Why Gay Parents May Be the Bt Parents | Live Science

Contents:

• 10 GAY ADOPTN FACTS THAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
• PROCR FOR GAY COUPL LOOKG TO ADOPT
• WHY GAY PARENTS MAY BE THE BT PARENTS
• LBIAN AND GAY PARENTG
• HOW MANY STAT STILL PROHIB ADOPTN BY GAY PARENTS AND WHAT N WE DO ABOUT ?

10 GAY ADOPTN FACTS THAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

While the benefs of adoptn are clear, gay adoptive parents will likely also face many of the same challeng that heterosexual adoptive parents experience: addrsg their children’s racial or cultural inty, managg birth parent relatnships an open adoptn, talkg to their child about adoptn and simply adjtg to parenthood. In addn, there are no signifint differenc the velopment of genr inty and sexual orientatn between children of gay and lbian parents and children of heterosexual parents, acrdg to rearch prentg gay adoptn facts and same-sex adoptn statistics. As a queer-intified person a mted same-sex relatnship, I’ve had to navigate the often nfg pathways toward beg an LGBTQ+ (Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgenr and Queer) years, whenever people asked how my partner Mark and I beme dads, I ed to joke that we were set up on a bld date graduate school, we had a few drks and 12 1/2 years later, we accintally adopted our son.

Beg prepared for the long hl will help alleviate fears and adoptn rourc for LGBTQ+ faiThe followg rourc offer rmatn and support for LGBTQ+ dividuals and upl terted adoptn:Adopt US KidsCenterLk LGBT Communy Center Member DirectoryChild Welfare Informatn Gateway: Adoptn by Fay Type: Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgenr and Qutng (LGBTQ) Fai Child Welfare Informatn Gateway: Planng for Adoptn: Knowg the Costs and RourcFay Equaly Natnal Network of LGBTQ Fay GroupsNorth Amerin Council on Adoptable Children: State Adoptn Assistance ProgramsU. In fact, some ways, gay parents may brg talents to the table that straight parents don' parents "tend to be more motivated, more mted than heterosexual parents on average, bee they chose to be parents, " said Abbie Goldberg, a psychologist at Clark Universy Massachetts who rearch gay and lbian parentg.

PROCR FOR GAY COUPL LOOKG TO ADOPT

"And while rearch dit that kids of gay parents show few differenc achievement, mental health, social functng and other measur, the kids may have the advantage of open-mdns, tolerance and role mols for equable relatnships, acrdg to some rearch.

WHY GAY PARENTS MAY BE THE BT PARENTS

) [5 Myths About Gay People Debunked]Adoptg the needitGay adoptn recently ed ntroversy Illois, where Catholic Chari adoptn servic cid November to cease offerg servic bee the state refed fundg unls the groups agreed not to discrimate agast gays and lbians. More than half of the kids adopted by gays and lbians had special report didn't pare the adoptn preferenc of gay upl directly wh those of heterosexual upl, said thor David Brodzsky, rearch director at the Instute and -edor of "Adoptn By Lbians and Gay Men: A New Dimensn of Fay Diversy" (Oxford Universy Prs, 2011).

Part of that uld be their own preferenc, and part uld be bee of discrimatn by adoptn agenci that puts more difficult children wh what seworkers see as "ls sirable" matter how you slice , Brodzsky told LiveScience, gays and lbians are highly terted adoptn as a group.

"When you thk about the 114, 000 children who are eed for adoptn who ntue to live foster re and who are not beg readily adopted, the goal is to crease the pool of available, terted and well-traed dividuals to parent the children, " Brodzsky addn, Brodzsky said, there's evince to suggt that gays and lbians are pecially acceptg of open adoptns, where the child retas some ntact wh his or her birth parents. "Intertgly, we fd that a small percentage, but enough to be noteworthy, [of birth mothers] make a nsc cisn to place wh gay men, so they n be the only mother their child's life, " Brodzsky parentgRearch has shown that the kids of same-sex upl — both adopted and blogil kids — fare no worse than the kids of straight upl on mental health, social functng, school performance and a variety of other life-succs a 2010 review of virtually every study on gay parentg, New York Universy soclogist Judh Stacey and Universy of Southern California soclogist Tim Biblarz found no differenc between children raised hom wh two heterosexual parents and children raised wh lbian parents. "There's no doubt whatsoever om the rearch that children wh two lbian parents are growg up to be jt as well-adjted and succsful" as children wh a male and a female parent, " Stacey told is very ltle rearch on the children of gay men, so Stacey and Biblarz uldn't draw nclns on those fai.

LBIAN AND GAY PARENTG

"The dividuals feel like their perspectiv on fay, on genr, on sexualy have largely been enhanced by growg up wh gay parents, " Goldberg 33-year-old man wh a lbian mother told Goldberg, "I feel I'm a more open, well-round person for havg been raised a nontradnal fay, and I thk those that know me would agree. 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). As this summary will show, the rults of existg rearch parg lbian and gay parents to heterosexual parents and children of lbian and gay parents to children of heterosexual parents are que clear: Common stereotyp are not supported by the data.

HOW MANY STAT STILL PROHIB ADOPTN BY GAY PARENTS AND WHAT N WE DO ABOUT ?

The relevance of this cricism has been greatly rced as rearch has expand to explore life a wir array of lbian mother and gay father fai (many of which have never lived through the divorce of a heterosexual uple), and as newer studi beg to clu a wir array of ntrol groups.

Other cricisms have been that most studi have been based on relatively small sampl, that there have been difficulti wh asssment procr employed some studi, and that the classifitn of parents as lbian, gay, or heterosexual has been problematic. An expert readg of the Sarantakos article reveals that certa characteristics of s methodology and sample are highly likely to have skewed the rults and renred them an valid ditor of the well-beg of children raised by gay and lbian parents at least three rpects:.

The children raised by gay and lbian parents experienced unually high levels of extreme social ostracism and overt hostily om other children and parents, which probably acunted for the former's lower levels of teractn and social tegratn wh peers (see pp. Some nonscientific anizatns have attempted to nvce urts that there is an actual scientific dispute this area by cg rearch performed by Pl Cameron as supportg the existence of fics gay and lbian parents or their children pared to heterosexual parents or their children. Three ncerns have historilly been associated wh judicial cisn makg ctody ligatn and public polici erng foster re and adoptn: the belief that lbians and gay men are mentally ill, that lbians are ls maternal than heterosexual women, and that lbians' and gay men's relatnships wh sexual partners leave ltle time for ongog parent-child teractns (ACLU Lbian and Gay Rights Project, 2002; Falk, 1989, 1994; Patterson et al., 2002; Patterson & Reddg, 1996).