ABSTRACT
Family sociologists have since the 1990s come up with new approaches to the study of the families of our time. Given that kinship care is made up of different family types and relationships, such approaches are relevant in this context. In this chapter we will begin by describing how the notion of family was understood previously and how it is understood today by sociologists. We will also describe some theoretical perspectives linked to parenthood. In the second half of the chapter we will take a closer look at childhood and family relationships from the perspectives of the teenagers and young adults who were interviewed in our study. We will show that many emphasise normality when they talk about their family life, and we discuss how to understand normality in such a context. Understandings of normality are not, however, equal to an absence of complexity or challenges. This is particularly apparent in the stories the children, teenagers and young adults told about their parents.
