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Adam Ferner's engaging and personal book explores the ethical dimensions of childcare in a world riven by conflict and inequality. He argues that widespread attitudes towards biological parenthood contribute to these worsening crises and examines the liberatory potential of foster-care and adoption.
Written in a clear and jargon-free style, the book is informed by both Ferner’s training as a philosopher and his extensive experience as a child support worker. His analysis foregrounds the concerns of young people largely marginalized by society, and he argues against the prevailing orthodoxy that hope is a necessary element of childcare. The book challenges us to look afresh at our everyday notions of parenthood, childcare and having children, and to question the dominant ethos of the family.
In this searing book on fostering, futurity, and despair, Adam Ferner meditates on the unromantic work involved in looking after one another with a voice full of clarity and integrity. Unhappy Families takes children seriously, and wrestles unflinchingly with the impossible task of caring for them as they deserve in a burning world.
— Sophie Lewis, author of Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation
In Unhappy Families, Ferner lays bare the inherent contradictions and inconsistencies in how society thinks about raising children. He draws from a wide range of sources to deftly combine the personal and the political in this thorough, compelling and accessible book.
— Rageshri Dhairyawan, author of Unheard: The Medical Practice of Silencing
Fascinating, humane, and critical – whatever your views on children, Ferner will cause you to think anew.
— Darren Chetty, University College London
Adam Ferner is a freelance writer and child support worker living in North London. He has a PhD in philosophy from Birkbeck and has written several books on the practical benefits of thinking philosophically as well as a collection of philosophical horror stories.
Introduction: the day unit
1. Why make babies?
2. Healthy development
3. State intervention
4. A duty to foster
5. "Children are the future"
6. What makes families racist?
7. Ethnic matching
8. Wages for childcare
9. Hope for the future
Epilogue: happily ever after