Heterosexual Mothers Research Articles

Being a mother with anorexia: A phenomenological study of seeking and receiving professional support for white heterosexual women in the UK

AbstractMothers are currently under‐represented in the literature on anorexia, including research on treatment, with most research focussed on female adolescents. This raises questions about how adult women and particularly those who are mothers, experience eating disorder treatment. This study provides a phenomenological exploration of lived experiences of seeking and receiving professional help and interactions with health professionals for six white heterosexual mothers who experienced anorexia while raising their children. Four themes are reported that capture the women's diverse experiences of seeking and receiving support for anorexia: (1) conflict between mothering and seeking help; (2) experiences of feeling blamed, poorly treated or misunderstood by health professionals; (3) positive experiences of seeking and receiving support; and (4) the importance of ongoing support. The women's experiences suggest that healthcare professionals should adopt a more holistic approach that acknowledges the subjective reality of the client (including their mother status) when working with mothers experiencing anorexia.

Grappling with tradition: the experiences of cisgender, heterosexual mothers and fathers in elective co-parenting arrangements

ABSTRACT Elective co-parenting families, meaning two (or more parents) who are not in a romantic relationship having a child together, are becoming more common amongst cisgender, heterosexual parents. The study of elective co-parenting families offers researchers a unique opportunity to decouple co-parenting relationships from romantic relationships, but little research to date has explored their experiences. This study explored two research questions: why do individuals decide to enter into elective co-parenting arrangements? And how do they manage their co-parenting arrangement and their relationship with their co-parent? Interview data from 10 elective co-parents (5 mothers and 5 fathers) were analyzed according to the principles of reflexive thematic analysis. Sociological theorisations of family practices, family display and family thinking were utilized to make sense of the data. The results centred around two organizing themes (‘Reproducing the traditional family’ and ‘Modernising the traditional family’), and participants experienced a tension between these two ideas. Participants aimed to manage their co-parenting relationship with shared values and friendship, but defining their relationship was complex and gendered parenting patterns were ubiquitous. Findings add nuance to theorisations of family life and demonstrate that traditional parenthood ideologies remain pervasive, as parents aim to imagine and pursue parenthood on their own terms.

The effects of dyadic coping strategies and dyadic conflict resolution styles on postpartum depression of mothers in heterosexual marriages in Turkey.

The authors of this study aimed to determine the effects of coping strategies and conflict resolution styles on postpartum depression in heterosexual mothers in the postpartum period in Turkey. A descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted with 369 mothers with babies aged 1-12 months. The study was carried out between October 1, 2021, and December 1, 2021, in the pediatric outpatient clinic of the Medical Faculty Hospital of a province in the Central Anatolian Region of Turkey. Seventy-four (20.1%) mothers had scores above the depression scale cu-off point (>13). Having problems in marriage, getting a low score on the spouse's self-perception scale of dyadic coping with stress, and having negative, nonsubmissive, and retreating conflict resolution styles were found to be important factors associated with postpartum depression (p < .05). The incidence of postpartum depression was found to be associated with having problems in the marriage, not having good dyadic coping strategies, and having negative conflict resolution styles.

Lesbian, Gay, and Heterosexual Parents’ Perspectives on Their Adopted Children’s Puberty and Approaches to Puberty-Related Communication

ABSTRACT This study explored how adoptive parents perceive their children’s adoptive status as impacting their experience of puberty, how they manage uncertainty associated with their children’s transition to puberty, and how they communicate with their children about puberty, using data from 60 adoptive parents, including lesbian mothers, gay fathers, and heterosexual mothers and fathers. Findings revealed that some parents used information gleaned from birth family, the adoption community, and pediatricians to reduce uncertainty associated with puberty. Parents, particularly lesbian/gay parents and parents of girls, described an open, progressively nuanced approach to communicating about puberty; other approaches included one-sided and information-oriented, avoidant and “hands off,” and delayed due to perceived lack of child “readiness.” Parents’ approach to puberty-related communication overlapped with how they conceptualized and approached communication about adoption.

