Within the last week there was a post to the DonorMisconception Yahoo Group regarding a comment made by a member of a British research team that had recently published a study dealing with the psychological impact on kids conceived via DC. The study itself was one comparing DE kids to DI kids in their psychological development. The post actually centered on the readers reaction to a commentary piece written by one of the researchers of that study. The researcher had concluded her commentary with a statement that "these non-disclosing families are producing well-adjusted adolescents shows that there is more to parenting than sharing information about genetic origins". The reader was concerned that the researcher was ignoring the importance of honesty in disclosing to the DI kids their origins etc.
I have brought this all up not to discuss the merits of disclosure of not but rather because it brought me back to my desire to find a study dealing with assessing the psychological assessment of how individuals changing ages and maturity affect their views of their conception via DI or DE. I find many studies (most somewhat stale) dealing with parental views of disclosure (a, b), studies dealing with parents of young school age kids, and studies dealing with adult views but few if any looking at the topic on a truly long range scale. The Sperm bank of California appears to be headed in the right direction regarding such a long range study. I found each of these links just by "Googling" the terms "Studies" and "Donor Insemination".
It seems to me that disclosing early leads to well adjusted kids during their early years and into adolescence but after that there is no little statistically significant research out there taking the question to those middle years between adolescence through young adulthood. I have opined before that I believe most people's views change at each point in their life where identity issues abound and it appears that the views developed at young adulthood can have the most profound effect on lifetime views.
The British DC Network has a great video titled "A Different Story" where several DI conceived kids and adolescents comment how DI has not adversely affected their views of who they are and all seems like well adjusted kids anybody would be happy to claim as their own kids. I truly hope the DC Network follow these kids and ask their views again when they each hit their early to mid 20s and that they find the same reactions.
I think this study is flawed also because of the fact that many if not most donor conceived people (like adoptees) feel that they still have to protect their parents and in admitting that they want more information or to search for other family members opens a whole can of worms.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't until i was at least 20 that i started to think about the broader and more serious implications about my conception, and i suspect that many of these "well adjusted" teens will come to question their situation more over time.
I also read recently of adoptees (i can find the quote if you like) that many adoptees say they do not wish to search and that they are "happy" when in actual fact acting in such a way is a coping mechanism. I know this is certainly true for me, i have been saying so for a few years... however now i can see there are definate paralells with adoption in this regard.
The study by Turner & Coyle highlights the issues much better in terms of talking to DC people who are older.