HW6: LGBT-Parented Families and Child Outcomes

Nowadays, many gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders or LGBT partners are becoming parents by means of adoption or through the use of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) conceptions where one of the partner is the genetic parent and the egg or sperm donor is biologically related to the other parent. Children who are growing up in LGBT-parented homes may live with one parent or two, and they may or may not have biological relations with the adults whom they considered parents. However, children are genetically related to both parents but only in rare cases through ART. In the Philippines and in other countries, homosexual partners still don't have access to the legal institution of marriage because the Catholic Church is opposing such marriages. Thus, those children growing up in LBGT-parented homes live with their unmarried and many with their never-married-parents. Furthermore, those children with their lesbian or gay parents don't have the male and female parents accepted or approved by cultural norms. 

A research on LGBT-parented households and their impacts on children by the American Psychological Association or APA have shown that there is no scientific evidence that parenting effectiveness is related to parental sexual orientation. Which means that LGBT parents are just similar to those heterosexual parents in providing supportive and healthy environments for their children. The APA also stated that there is not a single study that has found children growing in LGBT-parented families to be disadvantageous in any significant respect relative to children being raised by their heterosexual parents. This research has shown that the adjustment, development and psychological well-being of children are not related to parental sexual orientation and that those children from such families are similar to the children of heterosexual families.

An article I found entitled Gay and Lesbian Families, Raising Children by an anonymous writer had listed/ compiled results of different researches/studies on children outcomes in contrast to the people's common beliefs that those children under the custody or supervision of gays or lesbians parents will need extra emotional support and will face unique social stress. Actually, there are many researches that have read showing that children with gay and lesbian parents are not different from those children with heterosexual parents in emotional development or in peer and adult relationship.  The findings of these studies, together with their respective researchers, are as follows: 

• Children conceived by lesbian mother through DI found to be just as well adjusted as children born to heterosexual couple. (Flaks, et. al, 1995)
• Adolescents of lesbian mother no different in self-esteem than from heter. mother. (Huggins, 1989)
• No difference found in IQ or WISC-R (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised) between children of lesbians vs. M/F couple. (Green et. al, 1986; Flaks, et. al, 1995)
• No difference in peer relations between children of lesbians and M/F couple. (Golombok, et. al, 1983)
• Self-reports reveal no difference in being teased as a child for adolescent daughters of lesb. compared to M/F. (Green at. al, 1986)
• Not the case for boys: More likely to have been teased than girls about having same-sex parents. (Tasker & Golombok, 1997)
• No difference in psych. adjustment for children of 2 fem. vs. M/F. (Flaks, 1995)
• No difference on measures of emotion, deviant behavior, or relationships. (Golombok, et. al, 1983)
• No difference in likelihood of anxiety or depression in later life for lesbian offspring vs. M/F. (Tasker, 1997)
• Gender Role: children of lesbians just as likely as M/F kids to pick "gender-appropriate toys". (Hoeffer, 1981)

The findings of these works revealed little or no differences in adjustment between those children raised by same-sex parents and those children living with heterosexual parents. There were no significant differences between children from same-sex families and children from opposite sex families on most of all the measures that we care about such as measures on self-esteem and anxiety, measures of school outcomes, or measures of family relationships. Those children seem to be doing as fine as other children and, in most cases, they are statistically indistinguishable from children raised by married heterosexual parents. 

In my opinion, the parents' sexual orientations or genders are not important predictors of the children's well-being but it is the qualities of parent-children or family relationships which has an effect or consistently related to children outcomes. I believe that LGBT-parented families with close family ties and relationships are as effective as those heterosexual families in the upbringing of their children.