Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders

About this book

New York Times bestseller and acclaimed author Jennifer Finney Boylan returns with a remarkable memoir about gender and parenting including incredible interviews discussing gender how families are shaped and the difficulties and wonders of being human. A father for ten years a mother for eight and for a time in between neither or both ("the parental version of the schnoodle or the cockapoo") Jennifer Finney Boylan has seen parenthood from both sides of the gender divide. When her two children were young Boylan came out as transgender and as Jenny transitioned from a man to a woman and from a father to a mother her family faced unique challenges and questions. In this thoughtful tear-jerking hilarious memoir Jenny asks what it means to be a father or a mother and to what extent gender shades our experiences as parents. "It is my hope " she writes "that having a father who became a woman in turn helped my sons become better men." Through both her own story and incredibly insightful interviews with others including Richard Russo Edward Albee Ann Beattie Augusten Burroughs Susan Minot Trey Ellis Timothy Kreider and more Jenny examines relationships with fathers and mothers peoples memories of the children they were and the parents they became and the many different ways a family can be. Followed by an Afterword by Anna Quindlen that includes Jenny and her wife discussing the challenges theyve faced and the love they share Stuck in the Middle with You is a brilliant meditation on raising and on being a child.