What is the meaning of alternative family?

Answer 1

"Alternative Family" means something other than the common family arrangements. The most common is: married, man works, wife stays home with kids. Second most common, at least these days, is: married, man and wife both work, kids are babysat or nannied during the day or are latchkey. Most humans are ideologically unaware, and so they judge morality by counting how many of their tribesmen are behaving in that manner. In this case, when enough people enter a certain family arrangement, it becomes simultaneously moral (in the aforementioned sense) and mainstream... which to most folks are just two sides of the same coin. Once upon a time, an unmarried couple who bought a house and raised children together would be described as "alternative"... and probably shunned. But no longer. That unenviable station is now occupied by gay and lesbian parents, among other minorities.