White parents of adopted Black children in an era of racial reckoning: Challenges, tensions, and strategies

AbstractObjectiveThis study explores White middle‐class adoptive parents' experiences with parenting Black children (M age = 12.3), attending to how intersections of children's race, gender, and developmental stage informed and nuanced parents' approach to racial socialization.BackgroundScholarly debate regarding the adoption of Black children by White parents centers on parents' ability to facilitate positive racial identity development. Limited work has explored how White parents' approach to racial socialization is shaped by Black children's gender and developmental stage, particularly as children grow older and encounter intensified racialized stereotypes.MethodTwenty‐five White parents (11 lesbian mothers, seven gay fathers, seven heterosexual mothers) were selected from a larger sample of 128 adoptive families because they adopted Black (including biracial/multiracial) children, and were interviewed as their children entered adolescence. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data.ResultsA typology emerged that captured parents' racial awareness and racial socialization approach: Minimizing and Reluctant, Worried and Fumbling, Aware but Cautious, and Reflexive and Purposeful. Additional cross‐cutting themes centered on the role of the sociopolitical climate, gender, and developmental stage in racial socialization.ConclusionContemporary adoptive parents of Black children are often constrained by their own White racial frame, but some parents, especially those who are younger or have monoracial children, are able to translate awareness of the complexities involved in raising adopted Black children into meaningful action and understanding.

Variability in treatment outcomes from a housing intervention for young mothers misusing substances and experiencing homelessness by sexual identity

Sexual minority (SM) youth have twice the risk of experiencing homelessness compared to their heterosexual peers. Further, SM youth experiencing homelessness (YEH) report greater depression symptoms and substance use compared to heterosexual YEH. Housing First is an intervention that provides scattered-site individual apartments, without any prerequisite conditions for eligibility, and additional services to support long-term housing sustainment; however, few studies have examined the effectiveness of this approach for SM youth. The current study utilized data from a RCT that provided housing to young mothers experiencing homelessness to examine if treatment effects varied by mothers’ sexual identity. Mothers were randomly assigned to services as usual (i.e., provided a referral sheet of all services available in the community; SAU), Housing only (i.e., three months of utility and rental assistance; Housing), or housing and supportive services (integrates independent housing, Strengths-Based Outreach and Advocacy (SBOA), HIV prevention, and substance use/mental health counseling; Housing + SS). Latent growth curve models were estimated to assess how substance use and depression symptoms changed over the 12 months. SM mothers receiving SAU or Housing did not experience a significant change in substance use or depression symptoms. All groups of heterosexual mothers and SM mothers receiving Housing + SS had less substance use and depression symptoms at twelve months, with SM mothers in Housing + SS evidencing a steeper decline in substance use and depression symptoms. This study provides some of the first evidence that Housing First can mitigate the mental health and substance use concerns of SM YEH. Given SM’s higher rates of homelessness, substance use, and depression symptoms, Housing First should be further explored as an intervention to address their unique needs.

Normative violence and the terms of recognizability as ‘woman’ in Chilean Catholic schools

ABSTRACT In this article, we analyze our individually written testimonios and group conversations about our experience as ‘woman’ in Catholic schools in Chile, using Butler’s concept of performativity and Braidotti’s concept of nomadic subjectivity. We argue that some Catholic schools in Chile reproduce the category ‘woman’ as a pure, selfless, sexy, heterosexual mother who is an inferior and erasable being that is frequently discounted. This reproduction is done via different procedures of shaming, silencing, and even sexual violence. We experienced the telling of these testimonios as troubling but productive. First, this paper addresses the ideologies, values, and practices that Catholic schools construct around gender. Second, it suggests that the telling of and engagement with stories of embodied experiences is a beneficial strategy to battle gender oppression and work through productive discomfort and affects. Finally, the article considers the importance of dismantling subjectivity formation processes that consider some bodies as disposable.

