Why Parenthood, and Why Now?: Gay Men’s Motivatns for Pursug Parenthood - PMC

Contents:

• WHY PARENTHOOD, AND WHY NOW?: GAY MEN’S MOTIVATNS FOR PURSUG PARENTHOOD
• INSPIRATNAL GAY QUOT & SAYGS
• GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• 60 PRI MONTH QUOT, GAY AND LGBT QUOT
• REVIEWSOCIAL PSYCHOLOGIL ASPECTS OF GAY INTY VELOPMENT

WHY PARENTHOOD, AND WHY NOW?: GAY MEN’S MOTIVATNS FOR PURSUG PARENTHOOD

" — David Carter, "Stonewall: The Rts That Sparked the Gay Revolutn""Every sgle Amerin — gay, straight, lbian, bisexual, transgenr — every sgle Amerin serv to be treated equally the ey of the law and the ey of our society. “I was always straddlg the two very different worlds, ” Taylor said, “one where I had LGBTQ iends who were g out the theater partment and beg treated wh digny and rpect, and the other where I had teammat g homophobic and sexist language. Published fal eded form as:PMCID: PMC3341136NIHMSID: NIHMS329291AbstractThe current qualative study of 35 pre-adoptive gay male upl (70 men) examed gay men’s motivatns to parent and their reasons for pursug parenthood at the current time.

Men named age, fanc, and relatnship factors, as well as unique ntextual factors such as the need to fd and move to gay-iendly neighborhoods, as fluencg their reads to pursue parenthood at the current time. Keywords: gay men, life urse, motivatns, parenthood, social nstctnist, qualativeGay men have long been stereotyped as unterted children and parentg (see Mallon, 2004) and yet empiril rearch do not support the stereotyp. Of urse, this is not to say that gay parenthood is universally accepted: A 2003 Gallup poll found that 49% of Amerins said that same-sex upl should have the legal right to adopt, whereas 48% said they should not (Robison, 2003).

INSPIRATNAL GAY QUOT & SAYGS

Dpe gay men’s creased tert and enactment of parenthood (Goldberg, 2010), particularly through adoptn (Gat et al., 2007), no rearch has explicly examed gay men’s motivatns to parent. Given the highly tentnal and time-nsumg nature of beg parents for gay men (Downg, Richardson, Kkler, & Goldberg, 2009), also of tert are the factors that fluence the timg of parenthood for gay men. We aim to extend prr rearch by focg specifilly on motivatns to parent among gay men who were the procs of adoptg their first first discs the general rearch on motivatns for parenthood.

In turn, seems likely that gay men’s stat as sexual mori, as well as their adoptive stat, may ultimately shape how they make sense of their parental sir and motivatns (e. (Smock & Greenland, 2010) and gay parenthood is not the anomaly once was (Goldberg, 2010), gay men do not necsarily receive enuragement or support for their parental sir – ntrast to heterosexual men and women, for whom parenthood is often expected, if not pulsory. Insomuch as the life urse of dividuals is shaped by the historil tim and plac they experience across their life urse (Elr, 1998), follows that many gay men -- such as the men the sample, who were, on average, their late 30’s, and had entered young adulthood and begun to “e out” durg the 1980s -- are exposed to prevailg disurs that equate heterosexualy wh parenthood and homosexualy wh childlsns (Mallon, 2004).

Th, orr to bee parents, men who are exposed to this master narrative mt ultimately reject and beg to envisn an alternative realy for themselv, a task that may be facilated or nstraed by the people that they meet and other social fluenc (Elr, 1998), gay men who wish to bee parents may enunter ristance om both wh and outsi of the gay muny.

GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Furthermore, the hoeholds of gay men who seek to adopt are often prumed ficient by virtue of the fact that they typilly lack a female parental figure (Mallon, 2004) heteronormative bias create a challengg climate for gay male upl who wish to bee adoptive parents, and ntribute to the barriers that gay men enunter the adoptn procs. The barriers are well-documented the rearch lerature; much of the rearch on gay male adoptive parents has foced on the challeng that they enunter their efforts to bee parents (Mallon, 2004; Matthews & Cramer, 2006).

Studi have examed gay men’s experienc navigatg stutnal barriers such as discrimatory state laws and homophobic adoptn workers (Hicks, 2006; Matthews & Cramer, 2006) as well as terpersonal barriers, such as disuragement om fay and iends (Mallon, 2004). E., the pull toward parenthood), spe their exposure to numero barriers the adoptn procs, many gay men do bee parents, perhaps part due to their high motivatn to parent and to adopt specifilly. Th, gay men who have chosen adoptn may exprs unique motivatns to parent which are shaped by their tersectg inti as prospective parents, generally, and as adopters, specifilly.

E., via surrogacy) is accsible to most gay men, due to s high st (Berkowz & Marsigl, 2007); for many gay men, adoptn is viewed as “the” route to parenthood (Goldberg, 2010).

60 PRI MONTH QUOT, GAY AND LGBT QUOT

Fally, gay men may also be drawn to adoptn bee offers the chance to make a difference a child’s life: Rearch on heterosexual upl has found that sendary to fertily, altistic sir (e. Notably, Malm and Welti (2010) found that altistic motivatns were more mon heterosexual upl who were adoptg via foster re than those pursug a private men who are seekg to adopt, then, may nstct their sire for parenthood ways that uniquely reflect their posng as gay men, and as prospective adoptive parents. In their qualative study of 20 childls gay men and 19 gay fathers, Berkowz and Marsigl (2007) found that men often scribed key “turng pots” as activatg their parental sir.

Such events often stigated men to ci to parent spe ntendg wh larger societal ntexts that stigmatized gay male that gay men mt ntend wh societal heterosexism, and do not accintally bee parents through procreatn, their cisn to parent volv a highly tentnal procs.

REVIEWSOCIAL PSYCHOLOGIL ASPECTS OF GAY INTY VELOPMENT

Th, a social nstctnist perspective is eful elucidatg how gay men’s personal terpretatns of their parentg tentns are fluenced by their immediate social ntext and relatnships, such as their relatnship wh their partner, as well as by larger domant, often heteronormative disurs regardg the meang and salience of urse theory emphasiz not only the larger social ntext that shap dividual liv, but also how dividual velopment progrs and chang over time, and the fluence of time life transns (Elr, 1994; Umberson et al., 2010). For example, gay men’s stigmatized sexual mory stat may tersect wh their adoptive stat to shape some men’s valug of parenthood as a means of betterg the life of a child need. Although somewhat racially diverse, the sample was disproportnately Whe pared to the natnal profile of gay male adoptive parents, of whom only 61% are Whe (Gat et al., 2007).