaning and expectations of family in the US today. Reczek shows that estrangement is sparked by a confrontation between the traditional culture—which demands the family of origin is unconditionally forever—and a rivaling idea of family that values the quality of contact, focusing on equity, accountability, personal and relationship evolution, mutual respect, and maturity. At stake in the clash between compulsory and democratized kinship is a battle to determine the very meaning of “family” in the US today.
Rin Reczek is Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Center for Aging Families at The Ohio State University, where she has taught since 2013. She is the co-author of Families We Keep: LGBTQ People and Their Enduring Bonds with Parents and the co-editor of Marriage and Health: The Well-Being of Same-Sex Couples.
Clayton Howard is an associate professor of history at Ohio State. He specializes in histories of sexuality, gender, race, cities, and politics. He is the author of The Closet and the Cul-de-Sac: The Politics of Sexual Privacy in Northern California. His work has appeared in The Conversation, Origins, and the Journal of Urban History.
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USD 0.00 to USD 36.42
