Can Children Have Ordinary Expectable Caregiving Environments in Unconventional Contexts? Quality of Care Organization in Three Mexican Same-Sex Planned Families

Abstract

The aim of this research was to explore the elements that configure the quality of care among three Mexican same-sex planned families: two female-parented families (through donor insemination) and a male-parented one (through adoption). The first family consisted of two mothers and a 3-year-old daughter; the second one had two mothers and a 1.5-year-old set of boy twins and the third family consisted of two fathers and a 2-year-old girl. It was assumed that Ainsworth’s notions of quality of care organization are useful in order to understand caregiver–child attachment relationships, regardless of the parents’ sexual orientation. A collective case study was selected due to the fact that these families shared their “unconventionality” (i.e., parents were not heterosexual) and the fact that they were planned, but each one constituted a particular case with a unique configuration. Four trained independent observers used the q-sort methodology (Maternal Behavior Q-Sort and Attachment Q-Sort) to describe parents’ and children’s behavior, respectively. The findings showed that parents were highly sensitive and all children used them as a secure base. To provide an in-depth examination of which elements configure the quality of care, a semi-structured interview with each parent was carried out. Through a thematic analysis, an over-arching theme named Affections and Emotions was identified, together with six subthemes: (1) Creating an affective environment; (2) Being available; (3) Acknowledging and expressing emotions; (4) Perceiving, interpreting and responding adequately to the child’s real self; (5) Taking the child’s perspective into account; and (6) Agreeing on roles and dividing the tasks. In order to showcase the particular configuration of gay parenting, the male-headed family narrative is reported in detail, because gay parents have been perceived as violating traditional gender roles as well as the hegemonic model of masculinity. The findings were consistent with the notion of quality of care as proposed by Ainsworth and her collaborators. The implications of the methodological device and research regarding same-sex planned families are discussed so as to understand the organization of the caregiving environment.

Parental secure base support and child secure base use in mexican same-sex families

“…Further south of the continent, we published a paper that also used the q-sort meth odology to describe Mexican infant-same-sex parent interactions (i.e., MBQS and AQS), with a focus on providing and in-depth examination of which elements configured the quality of care through a semi-structured qualitative interview (Salinas-Quiroz et al, 2018). Both research teams inaugurated a new field of study where same-sex parents' caregiving behavior and children's organization of secure base behavior are described us ing gold standard measures through extensive and unstructured naturalistic observations (i.e., 90-120 minutes home visits).…”

“…Additionally, our findings are important for critical theoretical issues, namely, the universality and the sensitivity hypotheses which have been scantly studied among same-sex couples and their children. In other words, Salinas-Quiroz et al (2018) as well as Feugé and colleagues (2020) granted pioneering empirical evidence for the "ordinary expectable caregiving environments" (Bowlby, 1969(Bowlby, /1982) that North American same-sex couples provide to their children, i.e., the universality and the sensitivity hypotheses.…”

“…Notwithstanding this, in 2015 Mexico City was declared a Gay Friendly City, which according to official statements, is an expression of the city's interest in developing as a sexually diverse metropolis where Lesbian, Gay, Bi sexual, Trans and Queer (LGBTQ) rights are won and respected (COPRED, 2015). Among such rights are same-sex marriage and child adoption by same-sex couples, which were both legally recognized in 2009 (Salinas-Quiroz et al, 2018); that same year, 689 same-sex marriages were registered in Mexico City, and in 2017 the number rose over to 1,400 (INEGI, 2018). Although no census of LGBTQ parents has been taken in Mexico, an estimate was made in 2014 which suggested the existence of 250,000 same-sex "nuclear families", within which 68.8% were raising children (Giraldo, 2015).…”

“…Comparative studies between same-sex and different-sex families demonstrated that parents' sexual orientation does not negatively affect children's socioemotional development (Farr, 2017), and that lesbian and gay (LG) parents can be as sensitive to their children's needs as their heterosexual counterparts (Golombok & Tasker, 2015). However, positioning different-sex families as the norm may reinforce heteronormativity and undermine the particularities of LGBTQ families (Carneiro et al, 2017;Clarke, 2002;Salinas-Quiroz et al, 2018).…”

Organización de la calidad del cuidado en una familia con un padre soltero y gay

“…Así como existen pocos estudios sobre los padres en lo general y los padres solteros en lo particular, es aún menor la literatura disponible sobre los padres gais y sus experiencias. Aun así, las pocas investigaciones disponibles en castellano -mexicanas y chilenas principalmente-tratan de documentar lo que sucede con padres gais -solteros y en pareja-y la forma en la que desenvuelven su ejercicio paterno (Giraldo, 2015;Herrera, Miranda, Pavicevic y Sciaraffia, 2018;Laguna-Maqueda, 2016;Laguna, 2018;Saldaña, 2018;Salinas-Quiroz, Rodríguez-Sánchez, Costa, Rosales, Silva, & Cambón, 2018). Laguna (2018) encontró que la influencia de la homofobia institucionalizada y el heterosexismo genera que los padres gais sientan una "necesidad frecuente de demostrar su capacidad como padres" (p.146).…”