December 07, 2005
Do gay parents have happy children?:
The American Psychological Association's flagship publication Monitor on Psychology summarises the research on gay parents and finds their children are generally healthy, happy and well adjusted, despite occasional homophobic teasing.
Patterson's and others' findings that good parenting, not a parent's sexual orientation, leads to mentally healthy children may not surprise many psychologists. What may be more surprising is the finding that children of same-sex couples seem to be thriving, though they live in a world that is often unaccepting of their parents.
In fact, an as-yet-unpublished study by Nanette Gartrell, MD, found that by age 10, about half of children with lesbian mothers have been targeted for homophobic teasing by their peers. Those children tended to report more psychological distress than those untouched by homophobia.
But as a group, the children of lesbian moms are just as well-adjusted as children from more traditional families, according to the data from Gartrell's National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study.
Link to article in APA monitor.
Link to Patterson's full report "Lesbian and Gay Parenting" from the APA.
