Study: Kids with a lesbian mom are better adjusted than kids with straight parents
Sun. June 6, 2010 12:00 AM by GoPride.com News Staff
San Francisco -
A new study shows that children raised by lesbian mommies are better adjusted than kids being raised by a traditional mom and dad.
The study was conducted by researchers at the University of California-San Francisco and the University of Amsterdam. They focused on families created deliberately by lesbian moms, whether single or in couples; they did not include children born in traditional straight marriages whose mothers later came out as lesbians.
The surprising results are published in Monday's edition of the journal Pediatrics.
"We simply expected to find no difference in psychological adjustment between adolescents reared in lesbian families and the normative sample of age-matched controls," University of California-San Francisco researcher Nanette Gartrell told Time Magazine. "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 fact, kids with lesbian moms had higher self-esteem, were less likely to exhibit behavioral problems like rule-breaking and aggression, and did better academically.
The research includes 154 moms in 84 families; they and their children agreed to answer surveys and be interviewed in person.
The children with lesbian moms who are teased by others for their non-traditional families did report higher-than-average anxiety when they were about 10-years-old. But that anxiety went away by the the kids were 17.
It's not clear why children with lesbian moms are better adjusted, but the researchers have some ideas. They suspect it's because a woman who has to make a deliberate effort to become a mother (by undergoing artificial insemination, for example) puts more of a priority on parenting overall.
"They are very involved in their children's lives," Gartrell told Time. "And that is a great recipe for healthy outcomes for children.
The study was conducted by researchers at the University of California-San Francisco and the University of Amsterdam. They focused on families created deliberately by lesbian moms, whether single or in couples; they did not include children born in traditional straight marriages whose mothers later came out as lesbians.
The surprising results are published in Monday's edition of the journal Pediatrics.
"We simply expected to find no difference in psychological adjustment between adolescents reared in lesbian families and the normative sample of age-matched controls," University of California-San Francisco researcher Nanette Gartrell told Time Magazine. "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 fact, kids with lesbian moms had higher self-esteem, were less likely to exhibit behavioral problems like rule-breaking and aggression, and did better academically.
The research includes 154 moms in 84 families; they and their children agreed to answer surveys and be interviewed in person.
The children with lesbian moms who are teased by others for their non-traditional families did report higher-than-average anxiety when they were about 10-years-old. But that anxiety went away by the the kids were 17.
It's not clear why children with lesbian moms are better adjusted, but the researchers have some ideas. They suspect it's because a woman who has to make a deliberate effort to become a mother (by undergoing artificial insemination, for example) puts more of a priority on parenting overall.
"They are very involved in their children's lives," Gartrell told Time. "And that is a great recipe for healthy outcomes for children.