Personal life persepctive

• Bottom-up approach


  focus on the meanings members give to their relationships
• Beyond blood and marriage ties


  Looks at a range of relationships including: friendships, pets, fictive kin (friends treated as relative) etc.
• Nordquist and Smart


  importance of social relationships over genetic ones. Many define parents as time and effort rather than genetics

  Consider possibility of 'donor siblings' and how the family views them