Study: Children of lesbian couples do well

[General Zod]

Who knew!

Being raised by a same-sex couple is no hindrance to healthy psychological development, researchers say as the first generation of children conceived by lesbians through donor insemination is coming of age.

In fact, lesbian mothers rated their 17-year-olds higher in social and academic skills, and lower in rule-breaking and aggression, than did mothers of teenagers who also had a father.

The study, which appears in the journal Pediatrics, is the first to follow children of lesbian couples all the way from conception to adolescence.

"There are so many places in the United States where same-sex couples are not allowed to adopt or foster children in need," said Dr. Nanette Gartrell of the University of California, San Francisco, who started the so-called US National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study in 1986.

While opponents of same-sex parenting often mention cultural or religious values, some also contend that growing up with two moms or two dads can't be healthy for the child, said Gartrell.

But there isn't any solid evidence that homosexual parenting is any worse or better than its conventional counterpart, according to Gartrell, who is in a same-sex partnership.

"There is not a single study that has shown there are any problems in terms of psychological adjustment" of the child, she said. "The things we know that make for good parenting are love, resources and being very involved in your child's life."

The new findings are based on 77 families of both girls and boys. The researchers interviewed the lesbian mothers about their kids and then rated the teenagers on the Child Behavior Checklist, a standardized assessment that has been used for decades. Each teenager also filled out an internet-based psychological questionnaire.

When comparing the results to how mothers living in conventional families rated their teenagers, children of same-sex couples were more competent in school, had fewer social problems, broke fewer rules and were less aggressive.

Based on what the children reported themselves, they did just as well whether or not they knew the identity of their biological father.

However, those teenagers who — according to their mothers — experienced homophobia and bullying did turn out to be more anxious and have more depressive symptoms than their peers. It wasn't clear if the anxiety was a product of the bullying or if it was the other way around.

"What this data shows is that it's not the parenting that seems to be the issue," but rather the stigmatization, said Ian Rivers, a professor of human development at Brunel University in Uxbridge, England.

But he noted that homophobia was on the decline.

"We are starting to see a sea change," he said, adding that there was "an awareness in schools that homophobia is something that is inappropriate."

According to recent data, a good quarter million American children are living with same-sex parents. Rivers, who was not involved in the new study, said concerns about the children's well-being had not come true.

"These children have not faced many of the issues that critics of gay and lesbian parents say they should be facing," he told Reuters Health. "This is why this is such an important piece of work."

It is unclear why kids of same-sex couples would be in better psychological shape than those of heterosexual parents. While the researchers are still analyzing the internet questionnaires, Gartrell said one reason could be that lesbian mothers had planned their parenthood carefully and were prepared to help their children though any discrimination they might face.

"These were chosen children, they weren't accidents," Gartrell said.

Not really a huge surprise, but nice to see research denouncing the usual bigotry that gets thrown around on this topic.

[Crossroads Inc.]

[FarRight] Ah, but I see the study is posted on MSNBC, obviously it is just Lies from th Liberal Media, I shall quickly dismiss this "study" and ignore it while continuing to claim that children raised by Homosexuals live terrible lives! [/FarRight]

Sorry, it is hard for me to see something like this and NOT think that. Its another 'preaching to the choir' problem. A study like this confirms what "We" already know, that gay or straight, both make good parents. At the same time a study like this will be dismissed out of hand by those that do not believe it. So in the end if feels empty.

[Starglider]

In fact, lesbian mothers rated their 17-year-olds higher in social and academic skills, and lower in rule-breaking and aggression, than did mothers of teenagers who also had a father.

There's a very strong motivation for them to say they're happier, because they want people to think that they're doing a great job. Even if there wasn't, it's hopelessly subjective; we can't tell if the children are actually better people or if lesbian mothers are just more likely to perceive them that way.

Based on what the children reported themselves, they did just as well whether or not they knew the identity of their biological father.

