What determines parenthood? The advent of IVF and the rapid growth of reproductive technologies have challenged the significance historically associated with biological relationships. It is now possible for a child to have many different people in the role of genetic, gestational, nurturing or legal parent and for the formation of many novel types of families. While frequently some or all of these roles are combined, it is now possible for someone to be a ‘parent’ in one sense, without necessarily taking on the obligations and rights associated with parenthood in a moral sense. Despite the expanded options for constructing families and the proliferation of novel arrangements for raising children, the essential feature of what it means to be a ‘real parent’ and to have a child of ‘one’s own’ is often grounded in the transmission of genes. This thesis examines the claim that genes define ‘moral’ parenthood. It investigates whether or not genetic relatedness is morally weighty in determining which individuals incur obligations for and rights over children. My thesis adopts a novel approach to address this question. It combines the analysis of both people’s views as captured through a qualitative study and those found in philosophical literature relating to the moral significance of genetic parenthood. I design and conduct a study to capture more directly the meanings that people attach to passing on their genes, which acts as a starting point for identifying and evaluating possible arguments about the moral relevance of genetic parenthood. I then analyse the principles imbedded in the participants’ views in light of the current philosophical literature.

Thèse (M.Ps.) -- Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, en association avec Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, 2003. / Bibliogr.: f. [92]-109. Document électronique également accessible en format PDF. CaQCU

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Auburn University, 2009. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-95).

Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

This longitudinal study investigated how parent, child, and family characteristics influence each other during the transition to parenthood. Participants were 98 cohabiting couples who were expecting their first child. Couples participated in data collection during the third trimester of pregnancy and again when their children were one and two years old. This study aimed to understand how family dynamics and individual characteristics of parents and children influence child adjustment during the first years after the transition to parenthood, to explore the relationship between mothers’ and fathers’ parenting, and to clarify how mothers’ and fathers’ perceptions of important family constructs are related during this important time. Key constructs are introduced including co-parenting alliance, parenting efficacy, temperament, ineffective parenting, and child adjustment. A review of literature aims to provide conceptual clarity among these interrelated constructs that are instrumental in early family life. Drawing from the literature review, a conceptual model grounded in family systems theory is introduced in which co-parenting, parenting competence, and child temperament predict parenting practices, which in turn interact with child temperament to predict child adjustment. Child adjustment was measured in terms of internalizing and externalizing behaviours as rated by parents. Ineffective parenting was measured in terms of self-reported lax and over-reactive parenting strategies. To investigate the relationships among mothers’ and fathers’ perceptions of these variables, confirmatory factor analyses were used to test whether parents’ individual ratings on measures were indicators of a broader couple level construct. To explore the impact of parenting on child outcomes, models were tested looking at lax parenting, over-reactive parenting, and ‘see-saw parenting’, which occurs when parents use both lax and over-reactive strategies. Temperament was tested as a moderator of the effects of each of these parenting styles on child outcomes. Regarding significant findings, low parenting efficacy, difficult temperament, and over-reactive parenting were found to be the most important predictors of later behaviour problems for children, with some differences in predictors of internalizing and externalizing behaviours and some different risk factors for mothers and fathers. Ineffective parenting occurred more often for parents who perceived their infants to have difficult temperaments and for parents who felt less confident about their parenting skills. Some results were inconsistent with previous research findings. These discrepant findings are discussed. Additional exploratory analyses found that parenting efficacy mediated the relationship between difficult temperament and over-reactive parenting. Implications for research and clinical applications are discussed. / Graduate

abstract: Above all else, this project is about parentage in the modern American legal system and culture. Advanced reproductive technologies require our courts to reconsider the long-standing presumption that a child has only one female mother and one male father. We now have children of choice, rather than chance. Assisted Reproductive Technology and its widespread availability and use and changed the landscape of parentage maybe forever. And the children of such efforts remain largely unprotected by our current legal system that favors reproduction by chance within a recognized marriage or at the least, a traditional two-parent paradigm. However, assisted reproduction calls into question the current legal framework for determinations of parentage based in marriage and/or biology. Based on a long and convoluted history, our current legal system conflates marriage and parentage. Moreover, in many circumstances the law restricts both the number and gender of the parties to a marriage or possible parents. One of the more compelling historical and still salient justifications for doing so is to accord the "Best Interest of the Child" standard which purports to underpin all such determinations. Unfortunately, that standard cannot best be met when weighed in a balance against a constitutionally protected exclusive right to parent vested in an adult either by a determination of a genetic link to the child or marriage to another parent. Children of choice, who result from the affirmative and purposive engagement in assisted reproduction, should be entitled to the same protections as children of chance born to a man and woman who are married. Once we look beyond marriage and biology as determiners of parentage, a better way for our legal system to serve the best interests of children, and their parents, is to identify and protect those adult relationships that are parental in nature and that benefit the child irrespective of a marriage between parents or genetic links to the child. Fortunately, the tools to accomplish this paradigm shift already are in existence. The expansion of our commonly used definitions and broader view of our current statutes will allow the legal system to better protect both children of choice and children of chance by making better parentage determinations. To that end, this project also takes on the ambitious task of praxis; of applying the theories to the law as it stands and demonstrating how the new paradigm might look as it is implemented with all of its far-reaching tentacles. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Justice Studies 2012

