Children Adopted by Same-Sex Couples: Identity-Related Issues From Preschool Years to Late Adolescence

Roberta Messina Free University of Brussels

David Brodzinsky Rutgers University

Little research has investigated the experience of same-sex adoption from children’s perspective. What does it feel like to be adopted by 2 dads or 2 moms? How do the challenges related to being adopted and the challenges related to growing up in a same-sex-parent family overlap in the identity construction of adoptees? This is the 1st European study giving voice to children adopted by same-sex couples focusing on their adoptive and family-related identities at four developmental stages: early childhood, middle childhood, preadolescence, and adolescence. In-depth interviews were conducted with a sample of 44 adoptees (36 males and 8 females; ages 3�18 years) and 62 adoptive parents (16 lesbian women and 46 gay men). Thematic analysis revealed that adoptees deal with unique developmental challenges con- nected to the intersection of both their adoptive and familial minority statuses. They often reported being confronted with heteronormative assumptions of family, which led them to question themselves regard- ing the way their family is perceived by others, to idealize the heteronuclear family form, and to increase their curiosity about their birth parents. Findings shed light on the evolution of adoptees’ questions, feelings, and experiences related to their unique family arrangement from early childhood through adolescence, suggesting a better integration of their adoptive and minority group statuses at progressively more advanced developmental stages. Analyses underline the importance of open family communication for facilitating the integration of such complex elements in adoptees’ emerging identity. Practice implications of the findings are discussed.

Keywords: same-sex adoption, adopted children, identity-related issues, developmental challenges

Supplemental materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/fam0000616.supp

The right of sexual minorities to adopt children has raised intense debates both among the public and in the scientific com- munity (Farr & Patterson, 2013). The American Psychological Association (2004), called upon to give an opinion on this issue, concluded that there is no scientific evidence that parenting effec-

tiveness is related to parental sexual orientation and opposed any discrimination based on sexual orientation in matters of adoption. However, controversy has continued on the subject in Europe, where professionals in the field of psychology were involved in heated debates (Lingiardi & Carone, 2016). If some specialists support the right of same-sex couples to adopt, emphasizing their strengths on the basis of existing research (Goldberg, 2016), others oppose same-sex adoption, underlining the im- portance of different-sex parents as a necessary element for the healthy development of children (Cigoli, 2016). In particular, the social and scientific debates have focused on a central issue: Is it in the best interest of the children, already marked by difficult life experiences, to be adopted by a family that is often a target of social stigma (Clarke, 2001; Herbrand, 2006)?

There is a well-accepted body of research showing that adopted children encounter a variety of issues connected with their adop- tive status during the developing years. Little attention, however, has been given to specific identity-related issues experienced by children adopted by same-sex-headed families. In particular, it is unknown how the overlap of both adoptive and family minority statuses is associated with identity construction in adopted children at different stages of development. Today, some years after the approval of same-sex adoption in a number of European countries, it is possible to address the existing questions on this topic, giving voice directly to the first generation of adopted children in such

This article was published Online First December 9, 2019. Roberta Messina, Unit of Developmental and Family Psychology, Free

University of Brussels; David Brodzinsky, Department of Psychology, Rutgers University.

Parts of this article were adapted from Roberta Messina’s doctoral thesis, “Same-Sex Adoptive Families: Parents and Children’s Experiences Across the Family Life Cycle” (2018), and her “Why Don’t I Have a Mum? Why Don’t I Have a Dad? The Identity Construction Process of Children Adopted by Same-Sex Parents” presentation at the 6th International Con- ference on Adoption Research, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, July 8 –12, 2018. This research was supported by the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research–FNRS through a doctoral fellowship (FRESH–Human Sciences Research Fund) awarded to Roberta Messina. The authors thank the fam- ilies for their willingness to participate in this research as well as the adoption services and the LGBT associations for their assistance recruiting participants.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Roberta Messina, who is now at the Departement of Human Sciences, University of Basilicata, Nazario Sauro, 85, 85100 Potenza, Italy. E-mail: roberta .messinaphd@gmail.com

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Journal of Family Psychology © 2019 American Psychological Association 2020, Vol. 34, No. 5, 509 –522 ISSN: 0893-3200 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/fam0000616

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households. To provide a theoretical framework for our study, we first analyze the specificities of adoptive identity and then review the existing literature on children adopted by same-sex parents.

Identity-Related Issues in Adopted Youth During the Developing Years

Identity involves people’s explicit or implicit responses to the question “Who am I?” (Vignoles, Schwartz, & Luyckx, 2011). For adoptees, identity formation is a critical and more complex devel- opmental task because of the absence of biological continuity between parents and children (Brodzinsky, 2011). For adoptees, identity is interwoven with specific questions about one’s lineage, such as “Who are my biological parents?” “What were my earliest days like?” and “What is my genetic heritage?” (Grotevant & Von Korff, 2011). For an adopted person, identity is defined, in part, as an understanding of what it means to be adopted, which involves an ongoing and multifaceted process of reflection and integration. In particular, children’s knowledge and feelings about adoption change over time, in relation to age, cognitive development, and family life cycle experiences (Brodzinsky, 2011).

