Children today are growing up in more diverse families then children from sixty years ago. Times are constantly changing. Whether a child is raised in a family with heterosexual parents or homosexual parents, both sets of parents have similar values that they want their children to have. Some people believe that children raised by homosexual couples do not do as well in school and also have a higher risk of ending up in jail. Throughout this paper, research will be shown as to why homosexual couples have equal outcomes as do heterosexual couples. The research will consist of observations that have been conducted, interviews with parents and children, and also self-evaluations done by parents and adolescents. By looking at all of these aspects, one will be able to see how homosexual families work. An article done by Charlotte J. Patterson, looked into how children raised by lesbian or gay parents develop versus children raised by heterosexual parents. Interviews were done with children that had mothers that were divorced. Some of the children had lesbian mothers, while others had heterosexual mothers. Patterson (2013) states, “…in interviews with children who had grown up with divorced lesbian mother and children who had grown up with divorced heterosexual mothers, Green and his colleagues reported no differences with respect to favorite television programs, television characters, games, or toys” (p. 30). A study had been done to determine if growing up with homosexual parents had any differences in gender development or gender role behavior compared to children of heterosexual parents. The parents were also given a questionnaire on what the children’s favorite games and toys were. The children showed no significant differences ... ... middle of paper ... ...hild-rearing goals in planned lesbian mother families. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45(4), 755-764. Goldberg, A.E. (2010). Lesbian and gay parents and their children: Research on the family life cycle. DC: American Psychological Association. Lavner, J.A., Waterman, J., Peplau, L.A. (2012). Can gay and lesbian parents promote healthy development in high-risk children adopted from foster care? American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 82(4), 465-472. Doi: 10.1111/j.1939-0025.2012.01176.x Patterson, C.J. (2013). Children of lesbian and gay parents: Psychology, law, and policy. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, 1(S), 27-34. Doi: 10.1037/2329-0382.1.S.27. Wainright, J.L., Patterson, C.J. (2008). Peer relations among adolescents with female same-sex parents. Developmental Psychology, 44(1), 117-126. Doi: 10.1031/0012-1649.44.1.117.
outcomes, and romantic relationships of adolescents with same-sex parents. Child Development, 75, 1886-1898. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2004.00823.x
...a Tasker. "Adults Raised as Children in Gay Families." American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 65.2 (1995).
Tori, DeAngelis. "New data on Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Mental Health." www.apa.org/monitor/feb02/newdata.aspx . N.p., 12 february 2002. Web. 9 Apr 2014.
Perrin, Ellen C., and Benjamin S. Siegel. "Promoting the Well-Being of Children Whose Parents Are Gay or Lesbian." Pediatrics 131.4 (2013): 1374-383. PDF file.
Homosexual parents may or may not cause gender role confusion in young children. Critics love to comment on how homosexuals cause their children to be confused about gender roles, but as long as their parents explain and teach them how society expects a certain gender to behave, then the child should be fine. Times have changed, so the idea of women doing one thing, while men do the other is kind of going out of the window. As long as the child understands that each gender is different, and their bodies work differently, a child learning “gender rol...
LaSala, Michael C. "Lesbians, Gay Men, and Their Parents: Family Therapy for the Coming-Out Crisis." Family Process 39.1 (2000): 67-81. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 May 2014.
Scientific studies have shown that children who grow up in one or two-parent gay or lesbian households fare just as well emotionally and socially as children whose parents are heterosexual. Studies have shown that children are more influenced by their interactions with their parents, than by their sexual orientation. (Kathy Belge, 2014)
In order for a possible successful future to take place, an appropriate selection of the caregiver must take place (Blythe et. al 88). Whenever an inappropriate foster parent is given responsibility over a child, all sorts of issues for the parent and child are created that could have been easily avoided. Foster care agencies must select foster parents that are completely capable to care for the health and safety of their new kids (Blythe et. al 88). This means that the foster parents must be able to supply all of the child’s essential needs so that they may be a valuable citizen in society one day. Research has discovered that foster parents will experience more anxiety and stress when compared to adults in their surrounding communities (Blythe et al. 88). This is directly because the foster parent was incapable of being a sufficient parent for the foster child. Since every child is special and unique in their own way it makes sense that the foster p...
