Gay Parents Raisg Kids: How Will They Fare? | Psychology Today

Contents:

• GAY PARENTS RAISG KIDS: HOW WILL THEY FARE?
• KIDS OF GAY PARENTS FARE WORSE, STUDY FDS, BUT REARCH DRAWS FIRE OM EXPERTS
• THE CHILDREN OF GAY PARENTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELV
• LBIAN AND GAY PARENTG

GAY PARENTS RAISG KIDS: HOW WILL THEY FARE?

The days, gay parents are no novelty: We see them strollg through our neighborhoods, participatg our PTA meetgs, and, perhaps most notably, appearg on our TV screens: Mchell and Cam, fathers to Lily, on the ratgs smash Morn Fay; Glee’s Sue Sylvter, expectant mom to a baby nceived wh an as-yet-unrevealed sperm donor, and Rachel’s dads, played wh humor and grace by Jeff Goldblum and Brian Stok.

Though this media mastreamifitn of gay parentg is a relatively new phenomenon, for s, gay parents have had children all sorts of fay nfiguratns—whether through adoptn, prev heterosexual relatnships, or, creasgly, by choosg to have blogil offsprg g vro, surrogate, and other methods. In a jot statement om the Fay Equaly Council, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Freedom to Marry, and the Gay and Lbian Alliance agast Defamatn (GLAAD), advot lled the study a "flawed, misleadg, and scientifilly unsound paper that seeks to disparage lbian and gay parents. Dpe numero attempts to bias the rults favour of the null hypothis and allowg for up to 20 (of 63, 32%) dg errors, Cameron's (2006) hypothis that gay and lbian parents would be more likely to have gay, lbian, bisexual or unsure (of sexual orientatn) sons and dghters was nfirmed.

The Amerin Psychologil Associatn (APA) reported on gay parentg, wh Loren Marks, associate profsor at the School of Human Elogy at Louisiana State Universy, statg that “Not a sgle study has found children of lbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged any signifint rpect relative to children of heterosexual parents” (Marks 2012). This study uld jt be a rult of chance, as the numbers of children wh homosexual parents were low, or other factors uld go to the negative rults of the 40 unknown “tegori” such as the stcture of the way the tegori are word or set up, which uld be due to Regnes’s own personal bias.

KIDS OF GAY PARENTS FARE WORSE, STUDY FDS, BUT REARCH DRAWS FIRE OM EXPERTS

Children whose parents are gay and lbian have historilly been subjected to laws, social polici, and disapprovg attus that create social distance and ostracism and challenge the stabily of their fai as well as their optimal social and psychologil velopment. This technil report provis the scientific ratnale, based on the current available evince, to support the remendatns outled the policy statement “Promotg the Well-Beg of Children Whose Parents are Gay or Lbian”1: support for marriage equaly, cludg repeal of the feral Defense of Marriage Act and siar public polici that lim accs to feral benefs associated wh civil marriage for gay and lbian upl, and the right of gay and lbian adults to adopt and provi foster re for eligible children.

A few stat, eher by statute, regulatn, or legal terpretatn, rtrict or prohib foster parentg by same-genr upl and/or lbians and gay regardg jot adoptn by same genr upl, where both dividuals bee the legal parents of a blogilly unrelated child, vary om state to state. 13 Jot adoptn by lbian and gay upl is exprsly prohibed a few stat, granted by law fewer than half, and not addrsed by statut most stat that regnize civil marriage or other forms of domtic relatnships n a lbian or gay spoe or partner be regnized as a legal parent or step-parent to the child(ren) she or he is helpg raise.

THE CHILDREN OF GAY PARENTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELV

Such laws are important to children when adult uple relatnships are dissolutn and appropriate ctody is unr arrangements wh a surrogate rrier are available only a few stat to gay men who wish to have a blogilly related the event of ath of a spoe, partner, or parent, state laws do not provi for Social Secury or veteran’s survivor benefs for the survivg spoe/partner and children. The reactn a fay may enunter rang om acceptance to disda: sometim pediatricians and others enuntered health re settgs or stutns may exprs stigmatizg attus or refe to regnize an unmarried parent, pecially when that parent is part of a gay or lbian uple. Many studi have asssed the velopmental and psychosocial out of children whose parents are gay or lbian and note that a fay’s social and enomic rourc and the strength of the relatnships among members of the fay are far more important variabl than parental genr or sexual orientatn affectg children’s velopment and well-beg.

The first review of available data regardg the well-beg of children livg wh lbian or gay parents nclud that “While rearch on the topics is relatively new… is no evince that the velopment of children wh lbian and gay parents is promised any signifint rpect relative to that among children of heterosexual parents otherwise parable circumstanc.

A more recent prehensive review of the experienc of gay and lbian parents and their children reaffirmed that most children raised by lbian and gay parents are velopmentally and socially well-adjted and that the societal prence of stigma, heterosexism, fay circumstance, stcture, and procs are more important fluenc on children’s velopmental trajectory than is the genr or sexual orientatn of their parents. At the time of the rearch, marriage was available only to heterosexual parents, and therefore, all gay or lbian upl were, by fn, is strong evince provid the article that the children wh gay or lbian parents were severely stigmatized their schools and of the children wh gay or lbian parents had experienced the divorce of their heterosexual birth parents, many s shortly before the time of study, th potentially addg to the children’s strs.

LBIAN AND GAY PARENTG

In addn, is important to note that all past rearch about children growg up wh gay or lbian parents has taken place the ntext of pervasive social stigma and clus a majory of children whose parents were eher sgle or divorced, each of which n be expected to ntribute to poor out for children. Although studi of unmon and varied phenomena are difficult to perform and yield plete and imperfect rults, there is an emergg nsens, based on an extensive review of the scientific lerature, that children growg up hoeholds head by gay men or lbians are not disadvantaged any signifint rpect relative to children of heterosexual parents.

In a survey of married same-genr upl Massachetts, the first state to allow civil marriage for same-genr upl, 24% of the rponnts noted that their children had prevly been explicly teased or tnted about havg a gay or lbian parent, but 93% of rponnts stated that marriage has ma their children happier and better off. Loren Marks (2012) stated that bee of the numero flaws rearch regardg children of gays and lbians strong assertns by the APA (and other groups) that children of gays are farg as well as children heterosexual fai are premature and "not empirilly warranted"(p.

Allison, raised Connecticut and Vermont by her mom and her mom's partner: “As soon as I found out [my new school] had a gay-straight alliance I jt— was amazg, to know that there are other kids my age—to realize that they were supportive of LGBT people. Rearch on lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, queer, and other sexual and genr mory (LGBTQ+) parents and their children has found that both parents and children are generally well adjted and that they do not differ well-beg or multiple velopmental out om parents and children the general populatn. Unlike heterosexual parents and their children, however, lbian and gay parents and their children are often subject to prejudice bee of their sexual orientatn that n turn judg, legislators, profsnals, and the public agast them, sometim rultg negative out, such as loss of physil ctody, rtrictns on visatn, and prohibns agast adoptn (ACLU Lbian and Gay Rights Project, 2002; Appell, 2003; Patterson, Fulcher, & Waright, 2002).