Also worthlessly subjective. American youth in particular have been wildly inaccurate at self-reporting competence etc since the whole self esteem 'revolution' started.

The study, which appears in the journal Pediatrics, is the first to follow children of lesbian couples all the way from conception to adolescence.

I can't imagine why a reputable journal would endorse meaningless subjective questionnaires instead of an actual empirical study of grades, detentions, crime rate, starting salaries etc. Actually I can imagine why; if the hard evidence doesn't support the politically correct conclusion, ignore it and focus on how happy people say they are when asked leading questions. I honestly hope that isn't the case, but based on this article the study seems like a highly misleading political exercise.

[Gil Hamilton]

I can't imagine why a reputable journal would endorse meaningless subjective questionnaires instead of an actual empirical study of grades, detentions, crime rate, starting salaries etc. Actually I can imagine why; if the hard evidence doesn't support the politically correct conclusion, ignore it and focus on how happy people say they are when asked leading questions. I honestly hope that isn't the case, but based on this article the study seems like a highly misleading political exercise.

OK, Starglider, I can understand your concern about their methodology (I even agree), but even so, what evidence do you have that this is a misleading political exercise? More than that, what do you think the reality of the situation is that they are deliberately ignoring in favor of academic dishonesty?

[Samuel]

I can't imagine why a reputable journal would endorse meaningless subjective questionnaires instead of an actual empirical study of grades, detentions, crime rate, starting salaries etc. Actually I can imagine why; if the hard evidence doesn't support the politically correct conclusion, ignore it and focus on how happy people say they are when asked leading questions. I honestly hope that isn't the case, but based on this article the study seems like a highly misleading political exercise.

OK, Starglider, I can understand your concern about their methodology (I even agree), but even so, what evidence do you have that this is a misleading political exercise? More than that, what do you think the reality of the situation is that they are deliberately ignoring in favor of academic dishonesty?

Because if they had hard data they would have presented it? This is assuming competance of course- it is possible they are idiots.

[Gil Hamilton]

Because if they had hard data they would have presented it? This is assuming competance of course- it is possible they are idiots.

That's not evidence of political motive; that's evidence of a bad or fluffy methodology. Even in harder sciences do you get such things ("Hrm... my trajectory data looks sort of exponential... I'm just going to tack on a ton of weighted e-to-the-negative-blah terms... aha! A fit!").

So, again, I say, what evidence is there that this is politically motivated?

[Plekhanov]

There's a longer article on this paper in time which gives some more details.

I can't imagine why a reputable journal would endorse meaningless subjective questionnaires instead of an actual empirical study of grades, detentions, crime rate, starting salaries etc. Actually I can imagine why; if the hard evidence doesn't support the politically correct conclusion, ignore it and focus on how happy people say they are when asked leading questions. I honestly hope that isn't the case, but based on this article the study seems like a highly misleading political exercise.

Because the journal might be interested in some of the many, many things about people about which it is extremely difficult to get "hard evidence" upon, you know such as many of the things this study was looking at perhaps?

If you limit research upon people to things which can be easily gleaned from official statistics (which are of course often far from accurate themselves) you get a very limited view of people.

How are you going to glean information about peoples "self-esteem and confidence" which this study looked at for example from the kind of official stats you seem to favour? If questionnaires are out what methodology would you suggest for carrying out studies into the psychological well-being of people?

[Plekhanov]

The Time article I mentioned in my previous post:

Study: Children of Lesbians May Do Better Than Their Peers

The teen years are never the easiest for any family to navigate. But could they be even more challenging for children and parents in households headed by gay parents?

That is the question researchers explored in the first study ever to track children raised by lesbian parents, from birth to adolescence. Although previous studies have indicated that children with same-sex parents show no significant differences compared with children in heterosexual homes when it comes to social development and adjustment, many of those investigations involved children who were born to women in heterosexual marriages, who later divorced and came out as lesbians.

