Politics & Prose at Busboys and Poets Takoma welcomes Maria Olson to present their new book "Not the Cleaver Family: The New Normal in Modern American Families."
Families today no longer follow a template—if they ever really did. From same-sex parents to parents and siblings of different races, American families are charting new paradigms of diversity. Olsen, a lawyer, journalist and children’s book author whose own parentage is biracial, has interviewed hundreds of families across the country, and her book recounts a wide range of experiences. While these add up to a vivid profile of a thriving new America, they also show that insensitivity and ignorance still exist, and Olsen has advice for educating and raising consciousness about the many meanings of “family.”
