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Love, LLCs, & Robots: Your Guide to the New Family

  • Writer: horizonshiftlab
    horizonshiftlab
  • Jun 19
  • 15 min read

Updated: Jun 21

Family with a child and robot stroll in a sunny park. A cat sits in a stroller and a dog walks beside them. Trees line the background.
Source: AI Generated Image

What does "family" truly mean in the 21st century? In this thought-provoking episode of Signal Shift, we dive into the constantly evolving landscape of family structures and relationships. From the historical shifts observed in sitcoms like Step by Step and Modern Family to today's diverse realities of chosen families, long-distance relatives, and even pets as formal family members, we explore how our understanding of kin is expanding. We also tackle the complex realities of familial estrangement, the increasing trend of parents having children later in life, and groundbreaking legal and technological innovations (like multi-parent recognition and the "family LLC"). Tune in to discover how societal shifts are reshaping our first social safety net, and how we're finding new ways to define belonging, care, and connection in an ever-changing world, potentially even with social robots.




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Episode Transcript:

Raakhee: (00:00)

Hello and welcome to Signal Shift. I'm Raakhee and I have Lana with me today. And we are continuing to talk about social and relationship capital, we spoke about community living. 


And now we really want to talk about family, because family is your first social group. And what we wanted to talk about today was sort of new family dynamics, new structures, new types. Just a personal story that I have shared it with Lana before as well, but when I was in high school, like the big speech, I think it was like my final year and you have to do this big speech about a topic and it's really important and you you say verbally but it's got to be written really well and you go to other schools if you like, you know, get to do it well. So it was a big deal in my life. But anyway, so this is high school in late 90s and my speech that year was the idea of this changing family, you know, the notion of family and changing family structures. And back then it really alluded to same sex marriages, beginning of mixed race families that we were seeing in blended families, know, and kind of seeing this and saying, wow, you know, families are changing. I remember in the 90s, there was a show called Step by Step. I don't know if you recall this at all, Lana, when we were growing up.


Lana: (01:19)

I think you gotta say more.


Raakhee: (01:21)

I have forgotten all the actors' names. think it was Suzanne Somers was the lady. I think I might be wrong. Gosh, we're really giving away our age here. But yeah, this is the 90s. It was a show called Step by Step. But it was the era when there were only a couple of sitcoms and everybody watched them. And it was about two step families coming together and those dynamics, because it was like three kids from this family, three kids from this family. And then by 2009, we had Modern Family, right?


Which was more reflective of the changes that I think I had observed when I had written my speech. So to see that a couple of years later in a show kind of showcasing that. Really, really interesting, but you fast forward to 2025 and, well, sitcoms are gone. You have succession in White Lotus that highlight certain classes of family, their wealth and their dysfunction.


It's really different, right? But a family show we can all relate to that is mainstream, I mean, I'm not certain I can think of one, right? I don't think there's something like that. So, you it speaks to the notion of where we are, I think, with this idea of family and what that constitutes, right? We now have pets as family and the formalization of things like in work policies, right? Like leave for pets.


We have cohabitating families, right? Generations living together. We have long distance families. I fall into that bucket very much with people moving all over and around the world and different places at different times. And, you know, truly mixed and blended families in a very globalized world. So we even have things as friends as family, Lana, and I think about your bestie ceremony that you shared a while back in one of the episodes, right?


People speak of this concept of spiritual family or chosen family. And, you know, I think, yeah, families can be constructed in so many different ways. It can mean so many different things in today's world. It's a very, very long way from the traditional mom, dad, two kids, more, maybe one dog for the majority. You that's just not the norm. So today we are exploring signals that will continue to impact this changing dynamic of the constantly evolving idea of family. So with that, Lana, what's your signal for today?


Lana: (03:48)

It's a little great opener because I think you're demonstrating, you know, families, it's very complex, right? And it's dynamic. And so the one thing that came up for me, it's less of a signal, maybe a little more of a trend is that growing visibility of familial estrangement.


