How I Celebrated Chosen Family Day

Many of us have people in our lives who are not related to us, but serve in the role of family. They love and support us. They help us when we have hard times and celebrate with us when we have victories. They are our chosen family. They are important people in our lives who deserve to be recognized.

This Chosen Family Day, I spent it celebrating the people who help and support me. I am the primary caregiver for several family members, but have been ill recently and unable to perform my caregiving duties for three weeks. My chosen family, my best friend, stepped in to help. No one in my family lacked care simply because I was sick. My daughter still had rides to and from school and my medications were picked up from the pharmacy. Things continued smoothly while I got the rest I needed.

It frightens me to think of trying to manage my responsibilities without chosen family members in addition to my biological family. Others aren’t so fortunate. Lacking chosen family as well as lacking access to biological family, these individuals live lives filled with loneliness, isolation, and sometimes danger. There are over four million homeless youth in this country. Of that number 700,000 are unaccompanied by any adult. Many of these homeless and unaccompanied youths have been abandoned by their biological families for many different reasons, including the youth’s sexual and/or gender identities. These youth need chosen family to help them to safety and to get off the streets.

Further, current U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids are separating families and leaving the children of immigrants without their parents. ICE officers arrest nearly 1,000 people every day and deport close to 150,000 people each year. Many of the children of arrested and deported immigrants will need chosen family to care for them if they remain in the States.

National Chosen Family Day started in 2020 by the Friends of Ruby, a Canadian organization that supports LGBTQ+ youth. Ruby, who recently died, was a golden retriever at the center who helped traumatized youth to heal from their trauma. The organization started Chosen Family Day to recognize that chosen families are as legitimate as biological families; to create a sense of belonging among marginalized individuals; to offer support to others during hard times; and to help people feel more brave and more supported.

It is not unusual for individuals from marginalized communities, LGBTQ+ people, differently abled people and immigrants to have chosen family because of cultural differences or circumstances. For example, because of the history of enslavement of Black people in the United States and along with it, the displacement of family members, it is not unusual for Black individuals to have people in their lives who are not related by blood. The presence of an “other mother,” a person who serves as a maternal figure in addition to or in place of a biological mother is a common occurrence within Black communities. Some markers that the concept of chosen family is becoming more a norm in the United States are the reshaping of some holidays, such as Friendsgiving or Galentine’s Day, when chosen family and friends are celebrated in place of or in addition to traditional family or romantic partners.

I celebrated Chosen Family Day celebrating the people in my life who are not related to me, but who love and support me anyway. I also celebrated the states that have recognized chosen family within their paid leave benefit, such as Connecticut, which defines family as a person related to the employee by blood or by association to the employee equivalent to a family relationship. Connecticut is not the only state that recognizes chosen family—it is joined by California, Colorado, Washington, Minnesota, Maine and Oregon. New Jersey was the first state to recognize chosen family within paid leave benefits and offers paid leave to employees to care for family members or the equivalent of family. These states have broadened the definition of family to allow workers who are sick or injured to use paid leave benefits to care for or be cared for by others who play a significant role in their lives, but are not related to them by blood.

I also hope that you will continue to advocate for your chosen family by supporting legislation in your state that broadens the definition of family and by supporting legislators who recognize chosen family. We push to recognize chosen families so no one will go without care simply because they are sick or injured.

by Erica Clemmons Dean, FV@W Deputy Director