Filmmaker Ry Russo-Young knew she had to share the story of her first-generation lesbian family’s fight to stay together.
HBO’s three-part docuseries,Nuclear Family, which Ry directed and produced, follows her mothers, Sandy Russo and Robin Young, as they embark on starting a family together in the 1980s when same-sex marriage wasn’t yet legal and fertility clinics didn’t serve lesbian couples.
Their relationship with Ry’s donor, Tom Steel, was initially warm before becoming frayed and increasingly troubled. In 1991, he sued Robin for paternity and visitation rights. The landmark four-year lawsuit that ensued threatened the Russo-Young family’s very existence.
HBO
In the exclusive clip above, Ry’s parents share how they’ve navigated the public’s perception of them having a family together. “People used to get really angry with us if we wouldn’t answer questions,” says Sandy. “People would say, ‘Oh whose is she?’ And we would say, ‘Both of ours.’ And they’d say, ‘No really, I mean really, which one is the mother? And we’d say ‘We both are.’ And they’d go, ‘I mean who’s the real mother?'”
“We both are,” adds Robin.
“And we made it an absolute family policy not to answer that question,” says Sandy. “That was like, excuse me we’ll define our reality and our life.”
Ry has always embraced her relationship with her moms. “People are always like, ‘What was that like having two mothers?’ And I’m always like, ‘Well I don’t really have much to compare it to,'” she says. “You know it’s not like, Well, first I had a mother and a father and then I had two mothers. It’s hard to see it as like a foreign strange thing because it’s so normal to me.”
Ry, 39, wantedNuclear Familyto explore “the ambitions and desires of her moms, her sperm donor, and all their allies and enemies as she struggles to hear and accept their divergent perspectives.”
Nuclear Familypremieres Sep. 26 at 10 p.m. ET on HBO and airs subsequent Sundays at the same time. It will also be available to stream on HBO Max.
source: people.com
