Parenting, dyadic coping, and child emotion regulation in lesbian, gay, and heterosexual parent families through assisted reproduction

ABSTRACT

Aims

The present study examined the associations between family structure, parenting, and dyadic coping and children’s emotion regulation in lesbian, gay, and heterosexual parent families through assisted reproduction. It also explored differences in parenting dimensions and dyadic coping, based on parents’ sexual orientation.

Methods

Participants were 60 lesbian mothers through donor insemination, 50 gay fathers through surrogacy, and 42 heterosexual parents through gamete donation, all with a child aged 6–12 years (M = 8.67; SD = 2.16; 48.68% females) and residing in Italy. In each family, both parents reported parenting stress, parent – child relational self-efficacy, parental control, dyadic coping, and their perception of the child’s emotion regulation.

Results

Mixed models indicated no significant differences between family types in parenting stress and use of a controlling parenting style. However, lesbian mothers reported higher parent – child relational self-efficacy than heterosexual parents, and higher dyadic coping strategies than gay fathers. Also, children of gay fathers showed greater emotion regulation than children of heterosexual parents. Across family types, higher levels of parenting stress and dyadic coping, and lower levels of parent – child relational self-efficacy were associated with lower child emotion regulation.

Conclusion

Given that in middle childhood, across family types, better emotional regulation was associated with lower parenting stress and dyadic coping, and greater effectiveness in the parent – child relationship clinical work should focus on the parent’s and couple’s ability to cooperatively manage stressors while maintaining a balanced focus on their children’s resources and autonomy.

KEYWORDS:

• Parenting
• dyadic coping
• emotion regulation
• assisted reproduction
• lesbian mothers
• gay fathers

Acknowledgments

The authors thank all the family who made this research possible, Dr. Alessandra Vucetich (EUGIN, Milan) and Dr. Valentina Berruti (B-Woman) for their help with data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

Conceptualization, A.F.; Data curation, M.Q.; Formal analysis M.Q. and N.C.; Funding acquisition, V.L.; Investigation A.F., M.Q. and N.C.; Methodology A.F., M.Q. and N.C.; Project administration S.D.S. and N.C.; Supervision A.M.S., and V.L.; Roles/Writing – original draft A.F.; Writing – review & editing M.Q., N.C., A.M.S., and V.L.

Availability of data and material

The research data are not currently available due to ongoing research projects.

Consent for publication

All authors read the manuscript and agreed to its publication.

Institutional review board statement

The present study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the ethical committee of the Department of Dynamic and Clinical Psychology, and Health Studies, Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy (protocol code n. 0000212, 24 February 2020, project title: ‘Same-sex and different-sex parent families through assisted reproduction: Parenting, attachment, child adjustment and neural correlates’). All participants provided informed written consent to participate in the research project.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by funding from the Ministry of University and Research under the call Progetti di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale (PRIN) 2017 (project number 2017XNYB9C; Principal Investigator: Vittorio Lingiardi) awarded to Vittorio Lingiardi. In their work, Alexandro Fortunato and Maria Quintigliano were supported by two research fellowships (Rep. 8B/2019, Prot. n. 101 23 January 2020 and Rep. 3B/2022, Prot. n. 1937 17 November 2022) funded by the Ministry of University and Research (PRIN 2017; project number 2017XNYB9C; Principal Investigator: Vittorio Lingiardi).