Push for more children’s books without mums or dads to accommodate diverse families

Children should have more books without the “traditional” family — mum, dad and kids — in order to reflect the reality of Australian diversity, author Tenielle Stoltenkamp says.

Exclusive: Children need to be reading more books that don’t depict the “traditional” family unit of mum, dad and kids in order to reflect the reality in Australian society of diverse families.

That’s the opinion of children’s author Tenielle Stoltenkamp who has just released a new book called “My Family Doesn’t Look Like Your Family” after struggling to find appropriate books to read to children growing up in foster care.

Tenielle Stoltenkamp reading with Maya, 11 and Max, 7 at Readings Melbourne. Picture: Nicki Connolly

Her book, devised when volunteering for The Pyjama Foundation who aim to improve foster children’s lives through literature, deliberately does not include genders, titles, traditional family roles, or race to educate kids that families don’t always fit into one classification and can be defined differently.

This is depicted through gender fluid illustrations by Australian artist Go Suga and by using numbers to tell the story.

The book has had mixed reaction, with some saying it goes too far and is an attempt to dim stories about mums and dads.

Ms Stoltenkamp said she hoped the book would spark a conversation about belonging by all who read it.

“I think we are far beyond the notion of the traditional family in Australia and that is the reality of the society we live in today,” she told News Corp.

“I really want parents and teachers and families to be able to have a conversation about belonging and that family is not just about blood, it can come in all different make ups.”

Child psychologist Andrew Fuller said children “probably didn’t think about it too much”.

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“These books are possibly more about making adults feel comfortable than the children who might be in diverse family units,” Dr Fuller said.

“Kids are much more flexible in their thinking than adults and they really care about feeling loved and safe not necessarily how their family is made up.

There is a place for these books but this represents an opportunity for us as a society to talk about diversity in humanity rather than thinking about it having a huge impact on children.”

Entrepreneur and 2018 Father of The Year, Dick Smith, said children’s books should not be completely genderless as it sent the wrong message.

“I don’t like the idea of the book being completely genderless … I’d prefer we still keep telling children about mums and dads,” he said.

“Obviously in the past we have gone to extremes and made the gay community and others feel ostracised but I think we really need to make sure books like this aren’t going the other way in the extreme … maybe I’m just old fashioned.”

Australian actor, television/radio personality and children’s book author Andrew Daddo said there was always a place for more diversity in children’s literature but “we need books as well with mums and dads because most families have mums and dads”.

“A child that grows up in a traditional family model of a father and mother have as much right to read books about their family dynamic as a child who grows up in same-sex marriage or a different family structure,” Daddo said.

“But I do think it is laughable if anyone suggests more of these books is stamping out traditional families.”

Director of the Australian Institute of Family Studies Anne Hollonds said while there was largely more acceptance of diverse families, there weren’t necessarily more diverse families in Australian society compared to decades ago.

“It’s probably not the case that there has been a massive increase in different non-traditional forms of families in Australian society.”

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AUSTRALIAN FAMILY SNAPSHOT

— There are 46,448 children living in out of home care, up from 37,648 in 2011.

— 46,800 same-sex couples are living together in Australia according to the 2016 census, 15 per cent who have dependent children.

— Female same-sex couples were more likely to have children than male same-sex couples. A total of 25 per cent of female same-sex couples had children in 2016, compared with 4.5 per cent of male same-sex couples.

— In total, there were 10,500 children aged under 25 years living in same-sex couple families in 2016. Of these, 80 per cent were children aged under 15 years of age,

— Close to 55 per cent of opposite-sex couples had children.

— 44.7 per cent of Australian families are couples with children, 37.8 per cent are couples without children.

— In 2016, a total of 15.8 per cent of all families were single parent families, 81.8 per cent were single mothers and 18.2 per cent were single fathers.

Source: 2016 Census and Australian Institute of Family Studies