What is a Family?

Recorded May 13, 2001

G U E S T S: ]

The modern sense of what it means to be a family is changing. The conventional nuclear family is a thing of the past. What does this mean for the family members? What does it mean for our society? On Mother's Day, we take a look at the changing face of the American family. Hear from our panelists who challenge society's stereotypes about what it means to be a family.

MODERATED BY:

Sean McConnell,
Program Producer for GraceCom
the Media Ministry of Grace Cathedral

Felicia Park-Rogers learned first hand about the feminist and gay liberation movements from her mom and dad who came out as bisexual and gay when she was three years old. After coming out herself as bisexual at 19, Felicia began organizing around LGBTQ youth issues. Before becoming the director of COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere), in 1997, Felicia worked in the women's program at LYRIC, San Francisco's LGBTQ youth center, and later with homeless youth in transitional living programs in San Francisco.

Ilene J. Philipson, PhD is a Research Scholar at the Center for Working Families at UC Berkeley, and is a psychotherapist in private practice in Oakland. She received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the Wright Institute in Berkeley in 1991, and also holds a PhD in Sociology from UC Santa Cruz, completed in 1981. Dr. Philipson has lectured widely on our society's changing notions of work and family, and is the author of On the Shoulders of Women: The Feminization of Psychotherapy (Guilford Press, 1993) and Married to the Job: Work in the Twenty-First Century (Free Press, forthcoming).

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