What Is Parenthood?: Contemporary Debates about the Family

8. Developmental Outcomes for Children Raised by Lesbian and Gay Parents

171 CHAPTER EIGHT Developmental Outcomes for Children Raised by Lesbian and Gay Parents Fiona Tasker In recent decades we have seen an increasing diversity of family structures in which children grow up. Whether or not differences in family structure make a difference to parenting and child development has been a hotly contested debate in family policy. In his analysis of sociodemographic trends in the United States, sociologist Andrew Cherlin argued first that remarriage was an “incomplete institution,”1 and second that marriage itself has become deinstitutionalized.2 Key elements in Cherlin’s arguments are the rate of divorce in the United States and the advent of widespread cohabitation (by heterosexuals and also by same-sex couples), resulting in an increasing number of adults bringing up children within households not headed by a married couple. In this chapter, I will focus in particular on one area of the deinstitutionalization of marriage from parenthood and examine how legal and social policy has begun to change to recognize the differing profiles of parenting by lesbians and gay men. I will argue that further change is necessary to recognize the diversity of families led by nonheterosexual adults, in terms of both supporting different routes to family formation and acknowledging differences in how families function effectively to nurture children. For policy makers with a pragmatic rather than a moral focus, whether or not children brought up in nontraditional family structures are disadvantaged, unaffected, or even advantaged in their development in various psychosocial outcomes has been a key concern in whether to change legislation to recognize lesbian and gay parenting. Later in this chapter, I provide an overview of the extensive body of research on children raised in families led by a lesbian mother, a gay father, or by same-sex couples parenting together and consider whether there are consistent ways in which children’s development is associated with parental sexual orientation.3 This research supports the conclusion that it is parenting quality rather than family type, in and of itself, that matters to child well-being. 172 Fiona Tasker Profiles of Same-Sex Parenting Data from national census surveys in the United States and elsewhere have begun to provide some information on the numbers of households headed by same-sex couples who have children. Gates and colleagues have estimated from the U.S. census 2000 (Census 2000) that nearly a quarter of same-sex couples had at least one child under eighteen residing with them, with proportionately more children living with two women than two men, same-sex couples recording lower levels of household income than heterosexual married couples with children,4 and more children residing with African American and Hispanic same-sex couples than with white Americans.5 Of the children recorded in same-sex-couple households, more than 70 percent were classified as either the “natural born” child or the “stepchild” of the householder.6 Gates reasoned that a large proportion of these children were conceived in prior heterosexual relationships as people in same-sex couples who recorded previous heterosexual marriages were nearly twice as likely as those previously unmarried to have children.7 Data from Census 2000, and other household surveys relying on similar question wording, likely underestimate the numbers of men and women bringing up their children as a nonheterosexual parent. Census 2000 did not ask a direct question on sexual orientation, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior. It recorded same-sex-couple households if the householder designated another adult of the same sex as his or her “unmarried partner” or “husband/wife.”8 Parenting commitments can cut across household boundaries as well as biological, partnership, or marital relationships. Legislation and Routes to Same-Sex Parenting The official parameters of parenthood for lesbian and gay parents are crucially influenced by two aspects: the laws of the jurisdiction where they and their children reside, and the route through which they became a parent . How parenthood is legally defined crucially affects lesbian and gay parents’ interactions with educational and health care systems.9 While public opinion influences policy and legislation, legal frameworks also exert an influence on attitudes in mainstream society. Scholars have begun to undertake cross-national comparisons to examine the experience of lesbian parenting under more liberal versus more conservative jurisdictions. One study found that Canadian lesbian mothers reported fewer anxieties about legal status and discrimination, and lower levels 173 Children Raised by Lesbian and Gay Parents of depressive symptoms...