Parental secure base support and child secure base use in mexican same-sex families

Abstract

The aim of this research was to determine whether the well-documented link between heterosexual parents’ secure base support (i.e., sensitivity) and child secure base behavior (i.e., security) was present among Mexican same-sex families with 1-to 6-year-old-children. The sample included 22 child-caregiver dyads from four lesbian and four gay families. Four trained independent observers used the q-sort methodology (Maternal Behavior Q-set/Mother Behavior with Preschoolers Q-set and Attachment Q-set) to describe parents’ and children’s behavior, respectively. A robust regression model by Siegel method for predicting security with sensitivity as regressor was statistically significant for the whole sample with a statistical power of .89, consistent with the existing evidence in studies with different and same-sex families. Both sensitivity and attachment security are fundamentally relational constructs, not caregiver/child’s traits; they are relationship specific, as the results of the regression analysis showed. Despite the sample size, our findings prove attachment theory as a useful theoretical framework to study caregiver-child interactions no matter parents’ sexual orientation neither the family structure.