Professor Joslin Writes About Multiparent Families for Washington Post

In a Jan. 28 opinion piece published in The Washington Post, Professor Courtney Joslin and Yale Law School Professor Douglas NeJaime explore the possibility that a child could have more than two parents--multiparenthood. While this concept, “may sound fantastical,” they explain that it is “hardly new.”

Drawing upon findings from their original empirical study, Joslin and NeJaime show that “multiparent families have long existed and … they take a wide variety of forms.” These families include, for example, “children who have living biological parents but [who] are raised primarily or exclusively by other relatives or friends.” Moreover, courts long have found ways to recognize and protect these relationships, which are “often critical to children’s well-being.”