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

ABSTRACT: 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 comp

SUBMITTER: Farr RH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7141157 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature