This article is devoted to the problem of gender identity formation in children from single-parent and nuclear families in the process of socialization. In contemporary Russia such phenomena as blurred gender roles, destruction of the value of the traditional family, common mastering of professions traditionally associated with the opposite sex have caused distortion of children's understanding of the masculinity - femininity concept. Children from single-parent families find it especially difficult understand the formation of the ideas of masculinity, femininity, female and male roles and the behavioural patterns in society. Children raised in single-parent households can often be characterized by an emotional alienation from the male parent and the formation of a symbiotic relationship with the female parent. The results of our empirical research have shown that teenagers must have close emotionally stable relationships with both the male and female parents in order to develop a harmonious adaptive functional gender identity. However, single parenting does not necessarily cause destructive consequences for a child's identity, and dysfunctional relationships may emerge in a nuclear family, too. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published Elsevier Ltd.