Neeser Nathalie Bettina, Martani Andrea, Provoost Veerle, Pennings Guido, Elger Bernice Simone, De Geyter Christian, Vulliemoz Nicolas, Wangmo Tenzin
Institute for Biomedical Ethics (IBMB), University of Basel, Bernoullistrasse 28, Basel, 4056, Switzerland.
Department of Philosophy and Moral Science, Bioethics Institute Ghent (BIG), Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
BMC Med Ethics. 2025 Jul 11;26(1):95. doi: 10.1186/s12910-025-01259-5.
Child welfare is one of the most important topics when it comes to parenting competence and the definition of good parenthood. This is widely discussed, especially in the context of treatment considerations for medically assisted reproduction (MAR) for patients of Advanced Parental Age (APA, here defined as 40 years and older). The aim of this study is to contribute to the exploration of how different stakeholders in this context envision the concept of good parenthood.
An explorative semi-structured interview study was conducted with a total of 15 healthcare providers, 12 aspiring APA-parents, 21 APA-parents and 20 adult offspring of APA-parents.
After thematic analysis, results show that although the connecting focal point among participant groups is reproductive age, participants consistently emphasized that APA is not a determining factor to define a "good" parent. Instead, we identified three themes representing participants' views on this topic: (i) the difficulties in defining good parenthood; (ii) the family structure and context as inherent to parenting quality; and (iii) good parents as conscious adapters.
Participants expressed their views that good parenthood depends on the personality of the parent, rather than on one single characteristic of a parent, such as age. Our results challenge the focus on a singular parental characteristic in safeguarding the welfare of future children and therefore also the role currently attributed to parental age in decisions about access to MAR.
在育儿能力和良好父母身份的定义方面，儿童福利是最重要的话题之一。这一话题得到了广泛讨论，尤其是在针对高龄父母（此处定义为40岁及以上）患者的医学辅助生殖（MAR）治疗考量背景下。本研究的目的是助力探索在这种背景下不同利益相关者如何设想良好父母身份的概念。
开展了一项探索性半结构化访谈研究，共访谈了15名医疗保健提供者、12名有意愿成为高龄父母的人、21名高龄父母以及20名高龄父母的成年子女。
经过主题分析，结果显示尽管参与群体之间的联系焦点是生育年龄，但参与者一致强调高龄并非定义“好”父母的决定性因素。相反，我们确定了代表参与者对该主题看法的三个主题：（i）定义良好父母身份的困难；（ii）家庭结构和背景是育儿质量的固有因素；（iii）好父母是有意识的适应者。
参与者表达了他们的观点，即良好的父母身份取决于父母的个性，而非父母的单一特征，如年龄。我们的研究结果挑战了在保障未来儿童福利时对单一父母特征的关注，因此也挑战了目前在决定是否获得医学辅助生殖时赋予父母年龄的作用。
