Britain's real modern families

The belief that family is important in the UK is not controversial in itself.  

When asked what family meant to them, the most common response among parents and children participating in the 2022 Family Life survey was that it is ‘everything’.

It is Kruger's narrow definition of family that has sparked debate.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) defines ‘family’ as “a married, civil-partnered or cohabiting couple with or without children, or a lone parent with at least one child, who lives at the same address.”

Dee Holmes, a clinical services manager at the country’s largest relationship support provider, Relate, believes politicians should embrace this diversity and support healthy relationships of all kinds. 

She said: “If people want to be living in a single parent home with their children, then we should be supporting that.

"If people want to live in multigenerational and polyamorous relationships and LGBT families they should all be supported in an equal way so that they can have the healthiest relationships they can.”

For Holmes, encouraging couples to stay in a marriage ‘for the sake of the children’ is not always the correct choice.

She said: “I don’t think necessarily for children that parents separating is a bad thing if it wasn’t a happy relationship.

"I think what is the difficult thing and the not good thing for children is how that separation happens or how new relationships form.”

In her 27 years at Relate, Holmes has seen several successful ‘blended’ families, where separated couples have come together to successfully co-parent alongside new partners, but she emphasised that the hurt surrounding separation and divorce means this process is not always smooth.

However, she believes the 2022 introduction of no-fault divorce, which removed the requirement for couples to assign blame when ending their marriage, was a step towards easing this process:

Data suggests that the number of children being raised in families which, like Annabelle's, do not fit the 'traditional' mould, has increased in the past decade.

In 2021, 613,000 children in England and Wales had a second parent or guardian’s address, up from 384,000 in 2011.

While parental separation may have contributed to this, interestingly divorce rates have not seen a similar increase.

The number of divorces performed in 2021 was the highest on record, but these figures were inflated by delays in family courts in 2017 and 2018 and a dip in the processing of divorces during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

In fact, a couple married in 2005 was less likely to have divorced by their 10^th anniversary than one married in 1995.

It is more likely that changing family structures are being driven by fewer people getting married in the first place.

Between 1989 and 2019, the number of marriages performed in the UK decreased by a total of 36.6%.

Meanwhile, the proportion of adults who have never been married or in a civil partnership has increased every decade from 26.3% in 1991 to 37.9% in 2021.

Furthermore, an increasing number of people are choosing to have children outside of legally registered partnerships.

In 2021, for the first time, the number of births registered outside of a marriage or civil partnership overtook the number registered within one.

Some of these children were born to co-habiting parents, but there there are also a significant number of parents raising children without a significant other.

 

One way in which policy has progressed to account for changing family composition in recent decades is in the legal recognition of same-sex marriage.

The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill came into effect in March 2014, and between then and 2019, 38,947 same-sex marriages were registered in England and Wales.

But LGBTQ+ families continue to face a multitude of barriers, particularly if they wish to have children.

While 39.7% of opposite-sex couples in England and Wales have children, this figure dropped to 14.7% for same-sex couples.

Data does not even cover the experience of transgender or non-binary parents.

Laura-Rose Thorogood considers herself lucky to have had three children with her wife, who is currently pregnant with number four.

Yet the process of building this family has not been easy.

The couple started fertility treatment 11 years ago and have undergone a total of 13 cycles of IUI and IVF, at significant financial cost. 

The couple have also battled secondary infertility, miscarriage, and faced a number of stereotypes and assumptions which have forced them to repeatedly out themselves at appointments.

Laura-Rose said: “People always jump to the heteronormative view that we must be related, we must be friends, there must be some form of relationship other than being LGBTQ+ and being a couple.

“People can’t really get their head around it and make those assumptions based on how we look, how we sound and the fact there should be a relationship there that’s heteronormative.”

The difficulties the couple had conceiving her first two children lead Laura-Rose to set up LGBT Mummies which is now an organisation that provides support globally to other LGBTQ+ families.

LGBT Mummies started on social media in 2018 and was registered as a business the following year.

Today the organisation has a global following of over 50,000 social media channels and private support groups.  

They have worked with charities and organisations including LGBTQ+ rights organisation Stonewall, the NHS and Government to remove barriers facing LGBTQ+ people starting families.

A long-running priority has been fighting for equal access to NHS funding for fertility treatment.

Currently, the majority of Integrated Care Boards only offer financial support for IVF after same-sex couples have self-funded for several rounds.

According to Laura-Rose, this can place a financial burden of up to £25,000 on couples, something opposite-sex couples do not face.

As a result, families are pushed into debt or forced to explore ‘alternative routes’ which lack protections such as fertility checks on donors, screenings for genetic conditions, and can lead to emotional conflict down the line.

Laura-Rose said: “Home insemination is a great thing for many people.

"Many people have a great experience, have known donors and co-parent, but then there are those families that do have a really difficult experience whereby intent changes, the donor wants access, they have to go to court, there’s fees, there’s mental health implications, relationships break down, and it impacts the child.”

The Department of Health and Social Care’s Women’s Health Strategy promised to offer more equitable access to NHS-funded fertility services.

When it was published in August 2022, the ‘vague’ and ‘evasive’ language used led Laura-Rose and other LGBTQ+ activists to fear change may not happen as quickly or go as far as they would like. 

She said: “Some people haven’t got ten years to wait.

“We don’t want people putting their families and their futures on hold.”

Discrimination against non-birthing parents is also of concern to Laura-Rose, who herself has been told by medical professionals that she is not the mother of her child.

On the experience of the non-birthing parent, she said: “The other parent is not able to carry, so in some ways they are already seen as less than, they are already far removed from the experience even if they are genetically related.

"This is another barrier, to say actually, you’re not part of this journey, you’re just a giver of the eggs.

“There’s so many different layers to discrimination that we have to experience and overcome.”

For Laura-Rose, increasing inclusion and representation is the first step toward ending this discrimination.

She said: “Not every family is a nuclear family, there are different types of families out there, so many, especially in our community.

“There needs to be that space for everyone, and we needed to be included in those policies.”

Not only does she want the LGBTQ+ community to be given a seat at the table when policy decisions are made, Laura-Rose is also calling for young people to be properly educated about different kinds of families: