Children's Views of Family Relationships in Lesbian-Led Families

We present a new genogram technique for exploring children's conceptualization of family membership: the Apple Tree Family (ATF). The ATF measure was used to investigate how children born to lesbian mothers via donor insemination (DI) described the composition of their family. Data were gathered from 17 children (age 4 to 11 years old) from 15 lesbian-led households on inclusion of family members on the ATF and the Kinetic Family Drawing Test (KFDT) (Burns & Kaufman, 1971). Also, data on children's inclusion of family members on the ATF were compared with family composition as described by adult family members in a prior interview. Child and adult family members tended to concur on who was in their family, depicting a core unit surrounded by a wider family network that included non-biological and biological kin. In comparison to the KFDT, the ATF enabled children to depict a greater number of family members in a wider variety of non-traditional family relationships. We propose that the ATF is useful as a research and clinical tool for working with the children of GLBTQ parents.

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