Unpaid Work and Care During COVID-19: Subjective Experiences of Same-Sex Couples and Single Mothers in Australia

This paper draws on data from Work and Care During COVID-19, an online survey of Australians during pandemic lockdown in May 2020 (n = 2,722). It focuses on how subsamples of lesbian, gay, and bisexual mothers and fathers in couples (n = 280) and single mothers (n = 480) subjectively experienced unpaid work and care during lockdown compared with heterosexual mothers and fathers in couples, and with partnered mothers, respectively. During the pandemic, nonheterosexual fathers’ subjective reports were less negative than those of their heterosexual counterparts, but differences between heterosexual and lesbian/bisexual mothers were more mixed. Unlike their partnered counterparts, more single mothers reported feeling satisfied than before with their balance of paid and unpaid work and how they spent their time overall during the pandemic, perhaps because they avoided partnership conflicts and particularly benefited from relaxed commuting and child care deadlines.

Mental Health of Lesbian, Bisexual, and Other-Identified Parents and Non-Parents from a Population-Based Study

ABSTRACT Studies have compared sexual minority mothers (mostly lesbian) to heterosexual mothers on mental health, but little research has compared sexual minority women with and without children. This was the first study to compare sexual minority women who did or did not have children, using a population-based sample with three age cohorts. Unlike prior convenience studies, this study finds parents more likely to be bisexual, in a relationship with a man, and non-urban. Bisexual parents scored higher than lesbian parents on psychological distress and lower on life satisfaction and happiness; they also reported less connection to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. Among lesbians, the oldest non-parents reported more happiness and less psychological distress than the youngest non-parents. Parents with other identities perceived more social support from friends and reported lower levels of internalized homophobia than bisexual parents. The results will help professionals and policymakers understand how parenthood status affects women across sexual identities.

Single mothers by choice: Parenting and child adjustment in middle childhood.

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.

Evangelical Protestant Women’s Views on Homosexuality and LGBT Rights in Korea: The Role of Confucianism and Nationalism in Heteronormative Ideology

ABSTRACT Much scholarly attention has been devoted to understanding the demographic, religious, and socio-economic factors that may lead to homonegativity. However, little is known about how and why people oppose homosexuality and LGBT rights. To fill this gap, this work examines how heterosexual religious mothers perceive homosexuality and LGBT rights focusing on the role of indigenous culture. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 30 evangelical Protestant women in South Korea, my findings indicate that evangelical women’s perceptions of LGBT rights and their justification display evangelical notion of procreation, motherly moral concerns about the rapid change in heteronormative ideals, and ambivalence about an individualistic, expressive culture. I argue that heteronormative ideology forms a key construct that determines the responses of evangelical women. In addition, such an idea is not only guided by evangelical teaching but also reinforced by a complex amalgamation of Confucian tradition and nationalism, thus restricting sexual drive and emotions for the sake of families and the nation. Heterosexual family norms operate in a way that it is synchronized with a combination of Confucian-family-oriented collectivism and nationalism. This study contributes to complicating a simple, one-dimensional understanding of public attitudes on homosexuality by offering a nuanced look into the configuration of heterosexual ideologies, which are unique in the Korean context.

"Making the child mine": Mothers' thoughts and feelings about the mother-infant relationship in egg donation families.

The number of families being created through fertility treatment with donor eggs is increasing yearly. Women who conceive in this way share a gestational but not genetic relationship with their child, yet there is limited understanding of how mothers experience the mother–child relationship during its formative period, infancy. This study explored heterosexual mothers’ thoughts and feelings about the mother–infant relationship in families created through egg donation. Qualitative interviews were conducted with a sample of 85 women who had conceived following egg donation treatment at U.K. fertility clinics. Mothers had at least 1 infant (6–18 months) and were living with the child’s father. Interview data were analyzed according to the principles of thematic analysis. The results showed that egg donation mothers used a range of strategies across the transition to parenthood that enabled them to establish their identity as the child’s mother and facilitated the process of helping them feel that the baby was their own. This process was individual to each woman, with the absent genetic connection varying in significance between mothers. The strategies employed enabled most mothers to adjust successfully to parenthood and manage any ambivalence and uncertainties associated with nongenetic parenthood. Most mothers felt secure and confident in their position as the child’s mother by the end of the first year.