And so that's when someone intentionally distanced themselves from their family or they go no contact for a close family member. And so a 2020 survey conducted by a professor associated with Cornell found that at least 10 % of Americans identified themselves as estranged from either their parent or their child. And then when they expand that relationship to include siblings, or other family members, that number gets a little bit bigger. And so there's an ongoing debate, whether this is actually increasing or are people just more open about it now? And there's a lot of shifting. There's a lot of conversation and opinions about why this might be and how in our cultural and social norms have changed to kind of open this up more, for example, like political polarization, right? Or generational boundary setting. And so I think, you know, just thinking about, you know, what if this becomes more, a little more of the norm? Like what would the implications of that be? And I think exactly like you said, Raakhee, like our family is supposed to be like our first social safety net.


And so what happens when, you know, we don't make those assumptions anymore that like a parent or a sibling is, you know, going to be a permanent fixture in one's life or not permanent, but, you know, like have this very assumed role. And so like, how do we organize, you know, things like care or inheritance support? 


And just, yeah, and it just really, think then puts more emphasis, like you were saying, on other forms of social capital, right? Really puts more on kind of like your friends and your chosen family when, you know, that we have, if we have more of those breaks in kind of the, you know, the family structure. So that was.


That was one thing that sort of came to mind for me when I was thinking about kind of where potentially like some things that are happening in terms of family dynamics.


Raakhee: (06:47)

That is such an insightful one to bring up because I think it would be so easy to kind of have oversight with something like that and not realize that to your point, this is increasing and it's changing dynamics. And we kind of maybe know this, but we take it for granted, right? Because traditionally families kind of worked through whatever they had to and stayed intact, right?


And now it's very much, you know what, boundaries, right? It's just the cultural kind of norm in a very modernized, westernized society,


And I think it was there before, but you just bear through it and you still associate and keep each other in your lives. And now people are, and I think it's also the stresses of our modern life.


I can't deal with the stress of that when I have to worry about so many other things, you know what mean? Including my phone buzzing and messages and social media and it's too much. And I wonder if that plays into it a bit.


Lana: (07:51)

I read a, you know, was reading some different sort of theories about it. And yeah, I think there is something about kind of the, you know, we have like more recently,  culturally and socially, we're really into our personal development and our happiness and our wellbeing and our physical and our mental and emotional wellbeing.


And as we're saying, like family stuff is so complicated that it becomes like a part of your, can be, you know, your own ethos to be like, I need to take care of myself. Life is hard enough. I have to do what I have to do in order to manage. And so, yeah, so I think there is some of that like,


it's both the societal stressors but also how we're framing, how we manage societal stressors and that framing sort of leads to some of these decisions. Not always but it can.


Raakhee: (09:01)

Yeah, exactly. yeah, social stresses, changing values, gosh, changing landscape of so many things. And then it merges then, however, with the loneliness epidemic. So there's a whole other question around that. 


But I'll jump into my signal, You might have seen the headline in last two weeks or so. But it's basically that the number of people over 40 giving birth now surpasses teens for the first time. This is in the United States, right? So new data from the Center for Health Statistics shows that it looked at birth rates from different demographics of Americans and the age groups that are having kids. And between 1990 and 2023, the number of babies born in the US overall dropped by like 14%. We know this. That number is continuing to decline slowly.


In 2021 and 2022, the average rate was 1.66. By 2023, the average was 1.62. So, you know, we're seeing that drop, right? But between 1990, this is so interesting based on kind of what I spoke about in my intro and, you know, the time periods of these things. But between 1990 to 2023, fertility rates for birthing parents aged 35 to 39 shot up 71%.


That is way higher than you imagined. Yeah, I mean, I knew it was going to be higher, but I was thinking like 20 maybe, and that I would have considered that high. So 71 % is a very high number. And I think before there was this idea that it was unsafe to have babies in your 40's, and it could still be maybe riskier in certain senses. But the fertility rate among birthing parents aged 40 to 44 and 45 and older went up 127%. We've seen the trends, right? There are so many celebrities who have had kids over 40. And we see it with our friends, right? Who are kind of making these choices. I have friends in their 40's who are having kids,


I was just thinking about things we've spoken about as being an aging population, period, but an aging population who's going to be living longer. We spoke about this in the Stanford, the life maps, different things at different phases.


