Children's thoughts and feelings about their donor and security of attachment to their solo mothers in middle childhood

Abstract

STUDY QUESTIONWhat is the relationship between children's thoughts and feelings about their donor and their security of attachment to their solo mothers in middle childhood?SUMMARY ANSWERChildren with higher levels of secure–autonomous attachment to their mothers were more likely to have positive perceptions of the donor, and those with higher levels of insecure–disorganized attachment to their mothers were more likely to perceive him negatively.WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADYThere is limited understanding of the factors that contribute to children's thoughts and feelings about their donor in solo mother families. In adolescence, an association was found between adolescents’ curiosity about donor conception and their security of attachment to their mothers.STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION19 children were administered the Friends and Family Interview and Donor Conception Interview between December 2015 and March 2016 as part of the second phase of a longitudinal, multi-method, multi-informant study of solo mother families.PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODSAll children were aged between 7 and 13 years and had been conceived by donor insemination to solo mothers. Interviews were conducted in participants’ homes. The Friends and Family Interview was rated according to a standardized coding scheme designed to measure security of attachment in terms of secure–autonomous, insecure–dismissing, insecure–preoccupied and insecure–disorganized attachment patterns. Quantitative analyses of the Donor Conception Interview yielded two factors: interest in the donor and perceptions of the donor. Qualitative analyses of the Donor Conception Interview were conducted using qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis.MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCEStatistically significant associations were found between the perception of the donor scale and the secure–autonomous and insecure–disorganized attachment ratings. Children with higher levels of secure–autonomous attachment to their mothers were more likely to have positive perceptions of the donor (r = 0.549, P = 0.015), and those with higher levels of insecure–disorganized attachment to their mothers were more likely to perceive him negatively (r = −0.632, P = 0.004). Children's narratives about the donor depicted him as a stranger (n = 8), a biological father (n = 4), a social parent (n = 3), or in ambivalent terms (n = 4).LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTIONFindings are limited by the wide age range of children within a small overall sample size. Participants were those willing and able to take part in research on donor conception families. The statistical significance of correlation coefficients was not corrected for multiple comparisons.WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGSFindings highlight the importance of situating children's ideas about the donor within family contexts. It is recommended that those working with donor conception families consider this when advising parents about whether, what and how to tell children about donor conception.STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S)Th...

Children’s Exploration of Their Surrogacy Origins in Gay Two-Father Families: Longitudinal Associations With Child Attachment Security and Parental Scaffolding During Discussions About Conception

“…In this vein, the findings contribute to the emerging literature about how individual differences in child attachment security to parents are fundamental in children's own exploration of their assisted conception (Slutsky et al, 2016;Zadeh et al, 2017), insofar as questions children ask to their fathers or to themselves about the surrogacy procedure (e.g., "I was wondering whether both dad and daddy, or only daddy, put their seed in the [surrogate's name]'s tummy because daddy and I are blonde, whereas dad is not") or reflections children make upon different motivations egg donors and surrogates might have in helping their fathers in creating their family (e.g., "I cannot understand why [egg donor's name] helped us if she then disappeared. .…”

“…Notwithstanding these limitations, the study presented a number of strengths. The longitudinal design and the attachment framework (Bowlby, 1988;Grossmann et al, 2008) enabled insights from the adoption (Grotevant, 1997;Kohler et al, 2002;Brodzinsky, 2006;Farr et al, 2014) and donor conception literature (Slutsky et al, 2016;Zadeh et al, 2017) to be extended to children born through surrogacy in gay twofather families, who must navigate unique challenges when processing their surrogacy origins (especially from middle childhood onward, when they enter primary school and confront their family diversity on a daily basis). The task of dealing with one's surrogacy origins may be even more thorny for gay fathers and children living in countries such as Italy, where surrogacy is a highly contentious path to parenthood, same-sex couples have no domestic access to assisted reproduction, and legislation does not recognize the relationship between the non-genetic (non-legal) parent and the child (Lingiardi and Carone, 2016a,b).…”

“…Preliminary indications that attachment theory is relevant for understanding children's experiences of their origins in families formed by assisted reproduction stem from two studies conducted with children of lesbian and single mothers through donor insemination, during middle childhood (Zadeh et al, 2017) and adolescence (Slutsky et al, 2016). The findings of these studies showed that, across these developmental periods, donor-conceived children who reported secureautonomous attachment to their mothers were more curious about their conception and felt more positive regarding their donor.…”

The perspectives of adolescents conceived using surrogacy, egg or sperm donation

“…The body of empirical evidence on donor-conceived offspring’s perspectives is growing, but it is often limited to non-representative samples of adults conceived by sperm donation ( Turner and Coyle, 2000 ; Hewitt, 2002 ; Cushing, 2010 ; Mahlstedt et al , 2010 ; Blyth, 2012 ; Harrigan et al , 2015 ). Studies of the views of donor-conceived children have tended to focus on children raised by single women ( Zadeh et al , 2017a , 2017b ) or lesbian couples ( Vanfraussen et al , 2001 , 2002 , 2003 ; Tasker and Granville, 2011 ; Malmquist et al , 2014 ; Van Parys et al , 2016 ; Raes et al , 2015 ). The only study to have sought the perspectives of donor-conceived and surrogacy children raised in heterosexual two-parent families is the UK Longitudinal Study of Assisted Reproduction Families ( Blake et al , 2010 , 2014 ; Jadva et al , 2012 ).…”

La intervención de ‘terceros’ en la producción de parentesco: perspectiva de los/as donantes, las familias y la descendencia. Un estado de la cuestión

“…1. Unos siguen siendo estudios psicosociales o se trata de encuestas cuantitativas en las que participan los niños, adolescentes y/o jóvenes (Turner y Coyle, 2000;Vanfraussen, Ponjaert-Kristoffers y Brewaeys, 2002Scheib, Riordan y Rubi, 2005;Gartrell et al, 2005;Mahlstedt, LaBounty y Kennedy, 2010;Blake et al, 2010;Rodino, Barton y Sanders, 2011;Zadeh et al, 2017), pero en las que, además de las preguntas cerradas de las entrevistas, cuestionarios o pruebas (orientadas a conocer el apego seguro/inseguro, el ajuste cognitivo, emocional o social, la calidad de las relaciones madre-hijo o el nivel de autoestima, que se busca correlacionar con el modelo familiar, el tipo de donación -semen, óvulos, embrión, subrogación-, la revelación/no revelación de su modo de concepción, su visión y/o sus sentimientos hacia los donantes, querer o no conocerlos, la información sobre estos que los niños y adolescentes consideran importante, su comprensión de cómo fueron concebidos o cómo presentan a sus familias en el entorno inmediato), responden también a preguntas abiertas con las que pueden expresar un discurso más articulado. Estos niños, adolescentes y jóvenes a menudo han participado, a diferentes edades, en fases previas de las mismas investigaciones, que se diseñaron desde un inicio con un carácter longitudinal.…”