Some Families – Details, episodes & analysis

In the final episode of Season 2, we turn the tables and have parenting allies ask Lotte and Stu questions about being LGBTQ+ parents. Some Families reached out to the wider parenting community to help answer any questions about queer families, in a non-judgemental space. 

As one listener once said “As a straight parent of two young children who have friends from LGBTQ+ families, this is a great educational tool for myself and answers a lot of the questions I am afraid to ask / don’t ask.”

So this episode, Marvyn Harrison from Dope Black Dads, Lorraine Candy author of 'Mum, What's Wrong with You?': 101 Things Only Mothers of Teenage Girls Know and Helen and Ellie from the podcast Scummy Mummies send their own questions in to Some Families. Plus Stu and Lotte reflect back on this season of the podcast and some of things they’ve learned from our fabulous guests. 

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This week, in the penultimate episode of the series, Lotte and Stu are joined by Claire Lynch, author of the new book 'Small: On motherhoods’. Claire is mum to three daughters with her wife, who they had via reciprocal IVF. Her new book considers whether it is our smallness that makes our lives so big. 

LINK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Small-motherhoods-Claire-Lynch-ebook/dp/B08YDHDSV7

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Sean Szeps is a proud gay dad, writer, comedian and podcast host, and joins Some Families from Austrailia. Sean and his husband are Dads to twins born via surrogacy. Sean discusses what it is like to be an LGBTQ+ parent in Sydney, how to tackle people assuming he has a wife or is the nanny, and how to manage your mental health as an LGBTQ+ parent. Sean's podcast 'The Dad Kit' breaks down the stereotypes and cultural ideas we have about fathers.

LINKS: https://open.spotify.com/show/0uakEF7zBlWQCaKPxE9daS

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Professor Susan Golombok joins Lotte and Stu to discuss the research and findings in her new book, 'We Are Family: what really matters for patents and children'. Susan talks about where her research started, in the 70s, where lesbian mothers were having custody of their children taken away because of their sexuality. Her research has since developed to study different types of family structures, and has been used as evidence in same-sex marriage legislation in a number of countries. Susan is Professor of Family Research and Director of the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge.

LINK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/We-Are-Family-matters-children/dp/1912854376/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=we+are+family+golombok&qid=1618563004&s=books&sr=1-1

Some Families is a StoryHunter Production

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We have podcast royalty Chris Sweeney co-host of Homosapiens Podcast. Chris has started on the surrogacy journey with his husband, which has been halted since lockdown 2020. Chris joins the hosts of Some Families Lotte and Stu for a good gossip PLUS Chris talks about the start of his queer parenting journey, and the fact that it takes more than “a lasagne and a bottle of wine” for LGBTQ+ people to make a baby.

Some Families is a StoryHunter Production.

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Nana Duncan and Rose Frimpong from the podcast TwoTwos, join Lotte and Stu for a podcast love in. Rose has a 9 year old daughter, who she conceived with a friend and Nana is starting to think about having children with her girlfriend. They discuss the stereotypical constructs of what it means to be a mum and what it means to be maternal, and why having children shouldn't stop you from going OUT out.

LINK

Just Like Us: https://www.justlikeus.org/

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We are thrilled to have Freddy McConnell on Some Families! Freddy joins Lotte and Stu to talk about his journey to parenthood and how he felt about his body being pregnant. Freddy also talks about the on-going court case that is now being taken to the European Court of Human Rights for him and his son, and the legal challenges and discriminations trans families face. The group also discuss and break down gendered parenting terms and how stereotypes can often limit parenthood, and look at how important it is to utilise the word parent and parenting.

Some Families is a StoryHunter Production

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Lotte and Stu are joined by guest host, Leon Wenham. Leon, who spoke about his own adoption journey in Series 1, joins the hosts and invites a friend Nathan Yungerberg from New York, to discuss when someone of one race adopts a child that is different to their own race, aka trans-racial adoption. Nathan, who is African-American, is the product of trans-racial adoption himself as he was adopted by a white couple when he was a baby. He is now a gay single adoptive dad to two siblings from a Puerto Rican and Italian background. Nathan and our hosts discuss how important it is to consider race, when it comes to adoption, especially in a trans-racial scenario and how that can impact your parenting style, understanding race from the point of view of an adoptive parent and why having diversity on an adoption panel is so important to the adoption process. 

LINKS

https://www.instagram.com/black.gay.dads.global/?hl=en

Some Families is a StoryHunter Production

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Laura-Rose Thorogood, co-founder of the LGBT Mummies Tribe, join Lotte and Stu on this week’s episode of Some Families. Laura-Rose started Mummies Tribe as a space for women and people globally to make friends and meet other families with similar experiences. Since then it has grown to an international community that aims to educate, share and celebrate LGBT+ women who want to start a family. 

Laura-Rose is currently pregnant with her and her wife’s third child. She discusses their road to parenthood, being a bio and non-bio mum, the inequality and postcode lottery that people face within fertility treatments. 

LINKS: 

https://www.thelgbtmummiestribe.com/

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In this international women’s day special Lotte and Stu are joined by the fabulous Lady Phyll to discuss, motherhood, chosen families, activism and UK Black Pride. Lady Phyll is one of the founders of UK Black Pride, she has previously been a trustee at Stonewall, worked for the Mayor of London and is now the exec-director of the human rights charity Kaleidoscope Trust (a charity that campaigns for the human rights of LGBTQ+ people in countries where they face discrimination).

Lady Phyll became pregnant when she was 19 and talks about coming out while her daughter was a child and what that meant for their relationship. She has a chosen family within the black queer community. She discusses her passion for equality and rights for all minorities and how important it is to understand every point of view and generational experience. 

LINKS

https://www.ukblackpride.org.uk/

https://kaleidoscopetrust.com/

Some Families is a StoryHunter Production

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.