I think the fact is that we are going to see more of this and we're to see more families where you have parents who have kids in their 40's. I think we're showing that aging even looks really different in 40 than it did many years ago, at 60 than it did years ago. I've heard and I've seen a lot of personal videos from people of the benefits of why it's a good thing at that age. You're really settled into who you are. You're more financially stable and secure and all those good things.


Lana: (11:48)

I know plenty I know so many people who are having kids, you know, after 40, though they still do experience. You know, I think we have very outdated medical terminology. So I think women who are pregnant after 40 are still referred to as like geriatric pregnancies. So like clearly that needs to change because to your point, it's even if there are risks, there is evidence that it, you know, we have increasing reproductive technology and medical technology that is mitigating some of those risks. And so I don't think we need to refer to them as like geriatric pregnancies.


Raakhee: (12:35)

So did you have, did you have another signal for today,


Lana: (12:38)

Yeah, yeah, I had one. It's kind of spoke to a little bit of what you're talking about in the beginning. And I wanted to, it was a counter to the one that I was mentioned about familial estrangement. But we are also having increase of people who have more than two parents, right? And so for in different situations. And now we have more, there are six states where it is legal to have more than two parents. And that's really important, right? Because we have a lot of different financial and legal and medical privileges that are associated with being a family. And so to recognize the families that have more than two parents. another thing that I thought was also interesting, so being married to more than one person is still illegal.


like in all 50 states. So for example, for a polyamorous family where there's more than two partners and they have a child, they can't be recognized as being unmarried. You can't be married to more than one person. So what does that mean? Like there's a tricky gray area, right? Like you're legally not married, but you have a child together.


There's also a gray area. It's illegal in the US, but it's legal in the UK. They have three person IVF. So now you can have a fertilized embryo with DNA from three people. So you can be of like related, like two, three parents, right? We're not there yet, but that's like eminent.


And so this idea of having more than two parents and what that could look like, especially creating that legal and financial structure for those families. And one thing that I saw that I thought was really interesting, and in this case it was for a poly family, but it could work for a friend-based family also was a family created at LLC, right? So they all legally joined their assets. So the LLC owned the home, it owned the car. Then they can have their bank accounts in the LLC. 


They had a contract by which like how they were gonna take care of the child, like child rearing spelled out, you know, in their operating agreement. And their health insurance came through the LLC, right? And then they pay taxes through the LLC. So I thought that was so interesting because it's imperfect, right? It's not gonna work at the hospital. Like you can't be like, I have to go in there, I'm their business partner, right? But for a lot of these other financial and legal benefits, I thought it was like a pretty clever workaround. But the trick is that you have to also make money through the LLC, like it's gotta be some form of a business, right? So it is not for everyone because you need to have like some income flow through the LLC as well. But I just think this opens up like other implications about what happens when you're really formalizing your family via a contract.


And this legal structure where your family is a unit, you are like family LLC. And so I just thought that was, you know, pros and cons maybe, but like, at least good to have the option and some way to, you know, really gain rights for different family structures.


Raakhee: (16:58)

Yeah, wow, Lana. so, so smart. I mean, the LLC just, it raises so much,


IVF for three. I never ever thought of that. And again, of course, see use cases now, it would make sense where three people be like, yeah, that's something the three of us created. Wow.


Lana: (17:16)

Yeah, I think that I think one of the reasons why they the use cases of the three person IVF is if there's some like mitochondrial, there's like a disease thing, like if there's the two, and then with the third, they're able to I don't know, like mitigating some of those risks of a genetic related disease.


Raakhee: (17:40)

Yeah, and it speaks to the signals that you've spoken about before, like the best ie ceremony, the lady adopting her friend, or even think of a family. Maybe I'm living with my mom and I have a friend who I'm like, yeah, come live with us. And then it's my mom, me, and his friend, the complexity of that. But you're a new family unit, right? So it's those sorts of interesting dynamics. And if exactly to what we're speaking, these structures can be so varied.


