By bringing together a variety of academic accounts from mostly European countries on factors inciting, restricting, straining, training, discouraging and encouraging gay and lesbian family practices, and presenting research findings previously not available for English speaking audiences, Doing families contributes to the still ongoing epistemological and moral debates about the meaning(s) of family life.

The book is about lesbian and gay families - or more precisely: about specific frameworks within or without which family practices of gays and lesbians can be lived and interpreted in Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the United States. Following David Morgan's active and practical approach that sees family "less of a noun and more of an adjective or, possibly, a verb", Doing families focuses on how lesbians and gays are ‘doing family' besides doing class, gender and a lot of other things all at the same time.

During at least the last two decades one of the main questions of family sociology has been whether, borrowing Judith Stacey's term, we are brave enough for doing brave new families. The authors of this book certainly believe so.