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Successful Homosexual
Families |
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Children Of Lesbian Couples Are Doing
Well, Study Finds
A study of families in the Netherlands indicates that
children raised by lesbian couples “do not differ in well being or child
adjustment compared with their counterparts in heterosexual-parent
families.”
ScienceDaily
Sep. 30, 2007
“The findings in the Dutch study are identical to those in a very large
number of U.S. studies,” said Robert-Jay Green PhD, director of Rockway
Institute, a national center for research and public policy on lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender issues. “Children do well in loving families,
regardless of whether there are two moms or a mom and a dad involved.”
The study was conducted by Henny Bos, Frank van Balen, and Dymphna van den
Boom of the University of Amsterdam.
How the study was conducted
The study involved 100 heterosexual couples and 100 lesbian couples with
children ages 4-8 who were raised by the couple since birth. The number of
boys and girls in each of the comparison groups was almost identical. Child
adjustment and parental characteristics were measured by questionnaires,
family observations by researchers, and diaries kept by the parents
regarding the amounts of time they spent in childrearing, household work, or
paid work outside the home.
Highlights of findings
Among the most interesting findings, lesbian biological mothers were
significantly more satisfied with their partners as a co-parent than were
heterosexual mothers. The partners of lesbian biological mothers “are more
committed as parents than are heterosexual fathers, that is, they display a
higher level of satisfaction with their partner as co-parent and spend more
time on child care and less on employment.”
Lesbian couples were significantly higher on strength of desire to have
children than were heterosexual couples. There were significant differences
in the division of family tasks, with both of the lesbian partners spending
more time on household work and childcare, and less time at work outside the
home, than the heterosexual fathers.
The differences between lesbian mothers and heterosexual fathers seemed to
reflect known differences between women and men as parents rather than
reflecting parents’ sexual orientations.
“These results on lesbian parents pique our curiosity for more data on gay
male parents,” said Green. “Will gay fathers’ parenting styles turn out to
be more like those of heterosexual fathers, heterosexual mothers, or some
combination? One of Rockway’s planned research projects will shed light on
that question in the future.”
Policy implications of the research
From a public policy perspective, the most important aspect of this research
is that it found no significant differences in child adjustment between
family types. In recent years, consistent research findings like these have
led the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychiatric Association,
and American Psychological Association to issue official policy statements
supporting equal treatment of families headed by lesbian and gay parents.
This research was published in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry
(2007, Vol. 77, No. 1, 38-48).
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Lesbian couples raise well-adjusted
teenagers
New Scientist
Nov 04
Teenagers raised by lesbian mothers show no developmental differences
compared to those brought up by heterosexual parents, according to the first
large national study in the US.
Previous research has focused mainly on younger children and found no
significant disparities in child welfare between same-sex and heterosexual
families.
But few studies have been done on adolescents, who some researchers think
may be more prone to - or conscious of - discrimination against their
families. Others have speculated whether a teens' own sexuality is affected
by that of their parents.
"There's been this debate about whether being raised by single-sex couples
is good or bad for children," says Stephen Russell, a sociologist at the
University of Arizona in Tucson, US. "We would call into question
suggestions that growing up with single-sex parents is somehow problematic."
12,000 interviews
Russell and colleagues Charlotte Patterson and Jennifer Wainright at the
University of Virginia in Charlottesville, US, came to this conclusion after
sifting through interviews from 1995 with about 12,000 US teenagers and
their families. The teens were part of the National Longitudinal Study of
Adolescent Health, the largest and most comprehensive study of the age group
in the US.
"This is the best available evidence to date about how adolescent children
fare in families with single-sex parents," Russell told New Scientist.
The researchers found 44 teens being raised by two women in a
"marriage-like" relationship. Only six teens reported living with two gay
men, so male single-sex families were excluded from the study.
Each teen studied was matched with a counterpart from a heterosexual family,
who shared the same sex, age, ethnicity, adoption status and family income,
among other factors.
Same-sex attractions
The researchers found no differences between the two groups in terms of
depression, anxiety, self-esteem and school grades. Exactly the same
proportion of both groups also reported having had sex (34%).
But while a previous study suggested children of gay parents were more
likely to consider homosexual relationships, this study was unable to
provide such information because so few teens reported same-sex attractions
and romances.
The single most important predictor of the teens' well being, the study
showed, was their relationship with parents - regardless of family type.
“What's really important is the quality of the relationship," Russell told
New Scientist.
As a result, the authors write that their findings "provide no justification
for limitations on child custody or visitation by lesbian mothers" and "do
not support the idea that lesbian and gay adults are less likely than others
to provide good adoptive or foster homes".
Russell says future studies could see how the same group of teens fared in
young adulthood.
Journal reference: Child Development (vol 75, p 1886)
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