Poster #134 - Children Born to Gay Fathers Through Surrogacy: Attachment, Safe Haven Needs and Secure Base Support

• In Event: 2-110 - Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

Introduction: In heterosexual parent families both mothers and fathers can serve as attachment figures, though there is a qualitative difference in their attachment roles, with fathers primarily supporting secure exploration and mothers predominantly addressing safe haven needs. No study has investigated so far the way in which children rely on their parents for safe haven and secure base supports in gay father families formed by surrogacy — wherein both parents are of the same gender and only one is the genetic parent. Furthermore, given the historical emphasis on mothers as primary attachment figures and concerns relating to parent-child relationship due to the surrogacy conception, findings that children born to lesbian mothers through donor insemination are just as likely to have high quality relationships with their parents, as children with heterosexual parents, cannot necessarily be extrapolated to children raised by primary caregiving fathers. In middle childhood the uniqueness of children of gay fathers become more pronounced and relate to more than their method of conception and their parents’ gender, as children acquire a more sophisticated understanding of their surrogacy origins. Therefore, whether and to what extent these factors have influence on their attachment representations and security perception merit investigation.
Method: Thirty-three children born to gay fathers through surrogacy were compared with 37 children born to lesbian mothers through donor insemination on their attachment representations, security perception and utilization of parents as safe havens and secure bases. All children were aged 6 to 12 years (M = 8.3 years, SD = 1.6). The inclusion of children with lesbian mothers enabled to control for both conception through assisted reproduction and parents’ non-heterosexual orientation. Assessments included data coded from the Friends and Family Interview (FFI), observed parent–child interactions and questionnaires administered to children and both parents.
Results: The FFI classified 45.5% of children with gay fathers as secure, 39.4% as insecure-dismissing, 12.1% as insecure-preoccupied, and 3% as disoriented-disorganized, and found no differences neither according to family type nor in comparison with the distribution of attachment in middle childhood reported by Bakermans-Kranenburg and Van IJzendoorn (2009). Higher security perception was associated with higher levels of parental warmth, responsiveness, and willingness to serve as an attachment figure, and lower levels of parental negative control and rejection, as well as the child’s younger age—but not family type. In both family types, children reported greater safe haven support from primary caregivers and greater secure base support from secondary caregivers.
Discussion: The findings show that children of both gay fathers (through surrogacy) and lesbian mothers (through donor insemination) can and do perceive high levels of attachment security to their parents, and that parenting behaviors that are fundamental for children’s attachment security in these family contexts are similar to those identified by studies with heterosexual parents. They further demonstrate that attachment theory provide a unique framework for explaining the way in which parenting behaviors, parental gender, and the genetic asymmetry that characterizes same-sex parent families through assisted reproduction interact and contribute to the development of children’s attachment relationships.

Authors

• Nicola Carone, Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia (Italy)
  Presenting Author

• Vittorio Lingiardi, Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome
  Non-Presenting Author

• Roberto Baiocco, Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome
  Non-Presenting Author