For their new study, published on Monday in the journal Pediatrics, researchers Nanette Gartrell, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Francisco (and a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles), and Henry Bos, a behavioral scientist at the University of Amsterdam, focused on what they call planned lesbian families — households in which the mothers identified themselves as lesbian at the time of artificial insemination.

Data on such families are sparse, but they are important for establishing whether a child's environment in a home with same-sex parents would be any more or less nurturing than one with a heterosexual couple.

The authors found that children raised by lesbian mothers — whether the mother was partnered or single — scored very similarly to children raised by heterosexual parents on measures of development and social behavior. These findings were expected, the authors said; however, they were surprised to discover that children in lesbian homes scored higher than kids in straight families on some psychological measures of self-esteem and confidence, did better academically and were less likely to have behavioral problems, such as rule-breaking and aggression.


"We simply expected to find no difference in psychological adjustment between adolescents reared in lesbian families and the normative sample of age-matched controls," says Gartrell. "I was surprised to find that on some measures we found higher levels of [psychological] competency and lower levels of behavioral problems. It wasn't something I anticipated."

In addition, children in same-sex-parent families whose mothers ended up separating did as well as children in lesbian families in which the moms stayed together.

The data that Gartrell and Bos analyzed came from the U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS), begun in 1986. The authors included 154 women in 84 families who underwent artificial insemination to start a family; the parents agreed to answer questions about their children's social skills, academic performance and behavior at five follow-up times over the 17-year study period. Children in the families were interviewed by researchers at age 10 and were then asked at age 17 to complete an online questionnaire, which included queries about the teens' activities, social lives, feelings of anxiety or depression, and behavior.

Not surprisingly, the researchers found that 41% of children reported having endured some teasing, ostracism or discrimination related to their being raised by same-sex parents. But Gartrell and Bos could find no differences on psychological adjustment tests between the children and those in a group of matched controls. At age 10, children reporting discrimination did exhibit more signs of psychological stress than their peers, but by age 17, the feelings had dissipated. "Obviously there are some factors that may include family support and changes in education about appreciation for diversity that may be helping young people to come to a better place despite these experiences," says Gartrell.

It's not clear exactly why children of lesbian mothers tend to do better than those in heterosexual families on certain measures. But after studying gay and lesbian families for 24 years, Gartrell has some theories. "They are very involved in their children's lives," she says of the lesbian parents. "And that is a great recipe for healthy outcomes for children. Being present, having good communication, being there in their schools, finding out what is going on in their schools and various aspects of the children's lives is very, very important."

Although active involvement isn't unique to lesbian households, Gartrell notes that same-sex mothers tend to make that kind of parenting more of a priority. Because their children are more likely to experience discrimination and stigmatization as a result of their family circumstances, these mothers can be more likely to broach complicated topics, such as sexuality and diversity and tolerance, with their children early on. Having such a foundation may help to give these children more confidence and maturity in dealing with social differences and prejudices as they get older.

Because the research is ongoing, Gartrell hopes to test some of these theories with additional studies. She is also hoping to collect more data on gay-father households; gay fatherhood is less common than lesbian motherhood because of the high costs of surrogacy or adoption that gay couples face in order to start a family.

[Alyrium Denryle]

There's a very strong motivation for them to say they're happier, because they want people to think that they're doing a great job. Even if there wasn't, it's hopelessly subjective; we can't tell if the children are actually better people or if lesbian mothers are just more likely to perceive them that way.

Survey designs in literature like this routinely have questions that deliberately check for such bias and toss out the surveys of people who report inconsistently. This study is also in line with other studies that use actual psychometric tests on children to determine and in fact quantify (on a scale) their levels of emotional stability etc. Also, the same bias will exist within straight families because no one wants to admit that their child is a fuckup.

In other words: Fuck off

Also worthlessly subjective. American youth in particular have been wildly inaccurate at self-reporting competence etc since the whole self esteem 'revolution' started.

Their competence does not matter because presumably said competence will be the same across the board. It cancels out, and you get a treatment effect.