This is a film practice PhD investigating how selfhood, love and responsibility within couple and family units are conveyed, imagined or problematized in contemporary cinema and how the properties of screen fiction can be used to explore contemporary parental experience. The research project incorporates an original feature screenplay (Nuclear) and short film (Inhabit) which were developed in parallel to, and informed by, the theoretical research in the accompanying critical thesis. Chapter One explores how parenthood, with an emphasis on motherhood, might be imagined by non or aspiring parents, and what anxieties or desires are expressed through these imaginings. Miranda July’s The Future (2010) and Joanna Hogg’s Unrelated (2006) are placed in dialogue with Inhabit (2014) in an examination of the slippage of generational identity experienced by the characters as they struggle with the prospect of impending or denied parenthood. Chapter Two concentrates of evocations of the everyday as it intersects with stories of family life. Drawing from cultural theorists of the everyday including Giard, de Certeau and Highmore, I examine why and how we might attend to the everyday on screen. Taking Henri Lefebvre’s notion of ‘rhythmanalysis’ as a tool with which to analyse Michael Winterbottom’s Everyday (2012), Joanna Hogg’s Archipelago (2010) and Nuclear, I explore how rhythm and patterns of repetition and difference can embody and communicate experiences of domestic relationships and the everyday. In Chapter Three, I analyse spectator engagement via character, and look at how Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation (2011), Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale (2005) and Nuclear utilise a multi-protagonist structure to create a democracy within the narrative. Through a symbiotic approach to theory and practice and a focus on British middle-class subjects, I have sought to investigate parallel drives within couple and family units and to accomplish a balance between the demands of drama and a desire to describe the everyday.

The topic of the diploma thesis is the determination of parenthood in the light of the current status of reproductive medicine. The importance of reproductive medicine is increasing in contemporary society in connection with the growing number of people suffering from infertility. Many infertile couples who have undergone reproductive medicine treatment have become parents through these methods. The question of legal parenthood in connection with the issue of assisted reproduction is the core part of the diploma thesis. The diploma thesis aims to perform a legal analysis of the determination of parenthood to a child born through assisted conception, to point out possible shortcomings in legal regulation and to recommend legislative amendments from the perspective of de lege ferenda. The first chapter explores effective legal regulation of maternity and paternity determination, defining the fundamental kinds of parenthood, because biological, genetic, social and legal parenthood should not be confused. The second chapter deals with assisted reproduction, which specifically manipulates human gametes. Attention is drawn to international and national legal regulation, including the question of legal parenthood of a child that has been conceived in this way. The next part of the thesis deals with...

