Abstract
Findings are presented of the second phase of a longitudinal study of families created by single mothers by choice. Forty-four single heterosexual mothers were compared with 37 partnered heterosexual mothers, all with a donor-conceived child aged around 8–10 years. Standardized interview, observational, and questionnaire measures of maternal wellbeing, mother-child relationships and child adjustment were administered to mothers, children, and teachers. There were no differences in maternal mental health, the quality of mother-child relationships or children’s emotional and behavioral problems between family types. However, higher levels of parenting stress and higher levels of children’s prior adjustment difficulties were each associated with children’s adjustment difficulties in middle childhood irrespective of family type. The findings suggest that the presence of two parents—or of a male parent—is not essential for children to flourish, and add to the growing body of evidence that family structure is less influential in children’s adjustment than the quality of family relationships.
Highlights
Findings are presented of the second phase of a longitudinal study of families created by single mothers by choice
The first phase of the present study examined the quality of mother-child relationships and the psychological adjustment of preschool and early school-age children born to single heterosexual mothers through sperm donation
The Trait Anxiety Inventory (TAI: Spielberger, 1983), the Edinburgh Depression Scale (EDS: Thorpe, 1993) and the short form of the Parenting Stress Index (PSI: Abidin, 1990) were completed by mothers to assess anxiety, depression and stress associated with parenting, respectively
Summary
Findings are presented of the second phase of a longitudinal study of families created by single mothers by choice. Since the 1980s, a growing number of single heterosexual women have made an active decision to parent alone and have had children through donor insemination. These women are often described as “single mothers by choice” (Bock, 2000; Hertz, 2006), many have reported that, due to the absence of a partner and their increasing age, they did not have a choice if they wished to become parents (Graham & Braverman, 2012; Graham, 2014; Jadva, Badger, Morrissette, & Golombok, 2009; Murray & Golombok, 2005a).
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