Deconstructing “Single” Mothers by Choice: Transcending Blood, Genes, and the Biological Nuclear Family?

Ana Bravo-Moreno

doi:10.1177/2158244019898258

Abstract

The concept of biological kinship is a sociocultural construction of facts taken for granted as “natural.” The concept of blood, of “bond,” of “connection,” symbolizes the fact that relatives are perceived as having claims on one another by virtue of DNA. It is taken for granted that the biological relation attains a meaning in human relations. Yet, this taken-for-grantedness is rarely deconstructed. Thus, the purpose of this article is threefold: (a) to examine the conceptualization of the links between the social and the biological in societies of the Global North, and to analyze the assumptions that implicitly underpin the literature on new forms of family, in particular, “single” mothers by choice with donor-conceived children. Two of the most prolific scholars on the subject, from the field of psychology in the United Kingdom and from the field of social anthropology in Spain, will be discussed, taking into account a preliminary analysis of 35 ethnographic interviews with “single” mothers by choice that I have conducted during my fieldwork in Spain and in the United Kingdom; (b) to interrogate the discourses that categorize this group of women who have chosen to be mothers; and (c) to suggest a new research agenda building on the critical insights produced from addressing the first and second aims.

Highlights

The genetic–biologistic model that associates sexuality with reproduction, reproduction with heterosexual relations, heterosexual relations with marriage, marriage with the family, and the family with the middle-class nuclear model is dependent on a chain of significations that have been rendered outdated by developments in reproductive processes (Kroløkke et al, 2015; Stone, 2013; Strathern, 1992)
It is key at this point to empirically create new insights and knowledge setting up a dialogue between (a) the persistence of the comparative focus on the nuclear biological family, new forms of family, and the children’s well-being, in the publications of Golombok, Jociles, and their co-authors analyzed in previous sections, and (b) the analysis of the preliminary findings of my ethnographic fieldwork in Spain and in the United Kingdom as well as the examination of the children’s drawings on their family, which will be discussed
Genetics is important regarding the heredity of diseases, in the same way as it is for other families in society: none want their children to get inherited diseases that will condition their lives

Summary

Introduction

The genetic–biologistic model that associates sexuality with reproduction, reproduction with heterosexual relations, heterosexual relations with marriage, marriage with the family, and the family with the middle-class nuclear model is dependent on a chain of significations that have been rendered outdated by developments in reproductive processes (Kroløkke et al, 2015; Stone, 2013; Strathern, 1992).

Objectives

Results

Conclusion