Voices One: Situating the family in time
1. Families on the brink, on the edge / Lynne Hektor Dunphy
2. Isolating the phenomenon of family / Florence G. Sitelman and Robert Sitelman
3. Which story shall we tell? / Maureen Duffy and Marilyn Leeds
Voices Two: Understanding families
Poem 'Mother's Day' / Patricia Munhall
4. How family scientists study families: eight theoretical study frameworks / Hilary A. Rose
5. A psychologist reflects on the family / Dennis R. Finger
6. The politics of the family / Susan L. Folden
7. Preparing modern practitioners for postmodern families / Sherry Hartmann
Voices Three: Family rituals
Poem 'My love at 53' / Carolyn Brown
8. Food and my family / Joan DiPasquale Davis
9. The wedding: the triumph of hope over experience / Lynne Hektor Dunphy
Voices Four: Constructing a family
Poem 'After all' / Daniel Collins
10. A single woman adopts Catherine / Claudia Hauri
11. Through the eyes of Catherine at 7 / Catherine Hauri
12. Reflections on becoming and being a mother / Sarah Selen Steen Lauterbach
13. Becoming a man in a gay family: dialogue and reflections / Edward M. Freeman
14. A normal family: from the perspective of a 21-year-old man / Daniel Collins
15. The future of the family: from the perspective of a 21-year-old woman / Christine Fitzsimons
Voices Five: Attempting to grow a family
Poems 'Regret' / Connie Vance
'A want unfulfilled' / Patricia Munhall
16. Infertility: a neon light / Linda Gonzalez
17. The quest for an alternative family: confessions of a child-free lesbian / Gabnella Rosetti
Voices Six: Families grieving
Poems 'Yesterdays and tomorrows' / JoAnn McKay
'Wind beneath my wings' / JoAnn McKay
'Timeless wounds' / Patricia Munhall
18. Dedicated to my Tommy: give sorrow words / Katherine Parry
19. The Holocaust revisited: protecting our families / Ellen Goldschmidt Ehrlich
Voices Seven: Families bearing challenges
20. The impact of AIDS on the family / Sande Garcia Jones and Patricia Messmer
21. Shadow families / Carolyn L. Brown and Patricia M. Siccardi
22. A family in divorce, as told by Sheila / Sheila J. Hopkins
23. Housing for the single-parent family: a blueprint for women's educational support / Judith Mathews, Maureen Hreha, and Marilyn Burk
Voices Eight: Families living with violence
Poem 'Killing spirits' / Patricia Munhall
24. Domestic violence: a loss of selfhood / Evelyn Ortner
25. Through the distance: living as an object of anger / Julie M. Evertz
26. Cancer of violence: power differentials and family values / Patricia L. Munhall
Voices Nine: Reflecting on family in the 21st century
Poem 'Apples and oranges (conversation with Mom, #2)' / Kimberly Jones
27. The American way through hazel eyes: a look at the Caribbean Black family / Sandra E. Gibson
28. The aging society: fulcrum for the new century / Virginia Macken Fitzsimons
29. www.sex.family / Shelley Green
30. From Snow White to Esmeralda: a mother-daughter conversation in three generations / Anne Hearon Rambo, Shelby Hearon, and Rachel Shelby Rambo.