Little is known about openly gay men who elect to conceive and raise children jointly with a heterosexual woman outside of marriage. Drawing on in-depth interviews with nine Israeli gay fathers who are co-parenting with a heterosexual woman, this study examines the factors associated with their unique family choice and the characteristics these men sought in selecting the mother. The findings revealed three key motivations for establishing a hetero-gay family: belief in the essential mother, belief in biological parenting, and the belief that the child's best interests dictate having two parents of the opposite sex. These beliefs, along with seeking co-parents with maternal attributes, reflect traditional attitudes and a wish to reproduce the traditional family. At the same time, however, these men all planned on being "new," actively involved fathers who shoulder child-rearing responsibilities. Possible implications of holding concurrently traditional and progressive attitudes are discussed.
The study presented here considered heterosexual women who chose to conceive and raise children together with gay men outside marriage. In-depth interviews with 10 Israeli mothers who had established hetero-gay families revealed their motivations for choosing this family configuration and the characteristics they sought in the fathers. The findings revealed that the women maintained traditional values with respect to the ideal parental model, two-gender parenting, and the attributes they sought for the coparents of their children. Rather than overtly challenge institutional patriarchy, these women chose to establish an alternative family that circumvented patriarchal impositions.
The purpose of this article is to understand how Mexican parents' perceive their voices (their concerns, dissatisfaction, and opinions) as integrated in child welfare cases and what factors hinder or promote this process. The focus is on parents' interactions with their child welfare worker during routine monthly home visits. Nineteen parents, with a history of immigration, participated in in-depth interviews for this qualitative study. Grounded theory methods were used to complete the content analysis. The findings indicate that there are three principal factors that affect parents' decisions to exercise their voice: 1) parent's perceptions of how workers received their voice; 2) case context, including immigration status and fear of loosing children; and 3) the lack of parental knowledge and understanding of the child welfare case process and support/advocacy agents. Recommendations include utilizing empowerment models and culturally grounded practices that facilitate the integration of parents' voices in the parentworker interactions and case process, and continued support for peer support interventions and formal forms of advocacy.
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