How adopters’ and foster carers’ perceptions of ‘family’ affect communicative openness in post-adoption contact interactions

This article explores the constructions of communicative openness following adoption. Data from three waves of interviews with six adoptive mothers and four foster carers were collected, transcribed verbatim and analysed in keeping with a social constructivist grounded theory methodology. The results show that the way ‘family’ is constructed can both facilitate and impede communicative openness. Those who hold a fluid, child-centred concept of family, are willing to construct it as different and can accept the ebb and flow of family membership intuitively and view such openness as a natural part of caring for children. Those with a more traditional, nuclear construction of family may associate adoption with fear, a sense of biological related competition and the need to control the controllable, all of which act as barriers to communicative openness. The study demonstrates that communicative openness is person and context sensitive and emphasises the need to think creatively and flexibly about the very nature of family.

Urban bat pups take after their mothers and are bolder and faster learners than rural pups

Background Urbanization is rapidly changing our planet and animals that live in urban environments must quickly adjust their behavior. One of the most prevalent behavioral characteristics of urban dwelling animals is an increased level of risk-taking. Here, we aimed to reveal how urban fruitbats become risk-takers, and how they differ behaviorally from rural bats, studying both genetic and non-genetic factors that might play a role in the process. We assessed the personality of newborn pups from both rural and urban colonies before they acquired experience outdoors, examining risk-taking, exploration, and learning rates. Results Urban pups exhibited significantly higher risk-taking levels, they were faster learners, but less exploratory than their rural counterparts. A cross-fostering experiment revealed that pups were more similar to their adoptive mothers, thus suggesting a non-genetic mechanism and pointing towards a maternal effect. We moreover found that lactating urban mothers have higher cortisol levels in their milk, which could potentially explain the transmission of some personality traits from mother to pup. Conclusions Young bats seem to acquire environment suitable traits via post-birth non-genetic maternal effects. We offer a potential mechanism for how urban pups can acquire urban-suitable behavioral traits through hormonal transfer from their mothers.

The effects of maternal depression on their perception of emotional and behavioral problems of their internationally adopted children

Background Even though child psychopathology assessment guidelines emphasize comprehensive multi-method, multimodal, and multi-informant methodologies, maternal-report symptom-rating scales often serve as the predominant source of information. Research has shown that parental mood symptomatology affects their reports of their offspring’s psychopathology. For example, the depression-distortion hypothesis suggests that maternal depression promotes a negative bias in mothers’ perceptions of their children’s behavioral and emotional problems. We investigated this difference of perception between adoptive mothers and internationally adopted children. Most previous studies suffer from the potential bias caused by the fact that parents and children share genetic risks. Methods Data were derived from the Finnish Adoption (FinAdo) survey study (a subsample of adopted children aged between 9 and 12 years, n = 222). The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) was used to assess emotional and behavioral problems and competences of the adopted children. The CBCL was filled in by the adopted children and the adoptive mothers, respectively. Maternal depressive symptoms were measured using the short version of the General Health Questionnaire. Results On average, mothers reported less total CBCL symptoms in their children than the children themselves (0.25 vs 0.38, p-value < 0.01 for difference). Mothers’ depressive symptoms moderated the discrepancy in reporting internalizing symptoms (β = − 0.14 and p-value 0.01 for interaction) and the total symptoms scores (β = − 0.22 and p-value < 0.001 for interaction) and externalizing symptoms in girls in the CBCL. Limitations The major limitation of our study is its cross-sectional design and the fact that we only collected data in the form of questionnaires. Conclusions The results of our research support the depression-distortion hypothesis concerning the association of maternal depressive symptoms and child internalizing symptoms and externalizing symptoms in girls in a sample without genetic bias

Induced lactation case report:The journey to attain mahram relationship

Induced lactation is a process of producing breast milk in non-puerperal women. There are various reasons for adoptive mothers to breastfeed their adopted child through induced lactation method. For Muslim communities, the main motivating factor for an adoptive mother to breastfeed their adopted child is to establish a mahram relationship. The mahram relationship allows the adopted child to interact with other family members as if they are biologically related. The mahram relationship is achieved when adoptive mothers give breastmilk to the adopted child aged less than two years old for at least five satisfying feedings. In this paper we report the journey of two women who went through the induced lactation process in order to achieve mahram relationship with their adopted infant. In both cases, the mothers were finally able to produce milk, feed their adopted infant and reach mahram relationship. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science Vol.20(4) 2021 p.918-922

Does Biology Drive Child Penalties? Evidence from Biological and Adoptive Families

This paper investigates whether the impact of children on the labor market outcomes of women relative to men—child penalties—can be explained by the biological links between mother and child. We estimate child penalties in biological and adoptive families using event studies around the arrival of children and almost 40 years of adoption data from Denmark. Short-run child penalties are slightly larger for biological mothers than for adoptive mothers, but their long-run child penalties are virtually identical and precisely estimated. This suggests that biology is not a key driver of child-related gender gaps. (JEL J12, J13, J16)

Anonymous birth: Biographical knowledge and dyadic coping in adoptive mothers and fathers