Stigma Experiences, Mental Health, Perceived Parenting Competence, and Parent-Child Relationships Among Lesbian, Gay, and Heterosexual Adoptive Parents in the United States.

Adoptive parents often face stigma related to “non-traditional” family structures. Lesbian and gay (LG) adoptive parents often face additional stigmatization based on sexual identity, which in turn may negatively affect parents’ mental health. Despite controversy about LG parenting, research demonstrates that family processes are more strongly associated with individual outcomes than family structure. Thus, family systems and minority stress theories provided our conceptual foundation in examining how adoptive LG parents’ stigma experiences were associated with mental health, parenting competence, and parent–child relationships. Participating families (N = 106; n = 56 LG parent families) were originally recruited from five US domestic private infant adoption agencies and completed two waves of data collection (W1, W2; 91% retention) when children were preschool-age (Mage = 3.01 years) and school-age (Mage = 8.36 years), respectively. Data for the current study are largely drawn from W2. Via Qualtrics, parents completed assessments of mental health symptoms, adoption stigma, and perceived childcare competence. LG parents also reported on their experiences of homonegative microaggressions, and children responded to a measure about their relationships with parents. No significant differences emerged as a function of parental sexual orientation and gender except that lesbian mothers, heterosexual mothers, and gay fathers all reported higher parenting competence than heterosexual fathers. Although parents’ mental health did not significantly predict parent–child relationship quality, parents’ perceived competence and LG parents’ current homonegative microaggression experiences did (e.g., greater competence, greater closeness; more microaggressions, lower closeness). Consistent with our conceptual framework, our results—derived from parent and child reports—demonstrate that although adoptive and LG parent families experience stigma, family processes (rather than structure) are most associated with individual outcomes. Researchers, policy makers, and practitioners should work together to employ identity-affirming practices to reduce stigma and support adoptive family functioning and well-being.

The Family Earnings Gap Revisited: A Household or a Labor Market Problem?

Using Danish administrative data from 1995-2014, I compare income and wage trajectories of women to those of their partner before and after becoming parents. I then compare within- and across-couple gaps for women in opposite and same-sex households. Since same-sex couples by definition do not experience sex-specific comparative advantages at work or at home, the changes in intra household earnings due to parenthood must be based on other factors than the intra household gender differences. Comparing the dynamics upon adopting a child in opposite and same-sex couples will identify to what extent the gender compared to non-gendered factors determine the observed gender inequality in the child penalty. Contrary to opposite-sex households and heterosexual mothers, for same-sex households, I find only a small child penalty for lesbians and no significant within household differences in earnings trajectories due to parenthood, no matter the mothers’ intra household bargaining power.

Reproductive Decision Making in Spain: Heterosexual Couples’ Narratives About How They Chose to Have Children

This article seeks to expand researchers’ understanding of choice in the reproductive decision-making narratives of heterosexual couples to help explain fertility rates in Spain. The data comprise 32 interviews and two focus groups with heterosexual mothers and fathers. Two broad categories have been identified: couples who chose “when” to have children and couples who chose “whether” to have children. The results show that couples choosing “when” considered having children to be a normal step in the life course and had a shared plan to become parents. Couples who chose “whether” considered having children to be a voluntary lifestyle choice and decisions were more individualized. Both groups reported having decided to have children. Parents’ sense of responsibility for this decision could help explain the postponement of motherhood and low fertility rates in Spain.

The association between basic need satisfaction in relationship and personal growth among lesbian and heterosexual mothers

The study examined the association between basic need satisfaction in the couple relationship (basic need satisfaction in the relationship [BNSR]) and personal growth (PG), using a sample of 57 lesbian mothers individually matched with 57 heterosexual mothers. BNSR was found to correlate positively with growth only among lesbian mothers, while no significant association was found among heterosexual mothers. The findings are explained in terms of the particular characteristics of lesbian couples, such as high emotional support, equal division of labor, and absence of traditional gender roles. The potential contribution of these features to PG in the context of lesbian motherhood, which is planned, intentional, and often achieved after contending with minority stress and challenging life circumstances, is discussed.

