ABSTRACT
Objective
The present study aimed at investigating whether gay fathers’ coherence of mind within the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) moderated the influence of parental disclosure on children’s exploration of their surrogacy origins during middle childhood and early adolescence.
Background
Once children of gay fathers are disclosed to about their surrogacy conception, they may start exploring the meanings and implications of their conception. Very little is known about the factors that may enhance such exploration in gay father families.
Method
A home-visit study was conducted with 60 White, cisgender, gay fathers and their 30 children born through gestational surrogacy, all residing in Italy and with medium to high socioeconomic status. At time 1, when children were aged 6–12 years (M = 8.31, SD = 1.68), fathers were rated for AAI coherence of mind and interviewed about their disclosure of the surrogacy origins to their child. At time 2, approximately 18 months later (M = 9.87, SD = 1.69), children were interviewed about their exploration of their surrogacy origins.
Results
In the context of more information disclosed about the child conception, only children whose fathers showed greater AAI coherence of mind explored their surrogacy origins in more depth.
Conclusion
Gay fathers’ ability to show an internally consistent, but not emotionally overwrought, state of mind regarding their own attachment experiences impacted the extent to which their children felt safe and legitimated in sharing their curiosity about their conception.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Availability of data and material (data transparency)
Data are available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author.
Consent to participate
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Author contributions
N.C. conception and design. Data collection was completed by N.C. and D.M. Data coding was conducted by N.C., D.M., and M.M. Analyses of data were conducted by N.C. and D.M. First draft was written by N.C. and D.M. Following drafts were reviewed and revised according to comments by L.B., M.M., A.M.S., R.B., V.L. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Declarations
This study was not preregistered. There was no prior dissemination of the ideas and data appearing in the manuscript.