Social versus biological parenting: Family functioning and the socioemotional development of children conceived by egg or sperm donation

By investigating egg donation families, donor insemination families, adopti ve families, and families created by in vitro fertilization, the aim of the present study was to examine parents' emotional well-being, the quality of parenting, and childrens' socioemotional development in families with a ch ild who is genetically unrelated to the mother or the father. The differenc es that were found to exist between families according to the presence or a bsence of genetic ties between parents and their children reflected greater psychological well-being among mothers and fathers in families where there was no genetic link between the mother and the child. The families did not differ with respect to the quality of parenting or the psychological adjus tment of the child.