In other words: Fuck off, and learn about what you spout off on.

I can't imagine why a reputable journal would endorse meaningless subjective questionnaires instead of an actual empirical study of grades, detentions, crime rate, starting salaries etc.

Because those have already been done and the children of lesbian parents turn out the same or better than the children of straight parents.

Because the journal might be interested in some of the many, many things about people about which it is extremely difficult to get "hard evidence" upon, you know such as many of the things this study was looking at perhaps?

Heaven forbid we try to get evidence to determine the mechanism by which the children of lesbian parents do the same or better in life than the average child of straight parents.

Unfortunately those things are hard to measure, so you get fuzz. What does Starglider think all science should be? Should we hook people up to machines that make them tell the truth? Maybe the transhumanist things we should be able to download their memories.

For their new study, published on Monday in the journal Pediatrics, researchers Nanette Gartrell, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Francisco (and a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles), and Henry Bos, a behavioral scientist at the University of Amsterdam, focused on what they call planned lesbian families — households in which the mothers identified themselves as lesbian at the time of artificial insemination.

Longitudinal data like this tends to be fantastically good.

[Oskuro]

Unfortunately, that homosexual parents might be good parents will, in the end, be irrelevant. I've had right-wingers oppose homosexual parenthood on the grounds that such children will be mocked at school. So you have to be a homphobe to avoid beeing picked on by homphobes. And no, trying to point out that the proliferation of homosexual families would end up curbing homophobic attitudes did no good, I guess these people believe (or want to believe) that homophobia is a natural human tendency, or "the way things are meant to be".

[Teleros]

From the Daily Telegraph article on it:

...were "committed parents" aware that their children may face difficulties at school because of their upbringing.

They therefore took an active interest in their child's education and many chose to attend parenting classes. The mothers also tended to be older than mothers who had conceived naturally.

Nanette Gartrell, of the University of California and who led the research, said: ''Contrary to assertions from people opposed to same-sex parenting, we found that the 17-year-olds scored higher in psychological adjustment in areas of competency and lower in problem behaviours than the normative age-matched sample of kids raised in traditional families with a mum and a dad."

"These are not accidental children," Mrs Gartrell told WebMD Health News.

These bits stuck out to me, and probably explains a lot about why the children do well. Due to this, I just wonder what the difference would be between the children of lesbians & say committed heterosexual couples who only had planned children.

As far as the methodology goes, assuming that there wasn't any bias in it my only concerns would be the sample size (just 154 lesbian mothers) and things like wealth, income etc. The number of children & age of the parents may also play a role.

[Jalinth]

These bits stuck out to me, and probably explains a lot about why the children do well. Due to this, I just wonder what the difference would be between the children of lesbians & say committed heterosexual couples who only had planned children.

As far as the methodology goes, assuming that there wasn't any bias in it my only concerns would be the sample size (just 154 lesbian mothers) and things like wealth, income etc. The number of children & age of the parents may also play a role.

I'd be interested in the same if you also control for other variables - education, background, single, married (using a "committed couple" concept) income, etc... I'd hope that the answer would be "planned kids from stable well educated homes on average do well" whether you have two dads, two moms, or one of each.

[Molyneux]

These bits stuck out to me, and probably explains a lot about why the children do well. Due to this, I just wonder what the difference would be between the children of lesbians & say committed heterosexual couples who only had planned children.

As far as the methodology goes, assuming that there wasn't any bias in it my only concerns would be the sample size (just 154 lesbian mothers) and things like wealth, income etc. The number of children & age of the parents may also play a role.

I'd be interested in the same if you also control for other variables - education, background, single, married (using a "committed couple" concept) income, etc... I'd hope that the answer would be "planned kids from stable well educated homes on average do well" whether you have two dads, two moms, or one of each.