An ideal environment for the social, emotional, and developmental growth of children does not always exist in today’s society. Family units that have become separated due to family or behavior problems often contribute to delays in these areas. In order to promote continuity in the social, emotional, and developmental growth of children who have been victims of family disruption, children are often removed from the home and placed in foster care. Placement in the foster care system affects children in a unique, individual fashion. The affects of child-care by non-parental custodians, though subjective in nature, have common parameters that must be addressed and examined.
The empirical data found proposes lesbian parent couples were more equ... ... middle of paper ... ... df This study examined associations among family type (same-sex vs. opposite-sex parents); family and relationship variables; and the psychosocial adjustment, school outcomes, and romantic attractions and behaviors of adolescents. Participants included 44 12- to 18-year-old adolescents parented by same-sex couples and 44 same-aged adolescents parented by opposite-sex couples, matched on demographic characteristics and drawn from a national sample. Normative analyses indicated that, on measures of psychosocial adjustment and school outcomes, adolescents were functioning well, and their adjustment was not generally associated with family type.
This paper has effort to generally show youths growing up gay. A number of issues have been presented involving gay identity formation, parental interaction, and disclosure. Homosexuality is a very controversial subject. By no mean does this paper try to say that it is “totally correct.” However, the paper does examine logical theoretical ideas of what gay adolescents endure, using and combining research and reports of other gay studies.
Since the 1970s, studies on the effect of same-sex parenting on children have been conducted in the United States. Sociological debates have occurred from the idea of allowing same-sex couples to parent. Some groups feel that allowing this would undermine the traditional ideology of marriage and skew the perception of gender roles for their children. Sociologists continue to produce empirical research that studies samples of the approximately 125,000 same-sex couples raising nearly 220,000 children and comparing their roles as parents and the adult personalities of their children to children raised by heterosexual couples. Current scientific research comparing the outcomes of children raised by gay or lesbian parents with children of heterosexual parents consistently shows that same-sex parents are just as capable of raising “psychologically healthy and well-adjusted” children as heterosexual parents. Research comparing children raised by same-sex couples and heterosexual couples found no differences in the adjustment or mental health of these children as adults.
For many years, psychologists described homosexuality as a disorder or a treatable complex. Recently, homosexuality was removed from the DSM and is no longer considered a disorder. The gay population is no longer treated as sick but accepted as a diverse set of individuals. The many distinguishing attributes and characteristics of a gay or lesbian individual are considered to be personality attributes.
There indicators of child developmental outcomes were categorized into parent and child relationship quality, children’s cognitive development, children’s gender role behavior, children’s gender identity, children’s sexual preference, and children’s social and emotional development. There analysis showed that children with same-sex parents fared equally to children raised by heterosexual parents when comparing developmental outcomes. Same-sex parents also reported a significantly better relationship with their children than heterosexual parents, which was measured by the parent or child perception of the quality of their relationship. This goes back to the argument that parent sexuality has no impact on the child but rather the relationship between the parent and the child has is the most impactful. In Crowl, Ahn and Baker (2008) meta-analysis study also found that the parent sexual orientation had no effect on gender identity, cognitive development, psychological adjustment, and sexual
... the past several years is the same-sex family. Since the sexual revolution of the 1960’s, changing attitudes have brought more tolerance to the gay and lesbian community. This has somewhat loosened the stigma previously associated with this segment of the population. Along with evolving public attitudes, economic and legal changes in the United States have also reduced barriers previously facing same-sex couples making it more likely for them to form families (Butler, 2004). On the other hand, continued strong institutional ties to marriage between one man and one woman continue to pose problem for this group and shape social agendas (Glenn, 2004; Lind, 2004). While several states and many employers have given recognition and benefits to homosexual partners, there is still no uniform policy in place which addresses their familial rights in the United States.