ABSTRACT
This chapter looks for thresholds and limits of the desirability and possibilities of love in different reconfigured kinship conditions. The stories presented relate to interviews where themes of trust, loyalty, safety, jealousy, and violence arose. However, it is also apparent that the conditions of relationships are always changing and interactions can be interpreted differently by the actors involved. Increasing numbers of children move between families worldwide, through adoption, fostering, and step-parenting, as kinship and family configurations change. The chapter investigates possibilities of love in these adoptive, foster, and step-relationships, where adults parent other people's children. It explores how people are performing in these complex relationships, where various manifestations of parental love exist outside of a traditional, nuclear family structure. Judith Butler lists a variety of situations where adults are now parenting other people's children: global displacements, divorce, exile, the formation of gay and blended families.