Research on adoptive parents of anonymously born children is still scarce. Open issues are (1) examining how much biographical information is available to adoptive parents, (2) considering differences between adoptive mothers and fathers, and (3) understanding what affects their dyadic coping. Hence, this study set out to compare adoptive mothers’ and fathers’ mental health, attachment styles, dyadic coping, and biographical knowledge, and to identify predictors of dyadic coping. 62 mothers and 40 fathers (mean age: 46 years) raising an anonymously born adoptee answered online or paper-pencil versions of the Brief Symptom Inventory, Vulnerable Attachment Style Questionnaire, Dyadic Coping Inventory, Child Behavior Checklist, and a checklist of biographical data. Descriptive analyses showed that biographical knowledge was generally low in adoptive parents. More information was available on the birth mother than the birth father, with letters being the most common memorial. Furthermore, student t-tests revealed few differences: adoptive mothers reported to be more anxious and rated their ability to communicate stress and common dyadic coping as higher than did adoptive fathers. Finally, a hierarchical linear regression identified knowledge of more biographical data, parents’ older age as well as child’s younger age and higher psychopathology scores as predictors of better adoptive parents’ dyadic coping. These findings highlight the difficult task of gathering biographical information whilst maintaining the birth mother’s anonymity. They also stress the need of further research which may inform policies tailored to the specific needs of adoptive parents in the context of anonymous birth.

Two wild female bonobos adopted infants from a different social group at Wamba

Adoption, the act of taking another individual’s offspring and treating it as one’s own, is rare but widely observed in various mammal species and may increase the survival of adoptees. Adoption may also benefit adoptive mothers, for example they might care for close kin to gain indirect fitness or to learn caregiving behaviours. Here, we report two cases of a wild bonobo adopting an infant from a different social group, the first report of cross-group adoption in great apes. In one case, the adoptive mother was already a mother of two dependent offspring. In the other case, the adoptive mother was an old parous female whose own offspring had already emigrated into a different social group. The adoptive mothers provided various maternal care to the adoptees, such as carrying, grooming, nursing, and sharing food. No aggression was observed by group members towards the out-group adoptees. In both cases, adoptees had no maternal kin-relationship with their adoptive mothers. Both adoptive mothers already had experience of rearing their own offspring. Instead, these cases of adoption may have been driven by other evolutionary adaptive traits of bonobos, such as their strong attraction to infants and high tolerance towards immatures and out-group individuals.

The effects of maternal depression on mothers’ perceptions of the emotional and behavioural problems of their internationally adopted children

Background: Even though child psychopathology assessment guidelines emphasise comprehensive multi-method, multimodal, and multi-informant methodologies (Pelham, Fabiano, & Massetti, 2005), maternal report symptom-rating scales often serve as the predominant source of information. Research has shown that parental mood symptomatology affects their reports of their offspring’s psychopathology. For example, the depression-distortion hypothesis suggests that maternal depression promotes a negative bias in mothers’ perceptions of their children’s behavioural and emotional problems (Gartstein, Bridgett, Dishion, & Kaufman, 2009). We investigated this difference in perception between adoptive mothers and their internationally adopted children. Most previous studies have suffered from the potential bias caused by the fact that parents and children share genetic risks. Our study design allows the elimination of passive gene-environment correlation, which is a phenomenon that occurs when there is a shared genetic background between a rearing parent and a child (Harold et al., 2011; Jaffee & Price, 2007; Price & Jaffee, 2008).Methods: Data were derived from the Finnish Adoption (FinAdo) survey study (a subsample of adopted children aged between 9 and 12 years; N = 222). The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) (Achenbach & Ruffle, 2000) was used to assess the emotional and behavioural problems and competences of the adopted children. The CBCL was completed by the adoptive mothers and the adopted children. Maternal depressive symptoms were measured using the short version of the General Health Questionnaire (Goldberg & Hillier, 1979).Results: On average, mothers reported fewer total CBCL symptoms in their children than the children themselves (0.25 vs 0.38, p-value < 0.01 for difference). Mothers’ depressive symptoms moderated the discrepancy in reporting internalizing symptoms (β = -0.14 and p-value 0.01 for interaction), the total symptoms scores (β = -0.22 and p-value < 0.001 for interaction), and externalizing symptoms in girls in the CBCL.Limitations: The major limitation of our study was its cross-sectional design and the fact that we only collected data in the form of questionnaires.Conclusions: The results of our research support the depression-distortion hypothesis concerning the association between maternal depressive symptoms and child internalizing symptoms and externalizing symptoms in girls in a sample without genetic bias.

Undoing Patrilineality: New Maternal Families and the Politics of Naming in Turkey

Based on the topical life stories of fifteen single mothers from Turkey, this article traces the act of naming as a practice of social and legal boundary making and as a means of undoing patrilineality and to seek acknowledgement for a new maternal family. Analyzing the politics of naming in the stories of these single mothers, this contribution first discusses the stigmatizing aspects of conventional patrilineal and marital family naming in Turkey. It traces changes in the registration of family names, how single mothers decide on the registration of the father’s first name, and their concerns and strategies during these legal, bureaucratic procedures. Whereas family law reform has given more rights to single biological and adoptive mothers, they still remain affected by the emotional aspects of a stigmatized practice. Strategically planning their future and that of their children, one solution is to use naming to merge their maternal families with their own paternal families.