I am personally given to wonder whether positive effects could be found for a more-than-two-adult situation raising children - whether something like two couples sharing a house and raising their children together, or something like the "Full House" scenario. I seem to recall hearing about benefits of having grandparents or aunts/uncles living with the rest of the family, awhile back.

[Ryan Thunder]

Eh, I'm just glad to hear they turned out generally okay, myself.

[Alyrium Denryle]

These bits stuck out to me, and probably explains a lot about why the children do well. Due to this, I just wonder what the difference would be between the children of lesbians & say committed heterosexual couples who only had planned children.

As far as the methodology goes, assuming that there wasn't any bias in it my only concerns would be the sample size (just 154 lesbian mothers) and things like wealth, income etc. The number of children & age of the parents may also play a role.

I'd be interested in the same if you also control for other variables - education, background, single, married (using a "committed couple" concept) income, etc... I'd hope that the answer would be "planned kids from stable well educated homes on average do well" whether you have two dads, two moms, or one of each.

Generally those other variables are tested against eachother to be sure they are not significantly different between groups.

Also: Sample size only really matters when you have negative results. If your tests have sufficient power, you can get away with low sample size.

[montypython]

These bits stuck out to me, and probably explains a lot about why the children do well. Due to this, I just wonder what the difference would be between the children of lesbians & say committed heterosexual couples who only had planned children.

As far as the methodology goes, assuming that there wasn't any bias in it my only concerns would be the sample size (just 154 lesbian mothers) and things like wealth, income etc. The number of children & age of the parents may also play a role.

I'd be interested in the same if you also control for other variables - education, background, single, married (using a "committed couple" concept) income, etc... I'd hope that the answer would be "planned kids from stable well educated homes on average do well" whether you have two dads, two moms, or one of each.

I am personally given to wonder whether positive effects could be found for a more-than-two-adult situation raising children - whether something like two couples sharing a house and raising their children together, or something like the "Full House" scenario. I seem to recall hearing about benefits of having grandparents or aunts/uncles living with the rest of the family, awhile back.

That's an interesting point, it would be worthwhile to see how having multiple adults in a house affects child development wrt including/not including the parent planning factor.

[PaperJack]

In fact, lesbian mothers rated their 17-year-olds higher in social and academic skills, and lower in rule-breaking and aggression, than did mothers of teenagers who also had a father.

Does that mean that the mothers rated their own children ?
I'm quite sure that is a huge bias there. It's something like 'the investors of company X have rated company X 10 out of 10!'.

[Molyneux]

In fact, lesbian mothers rated their 17-year-olds higher in social and academic skills, and lower in rule-breaking and aggression, than did mothers of teenagers who also had a father.

Does that mean that the mothers rated their own children ?
I'm quite sure that is a huge bias there. It's something like 'the investors of company X have rated company X 10 out of 10!'.

Yeah, it could mean that lesbian mothers are overly optimistic about their children compared with non-lesbian mothers. Or it could mean that the children really were doing better. It's not good data.

[aieeegrunt]

You know, I'd be really surprised if they didn't do better than the general populace.

Any lesbian couple wanting to raise a child is most likely had to go through endless battles, hoop jumping and other bullshit to be allowed to even adopt in the first place, so this situation kind of self selects for couples that are really comitted to being parents. They also know that they'll be in the glare of the spotlight with certain people just waiting and dieing for them to screw up.

Meanwhile the mass of heterosexual parents are going to include people who had kids for other reasons, or never intended to have kids at all.

As acceptance grows and it becomes less of a big deal, it will trend back towards the norm of parenting. I think it'll always be a bit higher, since the lesbian demographic is never going to include parents who had kids accidentally so to speak. They'll always go through the minimum vetting process of adoption.

[SpiralOut]

Lesbian couples, if not adopting, use artificial insemination. In order to donate sperm, there are plenty of background checks, drug tests, and general "let's make sure you're not crazy" tests to ensure that someone with severe psychological problems isn't spawning a bunch of serial killers. I'm being extreme, of course, but I'd guess that in general, lesbian or not, those parents who use artificial insemination have much more mentally and physically fit children than the general population, which is full of plenty of people who breed although they probably shouldn't.

