In All Adults Here, characters struggle to live openly and honestly. The secrets characters keep from their family and friends imply that they are dissatisfied with their true selves; the book examines the importance of living authentically as it follows each character’s journey to acceptance.

Astrid is at a turning point in her life. For years, she was content with the socially acceptable, traditional life she led as a wife and mother, but that changed when she met and fell in love with a woman named Birdie. Her relationship with Birdie is pure and beautiful, but it is also at odds with the person Astrid long presented herself to be. Astrid has accepted her sexuality and is happy with Birdie, but she worries about telling her family, since they have known her to be a certain way all their lives. The Astrid that raised her children is not the same as the woman who loves Birdie.

Porter also keeps an important secret from her family: Her purposeful pregnancy as a single woman. Though she openly treads an unconventional path in other ways—like her career as a goat farmer—she fears that her family, particularly Astrid, will not support her choice.