Nuclear Implosion

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Schoolfriends Bedos and Jobard, Louise's biological parents, discussed having children together some years earlier but only put the plan into action when both were in settled relationships with partners who also agreed to play a full parental role. "We thought it would be positive for a child to have more people around them to give them the best possible chance in life. And in a selfish way, it's nice to be one of four parents because we have more freedom," says Bedos.

For Louise, that means a childhood that appears as fractured as the life of any kid caught in a custody dispute. She sees her fathers two days a week and splits vacation time between households. However, the four parents always manage to take some holiday together and, says Rajzman, the girl is being brought up to view her family arrangement as perfectly normal. "We teach her that there are families with a father, mother and children; families with a single father or a single mother, and families with two women or two men that live together. She knows what kind of family configuration she has."

The French authorities do not. Neither Kleitz nor Rajzman have any official relationship with their daughter. If both biological parents died, Kleitz and Rajzman would be at the mercy of the courts and dependent on the good faith of Louise's other blood relations to keep custody of their daughter. Such inequities brought 800,000 protestors onto Parisian streets in May for a Gay Pride rally, but the current government has no plans to introduce gay marriage or adoption rights.

Which is not to say that French families are mired in tradition. There has been a decrease in marriage of 30% since 1970. In the same period, divorces have risen from 12 per 100 marriages in 1970 to 44.9 per 100 now. Almost half of all French births last year were out of wedlock.

Yet there are signs that the French are placing an ever greater value on family life. Research done by French sociologist Christine Castelain Meunier has shown that fathers in the 30 to 40-year-old age range are less likely to be remote, disciplinarian figures than their predecessors: "These men spoke to the fetus, were present at the birth; they refuse to accept the idea of their children growing up without them." Professor Chaumier has noted an increasing emphasis on home life. He says "People withdraw into their family as the last bastion capable of giving meaning to their lives because they don't find much meaning elsewhere — not in politics, projects or work, and not in the future."

That's ironic, because such new families will define the future. Nearly everyone who studies the topic predicts more of the same: singletons, childless couples, older mothers, cultural and ethnic diversity. As the traditional patriarchy breaks down, children will be more involved in decision-making, says the Future Foundation's Professor Howard. She foresees improvements to fertility treatments leading to more "vertical" family structures. A woman might have a first set of children in her 20s and a second batch in her 40s. "Family will be no less important to people than it ever was," she concludes.

Johannes Huinink, a family researcher at the University of Bremen, Germany, agrees. "The kind of authentic trusting relationships we have in families don't exist elsewhere in society," he says. "It doesn't really matter how families are structured. The main and important condition is that the social relationship is filled with life." And watching the zest with which childless couples Rosati and Markovic and the McIntyres run full tilt at life; observing the delight that Sujata Naik and Maggie Alderson take in their daughters; visiting Felix Zavelberg's two homes; listening to Grazia Francolini's guilt-free explanation of her decision to have a child out of wedlock; discussing bread rolls with Denya Arbach-Benz; or getting to grips with the intricacies of the Bedos-Kleitz-Jobard-Rajzman arrangements, it's clear there's no shortage of life in the family structures Europeans are developing.