In a national probability sample of 1,000 children aged 10-17, youth from single parent and stepfamilies experienced higher rates of several different kinds of victimization compared with youth living with two biological parents. Youth in stepfamilies had the highest overall rates of victimization and the greatest risk from family perpetrators, including biological parents, siblings, and steppa...

The “best interests of the child” is the legal standard in custody disputes. It is also the mental health standard. One gets the impression that the court’s job is to implement the recommendations of the experts, but the principle is not the same in law and mental health. The psychiatric expert is limited to determining the psychological best interest; the court considers additional factors in ...

In U.S. law, biological parents are presumed to be fit custodians of their children, and have a natural right to the custody, care and control of their children. Only if there is family disruption, for example, divorce, or a substantiated report of neglect or abuse, will the state intervene in the privacy of the family. It is after custody is disrupted or disputed, “challenged,” as it were, by ...

The role of arginine vasopressin (AVP) in the nongenomic transfer of paternal behavior from fathers to offspring was examined in Peromyscus. Male California mice (P. californicus) exposed to fewer retrievals by white-footed mouse (P. leucopus) foster parents displayed fewer retrievals of biological offspring. In contrast, white-footed mice were retrieved equally rarely by California mouse foste...

The Origins of Intergenerational Associations: Lessons from Swedish Adoption Data We use unique Swedish data to estimate intergenerational associations between adoptees and their biological and adoptive parents. We argue that the impact from biological parents captures broad pre-birth factors, including genes and prenatal environment, and the impact from adoptive parents represents broad post-b...

The Origins of Intergenerational Associations: Lessons from Swedish Adoption Data We use unique Swedish data to estimate intergenerational associations between adoptees and their biological and adoptive parents. We argue that the impact from biological parents captures broad pre-birth factors, including genes and prenatal environment, and the impact from adoptive parents represents broad post-b...

A friend of mine recently questioned my interest in the "Baby Jessica" saga. "Why are you always so fascinated by those stories?" he asked. "They have nothing to do with Black people." By "those stories," he meant the myriad of disputes occupying the headlines that involve biological claims to children. These custody battles test the importance in American law and culture of the genetic tie bet...

Scholars report juveniles residing with both biological parents are at least risk of sexual assault. Judicial, social service, and healthcare practitioners question this discernment. This retrospective investigation.

BACKGROUND Evidence suggests that children living in single-parent or step-parent households are more likely than children in households with 2 biological parents to be prescribed methylphenidate. I conducted a study of prospective data to investigate parental divorce as a predictor of methylphenidate use. METHODS I used data for children who participated in the National Longitudinal Survey o...

The adoption process in our country traditionally has been designed to safeguard the rights of adoptive parents, insure the solidarity of the adoptive family, and preserve the anonymity of the natural parents. To accomplish this, when adoptiomis are finalized, the original birth certificate is “sealed” and a new certificate is issued in the name of the adoptive parents. Once sealed, the laws of...