[Twoyboy]

SpiralOut and aieeegrunt, hopefully the study would have taken these factors into account, as any good study would. You can make comparisons to other foster kids, IVF kids, adopted kids, etc. And I'm sure there are other methods of statistical comparison at work that are beyond me.

The big problem I see is reporting it that way in the media invites people to question it. It can be held up as another example of the "liberal media bias" conservatards talk about if care is not taken to explain the results properly.

[Simon_Jester]

Lesbian couples, if not adopting, use artificial insemination. In order to donate sperm, there are plenty of background checks, drug tests, and general "let's make sure you're not crazy" tests to ensure that someone with severe psychological problems isn't spawning a bunch of serial killers. I'm being extreme, of course, but I'd guess that in general, lesbian or not, those parents who use artificial insemination have much more mentally and physically fit children than the general population, which is full of plenty of people who breed although they probably shouldn't.

Not sure how big a factor this is. We know that the children of screaming-lunatic types are themselves more likely to be screaming-lunatics, but how much of that is nature and how much is nurture? Sperm banks could take donations from anyone and they'd still be taking the nurture factor out of the way: if a man who beats his girlfriend donates to a sperm bank, his children through the bank don't grow up in a house where their father beats his girlfriend. Or, at least, are no more likely to than anyone else.

So is the genetic factor necessarily important?

[SpiralOut]

Lesbian couples, if not adopting, use artificial insemination. In order to donate sperm, there are plenty of background checks, drug tests, and general "let's make sure you're not crazy" tests to ensure that someone with severe psychological problems isn't spawning a bunch of serial killers. I'm being extreme, of course, but I'd guess that in general, lesbian or not, those parents who use artificial insemination have much more mentally and physically fit children than the general population, which is full of plenty of people who breed although they probably shouldn't.

Not sure how big a factor this is. We know that the children of screaming-lunatic types are themselves more likely to be screaming-lunatics, but how much of that is nature and how much is nurture?

I see your point. I still think it's an important factor, although definitely not the main factor in if the kid's got problems or not. Obviously, a traumatic childhood brought on by lesbian parents could override any "good" genes the kid might have, just as a great upbringing could override some mental problems passed on by genetics. The thing is, some psychological problems truly are genetic. It's true that certain environments may calm the problem and some may make it far worse, but it's still there. As long as it's not some overwhelming psychological illness, how the child deals with it will most likely depend on his/her upbringing.

Sperm banks could take donations from anyone and they'd still be taking the nurture factor out of the way: if a man who beats his girlfriend donates to a sperm bank, his children through the bank don't grow up in a house where their father beats his girlfriend. Or, at least, are no more likely to than anyone else.

It would depend on the father's genes. If the father's beating his wife because he was raised with an abusive father, then that's clearly because of the nurture factor, which I think is what you're getting at, and I agree with you.

However, I'm talking more about potential fathers with genetic mental problems. For example, if a man with Bipolar disorder were to have a child, the child is much more vulnerable to being Bipolar, regardless of who he/she is raised by. In order to donate to sperm banks, men have to go through plenty of tests to make sure that they are reasonably healthy, mentally and physically. So, those lesbian parents sampled in the study (if they used artificial insemination) are less likely to have children who are prone to mental illness than the general population, who breeds at will.

[Alyrium Denryle]

In fact, lesbian mothers rated their 17-year-olds higher in social and academic skills, and lower in rule-breaking and aggression, than did mothers of teenagers who also had a father.

Does that mean that the mothers rated their own children ?
I'm quite sure that is a huge bias there. It's something like 'the investors of company X have rated company X 10 out of 10!'.

God damn. Read my motherfucking post before you speak. The bias is the same across the board. No one wants to say their child is fucked up. As a result the difference you see is the effect size.