Three men in a polyamorous relationship in Québec, Canada made recent headlines when they legally adopted a three-year-old girl. While two of the men are officially considered her parents, the third is pursuing recognition as a third parent, which a 2025 ruling from the Québec superior court reportedly could enable him to gain.

Closer to home, California’s “Change of Name and Gender and Sex Identifier Act” signed by Gov. Newsome, D-CA last month added yet another brick to the Babel-like tower of legislation undermining parental agency and authority. The sunshine state’s recent legislation limits and undermines parents’ authority to object to children legally changing their name to match their perceived “gender identity.”

But while formal legislation dictates from the top down, rhetoric against parental authority and the nuclear family attacks children from all sides — especially in their entertainment. One example, ever-brewing in the literary “fandoms”, is the “Found Family” or “Chosen Family” trope, where characters form a bond with a group of unrelated individuals, often over some sort of shared experience and because they feel ostracized by their family of origin, to create a replacement “family” unit.

The term “chosen family” is attributed to Kath Weston and her 1991 book Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship, though not all books and stories put in the category today contain overt “LGBT” themes. Still, writing for The Family Policy Institute of Washington, Joseph Backholm explains that within the cultural conversation, “the way ‘chosen family’ is being discussed today often has distinctly rainbow undertones.”

The New York Public Library touted the chosen family storyline as “often especially resonant for members of disenfranchised communities, such as those in the LGBTQ+ community, who keenly understand that unconditional love comes in all forms, and so do families.” 

Examples in Entertainment

While some have even put classic stories like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit in the “found family” category, it’s crucial to discern between literature that highlights deep friendships bonded by difficult situations, and storylines that turn literary subtleties into anti-family talking points.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with stories of individuals forming strong bonds within a group. The danger of the “chosen family” trend does not come in elevating profound friendships, but as part of a culture that presents the nuclear family as optional, or in some cases, the enemy.

One children’s book aptly named “Oddbird’s Chosen Family,” tells the story of a bird with no family who “realizes he’s surrounded by those who accept and care for him. All families don’t look the same, and sometimes the families we choose are where we belong.” The description of another children’s book, creatively titled “Families, Families, Families,” defines a family as “any combination of people who love each other.”

A Kids Book about Chosen Families dispenses with the story and pushes chosen families directly. “Chosen family is about finding people who love, accept and see you for you. If you don’t receive that from your given family, there are others who can give you that security … no matter who your given or chosen family is, it’s all about how they make you feel, and that they allow you the freedom to be your truest self.” The book is marketed for five to nine-year-olds.

One video available on YouTube kids says that “a family is a group of people related to one another by blood, marriage or a strong common bond … there are no right or wrong ways a family should look.”

Some have categorized movies like Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy, or Disney’s Lilo and Stitch within the “found family” narrative. The musical RENT, (modeled after Puccini’s opera La Bohème), a much less kid-friendly story about an AIDS-riddled group of artist friends in New York City, falls cleanly in the genre.

Finding a Family Off The Page

You don’t have to look far for online guides to creating a “chosen family” from “queers in the know.” Healthline calls a chosen family “people who intentionally choose to embrace, nurture, love, and support each other regardless of blood or marriage.” The author adds that this definition is “purposefully e-x-p-a-n-s-i-v-e because it exists to expand the rigid definition of what society typically understands “family” to be. *throws confetti.*”

However, an article from The Colson Center’s Breakpoint argues that a modern chosen family is not merely “‘expanding’ the scope of family or letting friends step into a gap,” but it creates “these relationships to shove away and replace our biological families.”

One writer explains that found family stories are appealing because they highlight “chosen bonds over obligation.” No one would deny that there are tragic situations in which someone must seek safety or community outside his family. But as cultural understandings of “love” and “acceptance” become increasingly egocentric and self-serving, perhaps “obligation” is the new word for loyalty, commitment or reconciliation.

The arrogance of the “chosen family” movement assumes a family is a vague notion up to the individual’s definition, similar to the “love is love” mantra that demands that “love” manifest in affirmation and acceptance and autonomy — no matter what.

Who Pays For It?

The Breakpoint article goes on to argue that “Certain relationships, like the intimacy between a husband and wife or the bond between parents and children are distinct in purpose and unique in function, irreplaceable in their roles as building blocks of society.”

If family just means “the people with whom you are closest,” or “people who will always affirm you no matter what you do to yourself or others,” then yes, you can “find” a family.

But not all groups of people who claim to care about each other are equal, best demonstrated by the well-being of the kids placed in various “family” situations. The safest place for a child is in the care of a married mother and father. Data from a 2010 study showed that children in a one-parent home with a live-in partner are 20 times more likely to be sexually abused than their peers in a home with both their biological parents; predators have been known to seek out children in broken homes, as reports reflected in 1989 and 2016.

An analysis from the Institute for Family Studies of 2011-2012 data revealed that children in the home of their married parents were significantly less likely to be a victim or witness of violence, both in neighborhoods that are considered safe and unsafe. Even children whose biological parents cohabit were at significantly higher risk than those whose parents were married.

Likewise, a young child living in a home with at least one unrelated adult was almost 50 times as likely to die from an inflicted injury as children who lived with both blood parents, a 2005 study showed. Fatherlessness has been shown to inhibit children’s likelihood to thrive in a variety of ways, while having both, married parents present in the home contributes to their well-being.

Inevitably, many children won’t get to experience a healthy and whole family — a home with a married mother and father dedicated to their children. Widespread rejection of God’s design, and in some cases pure tragedy, leaves many children bearing the burden of a “diverse” family situation.

However, entertainment propagating the lie to kids that a family is “any combination of people who love each other” and that “there are no right or wrong ways a family should look” minimizes the pain of kids living out the reality of a broken home, and props up the illusion that affirmation is the ultimate good. Pitting children against their parents, or against their own physical bodies creates wounds that no amount of “affirmation” can heal.

The Cultural Research Center’s George Barna states that a child’s worldview is almost fully shaped by age 13, with the process beginning before age two. The stories children consume are not inert or neutral — they shape the way that they’ll think, believe, act and even vote down the road. The Federalist compiled several children’s titles, current and classic, that reinforce loving family relationships and the virtues of loyalty and sacrifice.