Choosing Children

Prospective parents who fail to get pregnant using these technologies frequently consider adoption of infants or foster children as an alternative but can then encounter various obstacles as well. Many infertility patients investigate adoption as a backup plan, offering hope. But they face quandaries of how long to keep trying in vitro fertilization before pursuing this alternative or accepting childlessness—whether having a biologically unrelated child is better than not having a child at all. Varied financial, administrative, and other logistical obstacles to adoption can prove daunting. Adopting babies from both the United States and abroad has become harder. Due to costs and trade-offs, many individuals consider but finally reject these options.

Birth order does not affect ability to detect kin

Previous studies suggest that birth order affects kinship detection ability. Kaminski et al. (2010) argued that firstborns use contextual cues (e.g. maternal perinatal association) to assess kinship in their own family, leading to a disadvantage in assessing kinship from facial cues alone in strangers. In contrast, laterborns do not have the contextual cue of maternal perinatal association and hence rely more on facial cues, leading to an advantage in detecting kin from facial cues alone. However, Alvergne et al. (2010) found no evidence in support of such a birthorder effect. The current study aimed to replicate previous studies with better suited methods to determine the effect of birth order on kin recognition. 109 raters viewed 132 pairs of photographs of children (aged 3-17 years), and indicated whether each pair was related or unrelated. Half of the pairs were sibling pairs and half were unrelated child pairs that were age- and gender- matched to the related pairs. No image was shown more than once, related pairs were not known to be related to any other image in the study, and individuals from unrelated pairs were not known to be related to any other image. We used binomial logistic mixed effects modelling to predict kinship judgments from relatedness and birth order (with image pair and rater as random factors). Relatedness was the main factor driving kinship judgments; related child-pairs were more than twice as likely as unrelated pairs to be judged as kin. Kinship judgment accuracy was unaffected by rater birth order. These findings indicate that laterborns did not have an advantage in detecting child sibling pairs.

Birth Order Does Not Affect Ability to Detect Kin

Previous studies suggest that birth order affects kinship detection ability. Kaminski et al. (2010) argued that firstborns use contextual cues (e.g., maternal perinatal association) to assess kinship in their own family, leading to a disadvantage in assessing kinship from facial cues alone in strangers. In contrast, laterborns do not have the contextual cue of maternal perinatal association and hence rely more on facial cues, leading to an advantage in detecting kin from facial cues alone. However, Alvergne et al. (2010) found no evidence in support of such a birthorder effect. The current study aimed to replicate previous studies with better suited methods to determine the effect of birth order on kin recognition. 109 raters viewed 132 pairs of photographs of children (aged 3–17 years), and indicated whether each pair was related or unrelated. Half of the pairs were sibling pairs and half were unrelated child pairs that were age- and gender- matched to the related pairs. No image was shown more than once, related pairs were not known to be related to any other image in the study, and individuals from unrelated pairs were not known to be related to any other image. We used binomial logistic mixed effects modelling to predict kinship judgments from relatedness and birth order (with image pair and rater as random factors). Relatedness was the main factor driving kinship judgments; related child-pairs were more than twice as likely as unrelated pairs to be judged as kin. Kinship judgment accuracy was unaffected by rater birth order. These findings indicate that laterborns did not have an advantage in detecting child sibling pairs. Pre-registration, data, code, and preprint available at osf.io/h43ep.

Twins Reared Apart: A Forgotten Case / Twin Research Reviews: X-Inactivation and Female Co-Twin Discordance for Hemophilia; Transplantation for Breast Reconstruction; Chimerism and Telomere Attrition in Dizygotic Twins; Divergent Life Histories in Twins Reared Apart / Current Concerns: High ACT-Scoring Twins; Dating a Twin; When Gender Identities Diverge / The Holland Twins

A forgotten story of monozygotic twins reared apart is described. The pair, born in 1941 in Fribourg, Switzerland, were separated due to switch-baby incident in the hospital. This caused one twin to be raised as a singleton by an unrelated family, and the other twin to be raised as a ‘dizygotic’ twin with an unrelated child. This is followed by reviews of recent twin research and case studies of X-inactivation and hemophilia, breast reconstruction, chimerism and life histories. The final section of the article includes human interest pieces on academic twins, dating twins, transsexual twins and athletic twins.

‘One in, One Out’?: The Dilemma of having Multiple Children in Foster Placements

Practitioners in a specialist service for looked after children and their carers have indicated a tendency for children to be placed in households where there are multiple foster children. This has led to concern that previously settled children's placements were disrupting following the introduction of a new child into the household. A file audit was conducted to gather information regarding the incidence of disruption and the contributing factors, as reported in clients' files. While the study reported here by Germaine Ingley and Louise Earley did not show a high rate of movement into placements, it did indicate that when a new child was moved into the home of an already ‘established’ child, the ‘established’ child's placement often disrupted. In addition, qualitative information obtained from files and letters revealed that conflicts with another child in placement, either a sibling or unrelated child, was the most frequently cited factor associated with disruption. Attachment literature and ideas from the study of adoptive families and sibling relationships in birth families are drawn upon to explain these findings, and recommendations are made to lessen the potential difficulties associated with the multiple placements of children in foster homes.