Parent–child closeness studied in adoptive families

Adults who had been children in families of the Texas Adoption Project rated how emotionally close they had been to their parents. Ratings were obtained via a mail questionnaire from 324 adopted and 149 biological children, and from parents and siblings. On the whole, relationships were judged to have been close rather than distant; parents judged them to have been closer than their children did; biological children were closer to their parents than adopted children; and children closer to their mothers than to their fathers. Self-ratings of childhood closeness were modest predictors of life outcomes such as maturity of personality, educational achievement, and absence of externalizing problems. Father–child similarity in personality was correlated (weakly) with judged closeness, but mother–child similarity was not.