IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v61y2005i6p1300-1309.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Resemblance talk: A challenge for parents whose children were conceived with donor gametes in the US

Author

Listed:
  • Becker, Gay
  • Butler, Anneliese
  • Nachtigall, Robert D.

Abstract

The normative folk model of kinship in the US continues to attach great significance to "blood" relationships. These implicit genetic links are commonly reinforced through observations about a child's physical similarity to parents or other family members, i.e., "resemblance talk". This paper explores the meanings of resemblance and resemblance talk for parents drawing on semi-structured interviews with 148 heterosexual couples who had used a donor gamete to conceive at least one living child. For parents of children conceived with donor eggs or sperm, resemblance talk represents the ongoing threat that comments about physical appearance could stigmatize their children or cast doubt on the legitimacy of their family structure. Furthermore, these concerns were present regardless of whether a sperm or egg donor had been used and irrespective of the parents' disclosure decision, i.e., whether or not their children were told of the true nature of their conception. Parents found that resemblance talk was not only ubiquitous, unavoidable, and uncontrollable, but it also had the capacity to exacerbate ongoing uncertainties about their disclosure decision (or lack of one), worries about establishing their child within the extended family, and apprehension that insensitive remarks could make the child feel different from other family members. As a result, many couples spent considerable energy developing a variety of strategies for managing resemblance talk that included genetic plausibility arguments, "passing", and strategic silence. We conclude that parents of children conceived with a donor address and contest normative definitions of kinship and family, including stigma and otherness, resist challenges to the family they have created, and, to some extent, rework their allegiance to cultural norms to suit their own needs. Because resemblance talk and disclosure decisions are frequently tied to each other, it is likely that if the public were more accepting of difference, parents would likely feel more comfortable with disclosure. Yet resemblance talk may make it more difficult for parents to disclose, not easier, as long as attitudes about the implicit primacy of genetic connectedness prevail.

Suggested Citation

  • Becker, Gay & Butler, Anneliese & Nachtigall, Robert D., 2005. "Resemblance talk: A challenge for parents whose children were conceived with donor gametes in the US," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(6), pages 1300-1309, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:61:y:2005:i:6:p:1300-1309
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(05)00054-7
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Birenbaum-Carmeli, Daphna & Carmeli, Yoram S., 2002. "Physiognomy, familism and consumerism: preferences among Jewish-Israeli recipients of donor insemination," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 363-376, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Friese, Carrie & Becker, Gay & Nachtigall, Robert D., 2006. "Rethinking the biological clock: Eleventh-hour moms, miracle moms and meanings of age-related infertility," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(6), pages 1550-1560, September.
    2. Nicky Hudson, 2017. "Making ‘Assisted World Families’? Parenting Projects and Family Practices in the Context of Globalised Gamete Donation," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 22(2), pages 48-58, May.
    3. Grace, Victoria M. & Daniels, Ken R. & Gillett, Wayne, 2008. "The donor, the father, and the imaginary constitution of the family: Parents' constructions in the case of donor insemination," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 301-314, January.
    4. Stephen Whyte & Benno Torgler, 2015. "Selection criteria in the search for a sperm donor: behavioural traits versus physical appearance," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 151-171, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Birenbaum-Carmeli, Daphna, 2009. "The politics of 'The Natural Family' in Israel: State policy and kinship ideologies," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(7), pages 1018-1024, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:61:y:2005:i:6:p:1300-1309. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.