No Brasil, assim como em vários países do mundo, a adoção é reconhecida histórica, social, jurídica e psicologicamente como um modo a partir do qual se pode dar a constituição familiar e uma forma de inserção da criança em família substituta, especialmente aquela criança que, por uma série de motivos, se encontra impossibilitada de conviver com sua família de origem. Muito se tem produzido cientificamente sobre a temática da adoção, sobretudo nas áreas da Psicologia, Psicanálise, Psiquiatria e Direito. Contudo, verificamos uma escassez de pesquisas que abordam o universo da adoção na perspectiva do adulto adotado. Com o objetivo de dar voz a este público e compreender como se dá o exercício de parentalidade daquele que no passado foi abandonado ou entregue em adoção, vinculamo-nos à pesquisa qualitativa fenomenológica enquanto metodologia e à psicanálise winnicottiana enquanto referencial teórico interpretativo. Os depoimentos de nossos colaboradores foram obtidos a partir da entrevista fenomenológica e, para serem incluídos em nosso processo de análise, os depoimentos colhidos tiveram que se apresentar como portadores dessas características: ser significante, pertinente, relevante, referente, provocante, suficiente. Por não corresponderem a essas exigências do discurso fenomenológico, das doze entrevistas realizadas somente oito foram aproveitadas e, desta forma, cinco mulheres e três homens se constituíram como nossos colaboradores. Os depoimentos foram integralmente transcritos e analisados conforme os passos da proposta metodológica escolhida, ou seja: leitura e re-leitura global de todos os discursos; discriminação das unidades de significado; transformação em linguagem psicológica e elaboração das categorias; e síntese das unidades de significado. Para a compreensão dos depoimentos, estabelecemos parceria com a psicanálise winnicottiana, cujos conceitos e teorias iluminaram nosso processo de análise compreensiva e interpretativa das categorias e subcategorias, a saber: 1) a relação com a família biológica; 2) a relação com a família adotiva; 3) a experiência de saber-se ou sentir-se \"abandonado\"; 4) adoção: o céu ?; 4.1) significados da adoção; 4.2) o segredo na adoção e o impacto da revelação; 5) exercício de parentalidade. Os resultados apontam para o fato de que nossos colaboradores, sentindo-se subjetivamente marcados pela experiência do abandono, da rejeição e da adoção - nem sempre administrada de forma adequada pelos adotantes, sobretudo no que diz respeito à questão \"segredo X revelação\" em torno da história de vida e origem do adotado - atuam em seus relacionamentos interpessoais, conjugalidades e exercício de parentalidade, apresentando-se como pessoas altruístas, abnegadas e significativamente sensíveis ao sofrimento ou demandas de atenção vindas daqueles com os quais convivem, esforçando-se para atendê-los e, desta forma, evitando-lhes a experiência da frustração, ao passo que assim, também evitam que estes (que podem ser amigos, parceiros, pais, filhos, etc.) os rejeitem ou discriminem afetivamente. No exercício de parentalidade demonstram-se extremamente zelosos e amorosos, e, por isso, freqüentemente correndo o risco da superproteção. Por elegerem a parentalidade como prioridade dentro da estrutura familiar que construíram a partir de seus relacionamentos afetivo-sexuais (casamento, por exemplo), vivenciam dificuldades no aspecto da conjugalidade, pois se dirigem mais quantitativa e qualitativamente aos filhos do que a seus parceiros(as). / In Brazil, as well as in several other countries, adoption is historically, socially, legally and psychologically recognized as a way from which the constitution of a family can be originated, and as a way of insertion of a child in a substitute family, especially for a child that, for a number of reasons, finds him/herself unable to live together with his/her family of origin. A lot has been scientifically produced about the theme of adoption, above all in the areas of Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Psychiatry and Law. However, a lack of researches that approach the universe of adoption from the perspective of the adopted adult can be observed. Aiming to give voice to this public and to understand how the exercise of parenthood develops for those who were abandoned in the past or delivered to adoption, this research is linked to phenomenological qualitative research in its methods, and to the winnicottian psychoanalysis in its interpretative theoretical reference. The testimonials of our participants were obtained from a phenomenological interview, and, in order to be included in our analysis process, the chosen ones had to contain the following characteristics: meaningfulness, pertinence, relevance, reference, provocativeness, sufficiency. Because there was not any correspondence to the requirements of the phenomenological discourse, only eight out of the twelve interviews realized were considered, and, this way, five women and three men became the participants of this study. The testimonials were fully transcript and analyzed according to steps of the chosen methodological proposal, which means: global reading and re-reading of all the speeches; discrimination of the units of meaning; alteration to psychological language and elaboration of the categories; and synthesis of the units of meaning. For comprehension of the testimonials, a partnership with the winnicottian psychoanalysis was established, which subsided concepts and theories that guided our process of comprehensive and interpretative analysis of the categories and subcategories, as follows: 1) the relationship with the biological family; 2) the relationship with the adoptive family; 3) the experience of finding and feeling him/herself \"abandoned\"; 4) adoption: is it paradise?; 4.1) the meaning of adoption; 4.2) the secret of adoption and the impact of the revelation; 5) the exercise of parenthood. The results point to the fact that the participants, feeling themselves subjectively affected by the experience of abandonment, rejection and adoption - not always managed in an adequate way by the adopters on what concerns the \"secret versus revelation\" issue, especially about the story of life and origin of the adopted - act in their interpersonal relationships, conjugalities and exercise of parenthood, presenting themselves as unselfish, abnegated and deeply sensitive people to the suffering or attention demand from those whom they live with, striving to satisfy them, and, this way, avoiding the experience of frustration, thus, also avoiding that these people (that can be friends, partners, parents, children, etc.) reject or discriminate them affectively. In the exercise of their parenthood, they demonstrate to be extremely careful and loving, and, thus, often risking to be overprotective. Electing parenthood as a priority in the family structure that was built based on their affectivesexual relationships (marriage, for instance), they experience difficulties in the conjugality aspect, since they are more quantitatively and qualitatively driven to their children than to their partners.