During children’s preschool period (ages 3–5 years), adoptive parents begin to share adoption information and children learn the language of adoption; that is, they learn and repeat fragments of their adoptive story, although their capacity to understand the meaning and the implications of being adopted is still quite limited (Brodzinsky, Singer, & Braff, 1984).

During middle childhood (6 –12 years), cognitive and socioemo- tional development leads to a more realistic understanding of adoption (Pinderhughes & Brodzinsky, 2019). Adoptees realize that adoption means not only gaining a family but losing one as well and start to confront adoption-related loss (Neil, 2012). Their questions are typically focused on birth parents (especially their birth mother), on their country of origin (in the case of interna- tional adoption), and on the reasons for their separation from the birth family (Brodzinsky, 2011). Birth parents often become very present in the adoptees’ imagination and assume more importance for the developing child than is often recognized by adoptive parents (Brodzinsky, 2014). Curiosity about birth parents is some- times manifested as a “family romance,” which consists of fre- quent thoughts and even dreams about the lost birth family and life before adoption (Rosenberg & Horner, 1991, p. 82). For others, it may involve fantasies about returning to live with birth relatives and questions about loss of genealogical continuity (Brodzinsky, 2011).

A deeper comprehension of adoption forms during adolescence (13–18 years). At this stage, teenagers begin to understand the legal permanence associated with adoption and the role of adop- tion within a societal perspective (Brodzinsky, 2011). On the positive side, adoption is understood to be a societal institution providing children facing difficult life circumstances with family stability and care. On the negative side, teenagers understand that others often view adoption as a “second best route” to parenthood and a “lesser” family status. Such views can lead adoptees to question their families and the ways they are perceived by others, as well as undermine self-esteem. In addition, curiosity about origins is often very strong during this time and leads to thoughts and even plans for searching for the birth family (Grotevant & Von Korff, 2011; Pinderhughes & Brodzinsky, 2019). A typical chal-

lenge consists in finding a healthy balance between the “debt” toward their birth parents who gave them life, and the “debt” toward their adoptive parents who provided love and care (Rosen- feld, Burton, De Coster, & Duret, 2006, p.160).

Research has indicated that one of the strongest predictors of adoptees’ adjustment is the way family members talk about adop- tion. Openness in adoption communication strengthens the parent– child relationship, enhances self-esteem, and facilitates the inte- gration of adoption-related losses (Brodzinsky, 2006). In contrast, when adoptive parents are not at ease in exploring their children’s feelings about their past, adoptees can develop “loyalty conflicts” (Le Run, 2012, p. 39), which increases their risk for adjustment difficulties.

To date, adoptive identity formation has been studied only among children adopted by opposite-sex-headed families. There are no data on how adoption-related challenges influence identity construction of children raised by same-sex parents. Do they experience questions and identity-related challenges that are sim- ilar to those experienced by children raised by heterosexual par- ents? Does having lesbian or gay parents complicate their identity construction, and, if so, how? These are questions that form the focus of the current study.

Children’s Adjustment in Same-Sex-Headed Families

The development of children raised in same-sex-parent families has attracted growing research interest. Studies have indicated that youth with sexual minority parents have similar adjustment out- comes compared with youth raised by opposite-sex parents (for a review, see Fedewa, Black, & Ahn, 2015). However, they do encounter specific challenges related to their family’s sexual mi- nority status, such as teasing and bullying episodes (Goldberg & Kuvalanka, 2012; Patterson, 2009), although these experiences do not generally lead to adjustment problems. To date, most research has focused on biological children of same-sex parents, with fewer studies specifically addressing development of adopted children in same-sex households. Those that have been published have sug- gested that same-sex-parent families represent an appropriate placement option for children in need of adoption, finding no differences in their adjustment compared to children placed in heterosexual families (Farr & Patterson, 2013; Patterson, 2017) in areas related to internalizing and externalizing behavior problems (Farr, Forssell, & Patterson, 2010; Golombok et al., 2014), gender- typed play (Farr, Bruun, Doss, & Patterson, 2018), attachment (Erich, Hall, Kanenberg, & Case, 2009), and cognitive develop- ment (Lavner, Waterman, & Peplau, 2012). Although these quan- titative studies provide a precise measurement of the above- mentioned variables, they have a significant limitation: In many cases children’s adjustment is assessed through questionnaires completed by parents, whereas only a few studies include chil- dren’s direct participation through qualitative methods. Conse- quently, there is little information available on how placement with same-sex couples is experienced by the children themselves.

Youth Perspectives on Being Adopted by Same-Sex-Parent Families

To our knowledge, only three studies, all conducted in the United States, have examined the viewpoints of children adopted

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