We have to simplify the legality around it rather than that being the constraint to how we should cohabitate and live. So yeah, we could talk about this for a really long time. So I'll share my signal and take us in a different direction.


Lana, you know how much I love Sunny, the show, and my own. So it was just, yeah, this whole idea of these social robots being the next family member. And I think if you told people the extent to which pets would be part of the family structure and considered family many years ago, they would not have maybe believed it, right?


Do you think we'd be thinking about robots like that in a couple of years? You know, and social robots specifically designed to foster that connection and that relationship. And the truth is that I think I mean, sure, I want a robot that's going to do some of my chores and work for me. But above that, when I think about why I loved Sunny, I was like, gosh, it is the emotional connection.


And I was like, I want a Sunny robot, but I want it in like this big fluffy outside so I can give it a hug. And this was 2014, 2016. And MIT Robotics Professor. Think her name was Cynthia Breazeal, developed something called Jibo.


And at that point, it was touted as the world's first social family robot. It was like the early Sunny. And it looked just like that, except it was much smaller. It didn't have feet. It was just it would sit on your desk. And it had one digital iris. And I think that's what was a little creepy about it. But it was the beginning base of that idea or concept. And when they had actually put this up on Indiego at that stage, this was 2014, 2016,


They wanted to raise 100,000. They actually raised close to 3 million. They had big backers. They were going to start shipping these out in a couple of years. And I don't know what happened, but yeah, they failed. They tanked. Stuff had obviously not been worked out. That was a bit of a sad failure, but I was looking for the closest thing I could to that now. And I found the Misa robot. OK, so.


The MISA robot looks very similar. It's like a little Sunny. This one's got feet it moves, just like your robot vacuums do. It can go over obstacles and that. But it's really short. It's maybe ruler length and just about this wide. So very pretty small. Could sit on your desk, but can also roam around your house. And again, can't do, of course, these extent of cleaning or chores, anything like that. But it's really more for entertainment and edutainment. But the robot is really built to understand speech, understand emotion. It's the emotional processing and it's the conversational ability. So it's really good for tutors, for kids and those sorts of things.


It's built literally to communicate with people and it uses advanced natural language understanding, something they call NLU, and along with speech, right? And the whole point is that it's meant to forge relationships with family members. Now, can you imagine a kid being so, like getting so attached, right, to the… the Misa robot.


Yeah, I think that somewhere along our storyline robots are going to be part of the family.


Lana: (21:42)

Early studies show that like extended chat, you know, with generative AI does impact your social skills with humans. And so, you know, it's a balance, right, and everything. But I can also see situations where maybe you just legitimately don't have a lot of, in-person relationships and like and it would be beneficial. So it's like a mixed bag. It could also be a little black mirror-y. Watch out.


Raakhee: (22:16)

There's absolutely that side of it. And I think, yeah, it's going to be interesting how we learn to balance all those things and work with it. But yeah, my gut instinct is still like, yeah, I don't know. Give it 10, 15 years, and it will be like, you'll have the pets in the baby strollers.


You'll have the older parents, right, with the kids, right, and you'll have the robots strutting along to the park.


Lana: (22:47)

For sure. Yeah, this would make a great, I can see like a great generative AI picture of the new family.


Raakhee: (22:59)

All right. Well, I hope we left you with an entertaining episode, if nothing else at all, stuff to think about. yeah, thinking about your own family as it exists and what it may be in the future and how are you co-creating that? How are you thinking about that?


So thank you for being here as always. Just again, thank you so much for the support on YouTube. Please continue to like and subscribe and of course the website. And if you haven't joined our mailing list, please go to the website and join that so we can keep you up to date on certain happenings that we typically don't get to announce elsewhere. So it's a good space to just, you know, always stay abreast of what's happening. So yeah, please join there and tune in next week. But thank you so much for being here and we will catch you next week.


Bye for now.


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