Transition to Parenthood in Adoptive Families

The transition to adoptive parenthood was investigated in a short-term longitudinal study exploring preadoption/prenatal parental expectations and postadoption/postnatal parental experiences. Ss were 104 Israeli first-time adoptive and biological parent couples. Also investigated was the extent to which individual and contextual antecedents assessed by questionnaires in the expectancy period predicted parental experiences when the infants were 4 months old. Adoptive parents had more positive expectations and reported more satisfying experiences in their transition to parenthood than did biological parents. The predictors of parental experiences were parental expectations and depressive mood for both groups, ego-strength for the biological parents, and feelings of deprivation, social support, and self-concept for the adoptive parents. Results suggest that the processes underlying the transition to parenthood in adoptive and biological families differ.