Feminist family scholars have long called for greater transparency of the partial perspectives embedded within family science. In this paper, I employ feminist reflexive autoethnography to unpack the private motivations that guide my research on family complexity. Using critical storytelling, I trace the personal developments that led to a research program on structurally complex families—families shaped and reshaped by divorce, separations, repartnerships, and remarriages. I explore my commitments to naming the invisible, embracing the messy, and ultimately, humanizing the complicated and meaningful emotions and relationships in families navigating structural changes. I draw upon personal, embodied experiences to theorize about issues and phenomena that have yet to be named in the (step)family scholarship. Finally, I invite others to heed the calls of feminist scholars whose work invites us to consider how private experiences can be leveraged to generate new insights into the complexities of family and social life.

中文翻译：

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研究继家庭，揭露秘密：反思家庭复杂性人性化努力背后的私人动机

长期以来，女权主义家庭学者一直呼吁提高家庭科学中部分观点的透明度。在这篇论文中，我采用女权主义反思性自我民族志来揭示指导我对家庭复杂性进行研究的私人动机。通过批判性的讲故事，我追溯了导致一项关于结构复杂的家庭的研究项目的个人发展——家庭因离婚、分居、再婚和再婚而塑造和重塑。我探索我对命名无形事物、拥抱凌乱事物并最终人性化的承诺驾驭结构变化的家庭中复杂而有意义的情感和关系。我利用个人的具体经验对（继）家庭奖学金中尚未命名的问题和现象进行理论化。最后，我邀请其他人听取女权主义学者的呼吁，他们的工作邀请我们考虑如何利用私人经历来对家庭和社会生活的复杂性产生新的见解。