Disclosure of sperm donation: a comparison between solo mother and two-parent families with identifiable donors

Disclosure of donor conception to children was compared between solo mother and two-parent families with children aged 4–8 years conceived since the removal of donor anonymity in the UK. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 31 heterosexual solo mothers and 47 heterosexual mothers with partners to investigate their decisions and experiences about identifiable donation and disclosure to their children. No significant difference was found in the proportion of mothers in each family type who had told their children about their donor conception (solo mothers 54.8%; partnered mothers 36.2%). Of those who had not told, a significantly higher proportion of solo mothers than partnered mothers intended to disclose (P < 0.05). Partnered mothers were more likely than solo mothers to feel neutral, ambivalent or negative about having used an identifiable donor (P < 0.05), and were less likely to consider children's knowledge of their genetic origins as extremely important (P < 0.05). These findings are relevant to provision of counselling services as it cannot be assumed that parents will tell their children about their origins or their entitlement to request the identity of their donor at the age of 18 years. Further qualitative research would increase understanding of solo mothers' attitudes towards disclosure.

Mothering Gender and Sexually Nonconforming Children in Taiwan

How do emerging and enduring conditions of motherhood in Taiwan shape mothers’ interactions with children who are gender or sexually nonconforming? Bridging research on the transformation of mothering discourses in Taiwan and globally with the small but growing body of work on LGBT family of origin relationships, this article argues that women’s experiences of raising gender and sexually nonconforming children are integrally shaped by the conditions of gender and family inequality in their own lives. These inequalities are sometimes challenged but often reinscribed by new parenting discourses and resources that have proliferated in late 20th and early 21st century Taiwan, including new forms of parental labor, accountability for child outcomes, and emerging expert voices on sexuality and parenthood. This analysis is rooted in ethnographic fieldwork and family history interviews with gender and sexually nonconforming people and with their families of origin throughout Taiwan, with emphasis on heterosexual mothers’ narratives.

Lesbian and Heterosexual Adoptive Mothers’ Experiences of Relationship Dissolution

Little research has explored same-gender couples’ experiences of relationship dissolution, and no research has explored relationship dissolution in same-gender adoptive parents. Drawing from feminist and social constructionist perspectives, the current qualitative study examined the perspectives of 13 adoptive mothers (seven lesbian, six heterosexual) who had separated from their partners over the course of a longitudinal study on adoptive families. Participants were interviewed via telephone and represented a geographically diverse sample of mothers in the U.S. Becoming a parent (to a high-needs child in particular), differences in parenting style, parent problems (e.g., substance abuse), and infidelity were perceived as contributing to relationship dissolution by all types of participants. Lesbian mothers were especially likely to emphasize problems with emotional and sexual intimacy, and inequities in the division of labor, as contributors. Lesbian mothers were more likely to describe shared custody arrangements than heterosexual mothers, who were typically the primary residential parents. Participants described both practical challenges (e.g., financial insecurity) and emotional challenges (e.g., feelings of guilt, especially in light of the child’s history of loss) in the wake of relationship dissolution. However, participants also identified positive changes that had occurred post-dissolution, including personal growth and improved co-parenting, with the latter being noted by lesbians in particular. Findings have implications for professionals wishing to support diverse families during key life transitions, such as parental relationship dissolution.

Whether a Heterosexual Mother or a Homosexual Father, Primary Caretaking of Children Is Similar

Can fathers care for children as well as mothers do? To compare brain activation differences in maternal versus paternal primary caretakers, these researchers took advantage of the increasingly common phenomenon of two-father families. Participants were 20 heterosexual couples — 20 mothers who were primary caretakers and 20 fathers who were secondary caretakers — …