More important and timely than ever--a collection of illuminating essays on the shifting definition of the modern American family. Edited by bestselling writer Rebecca Walker, this fascinating exploration of today's American family features essays by prominent voices such as Z.Z. Packer, Dan Savage, Min Jin Lee, Asha Bandele, Neal Pollack, and others, on subjects such as open marriages, polyamory, single motherhood, parenting a disabled child, home schooling, and more. An unabashed celebration of love in all its diversity and complexity, One Big Happy Family offers a multitude of engaging pictures of modern American families. Rebecca Walker has received numerous awards and accolades for her writing and activism. Her work has appeared in many anthologies and publications; in addition to the international bestseller Black, White, and Jewish , her anthology  To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism  has become a standard text in gender studies courses around the world. A popular speaker at universities and in business settings, Walker teaches the art of memoir at workshops and writing conferences internationally. Table of Contents   Title Page Copyright Page Introduction   Chapter 1. - And Then We Were Poly Jenny Block Chapter 2. - Woman Up asha bandele Chapter 3. - The Enemy Within Dan Savage Chapter 4. - Foreign Relations Suzanne Kamata Chapter 5. - Counting on Cousins Amy Anderson Chapter 6. - The Look ZZ Packer Chapter 7. - Like Family Min Jin Lee Chapter 8. - Daddy Donoring Antonio Caya Chapter 9. - Two Red Lines Susan McKinney de Ortega Chapter 10. - My First Husband Liza Monroy Chapter 11. - Home Alone Together Neal Pollack Chapter 12. - Love, Money, and the Unmarried Couple Judith Levine Chapter 13. - Unassisted Sasha Hom Chapter 14. - Sharing Madison Dawn Friedman Chapter 15. - Half the Work, All the Fun Marc and Amy Vachon Chapter 16. - How Homeschooling Made Our Family More of What We Wanted It to Be ... Chapter 17. - Till Life Do Us Part Meredith Maran Chapter 18. - This Old House Rebecca Barry   Acknowledgements Credits About the Contributors by Rebecca Walker   Black, White & Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self   Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood After a Lifetime of Ambivalence       edited by Rebecca Walker   To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism   What Makes a Man: 22 Writers Imagine the Future RIVERHEAD BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa   Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England   Copyright © 2009 by Rebecca Walker All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada   Page 257 constitutes an extension of this copyright page.   Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data   One big happy family : 18 writers talk about polyamory, open adoption, mixed marriage, househusbandry, single motherhood, and other realities of truly modern love / edited and with an introduction by Rebecca Walker. p. cm. eISBN : 978-1-101-01143-0 1. Family—United States. 2. Social values—United States. I. Walker, Rebecca, date. HQ734. 306.850973—dc22       While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content. Introduction For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by other people’s families. My own family was fragmented and haunted by unfulfilled longings. My parents came from different races. They divorced. They began relationships with others. They had children with others. They lived three thousand miles apart. They had wildly divergent worldviews. They did not communicate often or, from my per