Parent Attachment in Sexual or Gender Minority Families

Suggested Citation: Kaur, N. (2021, June 30). Parent Attachment in Sexual or Gender Minority Families. Queer Academia. URL. 

Love is love, no matter what the sex of the Parent

-Navjot Kaur

Attachment is a very normal part of human bonding. Humans form attachments with people, objects and materialistic possessions and essentially anything. But what if we say that it all starts from a child’s early formative years. What if we say that the way a child forms an emotional bond with their primary caregivers in their first couple of years shapes the lens to look at the world and build relationships. This is Bowlby’s Attachment Theory given in 1958 (Bowlby, 169/82). It emphasizes that a child is able to develop a sense of security in life only when the child’s primary caregivers are attentive, available, and responsive to their needs (Barnes et al., 2018). In a nutshell, the child needs to feel secure and connected with their caregiver. It is essential for a child to develop proximity, and to be ensured of care and protection by a dependable caregiver in order to establish a more emotionally secure base. These needs can also be looked at as a child’s evolutionary need for survival where care-giving by parents satisfies biological goals of taking care of their young ones and contributing to maintain the continuity of life on Earth (Bowlby, 169/82). 

Further expansion on Bowlby’s Attachment Theory by other researchers gave 4 types of attachment styles that can be developed between the caregiver and the child. These are namely secure, ambivalent, avoidant and disorganized attachment styles. They were developed based on the groundbreaking “Strange Situation Study”. In this experiment the researchers studied the behavior and response of 12-18 months old children when left alone and later reunited with their mothers. The children with secure attachment styles use this secure base for exploration, are content and show appropriate distress when the care-giver is away. The children with ambivalent attachment styles are anxious, insecure and unfocused. They express concern and seek contact when the care-giver is away but resists angrily when the contact is achieved. Children with avoidant attachment styles show little emotion or distress when the care-giver is away and shows little emotion on reunion. Here the child may express lack of attachment and low self-esteem. In the disorganized attachment styles, the child is disoriented, and confused, often avoiding or resisting the parent which is linked to inconsistent caregiver behavior. Here the parent or the caregiver may be a source of both comfort and fear, thus leading to the child’s disorganized behavior (Lyons-ruth, 1996). These attachment styles have been found to play an important role in the formation of the child’s self-concept (Doyle et al., 2000). For the scope of this article, the writer will discuss attachments and self-concept formation in children of same-sex parents.

Self-concept is one’s knowledge about themselves of who they really are, and what their thoughts and feelings actually are. It is a malleable and dynamic dimension that is influenced by one’s social situations and individual motivation (Bailey, 2003). Carl Rogers, one of the founders of Humanistic Psychology suggests 3 components of self-concept namely self-image, self-esteem and ideal self. Self-image is the way we see ourselves. Self-esteem is how much we value ourselves and Ideal self is the way we want to see ourselves (Rogers, 1959; Vinny, 2020; Cherry, 2021). A high self-concept has also been found to have positive associations with general self-worth (Armsden & Greenberg, 1987).

            Every parent would want their children to grow into securely attached human beings with a high sense of self-concept. However, this is not the case as many children grow up to become adolescents and adults with a low self-worth/self-concept. In everyday life we meet people with huge diversities in personalities that fall on a spectrum on the components of self-concept. For decades, there have been debates against same-sex love and related family rights stating prevalent beliefs that the sexual orientation of the parent could inhibit the children's social and emotional development as fostered between the contexts of parent-child relationships. Studies now point that no significant differences are found on psychiatric diseases and peer problems of children from homosexual and heterosexual households (Golombok et al, 2003). Thus, rejection of two prominent arguments against same-sex families that were based on the fear that children from same-sex families may develop more mental health issues and more peer related problems were rejected. Studies now suggest that “quality of family relationships” play a more important role than the sexual orientation of the parents (Patterson, 2006). Studies also point that the involvement of parents in the child’s upbringing, their ability to provide emotional support, form secure attachments with the child and provide guidance play a more impactful role on the child’s development rather than the sexual orientation of the parents (Golombok et al, 2003; Amato, 1993). The recent studies on same-sex families now show a shift in interest to reinterpreting past studies and exploring the diversities rather than differences brought in from contemporary parenting arrangements.

Major acceptance in same-sex parenting, LGBTQ rights and related family laws have come from the western countries. India is yet to come at par with accepting same-sex love and rights in the country. Though homosexuality was de-criminalized in India in 2018 in a historic ruling for the LGBTQ community, the country still needs to amend its family laws to give rights of adoption, surrogacy, succession, guardianship amongst others that are tied to same-sex marriage which sadly hasn’t been legalized in the country yet (Mehta, 2021). 

References:

Amato, P. R. (1993). "Children's Adjustment to Divorce: Theories, Hypotheses, and Empirical Support." Journal of Marriage and the Family, 55, 23-38.

Barnes, G.L., Woolgar, M., Beckwith, H. & Duschinsky, R. (2018). John Bowlby and contemporary issues of clinical diagnosis. Attachment (Lond). 12(1), 35-47.

Bailey, J. A. (2003). Self-image, self-concept, and self-identity revisited. J Natl Med Assoc. 95(5), 383-386.

Baumle, A.K. & Compton, D.R. (2015). Legalizing LGBT families: How the law shapes parenthood. New York, New York University Press.

Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss, 1. Attachment. New York: Hogarth Press.

Cherry, K. (2021). What is self-esteem?. VeryWell Mind. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-self-esteem-2795868#:~:text=In%20psychology%2C%20the%20term%20self,yourself%20regardless%20of%20the%20circumstances.&text=Self%2Dconfidence

Doyle, A., Markiewicz, D., Brendgen, M., Lieberman, M. & Voss, K. (2000). Child Attachment Security and Self-Concept: Associations with Mother and Father Attachment Style and Marital Quality. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 46(3), 514-539. Retrieved May 6, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23093743.

Golombok et al, J. (2003). Children with lesbian parents: A community study. Developmental Psychology, 39, 20-33.

Lyons-ruth K. (1996). Attachment relationships among children with aggressive behavior problems: The role of disorganized early attachment patterns. J Consult Clin Psychol. 64(1), 64-73. doi: https:10.1037/0022-006X.64.1.64

Mehta, T. (2021). Where are India’s queer parents? Having a family is not even an option for many Indians. Retrieved from https://theprint.in/opinion/where-are-indias-queer-parents/608267/

Patterson, J. C. (2006). Children of Lesbian and Gay Parents. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15 (5), 241-244. Doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2006.00444.x

Reczek C. (2020). Sexual- and Gender-Minority Families: A 2010 to 2020 Decade in Review. Journal of marriage and the family, 82(1), 300–325. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12607.

Rogers, C. (1959). A theory of therapy, personality and interpersonal relationships as developed in the client-centered framework. In (ed.) S. Koch, Psychology: A study of a science. Vol. 3: Formulations of the person and the social context. New York: McGraw Hill.

Shaver, P. & Fraley, R. (2000). Attachment Theory and Caregiving. Psychological Inquiry, 11(2), 109-114. Retrieved May 6, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1449026.

Vinney, C. (2020). What Is Self-Concept in Psychology? Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/self-concept-psychology-4176368

Written by: Navjot Kaur

Reviewed by: Smriti Gupta, Kanav Sahgal

About the Author: Navjot has recently completed her Masters in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. She is interested in working and bringing change at the grassroot level. In her spare time, she likes to explore the world and meet new people through books and movies. She also loves to travel and is saving up for her next adventure.