Bringing Up Baby
Looking at Gay Parenting
By Mikee dela Cruz
PUBLISHED: JANUARY 2009

GAY CARE

“Much of the (rationale) behind wanting to be a parent is the same for everyone (who wants to be a parent, irrespective of their gender and/or sexual identification),” Danny J. says – an observation supported by, among others, J.J. Bigner and R.B. Jacobsen in The Value of Children to Gay and Heterosexual Fathers (Homosexuality and the Family, 1989), who state that “gay male fathers and heterosexual fathers do not differ in their motives for becoming parents.”

With the intent basically the same, the effects are what need to be focused, therefore.

According to the MFE, “negative myths, images, and stereotypes about individuals who identify themselves as lesbian or gay and their ability to parent children are created, perpetuated, and maintained at multiple levels of society.”  Many of the myths are, however, easily dispelled by studies – some even asserting what can be deemed beneficial in having GLBTQIAs as parents.

C.J. Patterson and R.W. Chan, in Gay Fathers and their Children (from the Textbook of Homosexuality and Mental Health, 1996), note that while, historically, “concerns about the stability of committed gay relationships, the quality of gay parenting, and the nature of the parent-child relationships in households headed by gay males have been raised.  But research has not supported these concerns. On the contrary, the relationship dynamics of gay parents and their children parallel those of heterosexual father-child relationships.  For example, gay male and heterosexual couples report similar types and levels of relationship satisfaction, supportive interactions, and conflict.”

In a separate study (Family Relationships of Lesbians and Gay Men from the Journal of Marriage and the Family, 2000), Patterson adds that given comparable environments, “the evidence suggests no significant differences in the psychosocial, emotional, and sexual development of children raised by gay and heterosexual couples.”

In fact, elaborates Bigner and Jacobsen (Ibid.), GLBTQIAs tend to be “more responsive and more likely to exhibit authoritative (e.g. limit setting, open to negotiation), as opposed to authoritarian (e.g. dictatorial) patterns of parenting behaviours than their heterosexual counterparts.”

“I don’t know about (other parents),” Danny J. says, “but I tend to be more accepting when it comes to dealing (with the people under my care).  Something to do with not wanting others to experience what (ill experiences I had).”
The MFE, understandably, states that while “gay fathers also emphasized nurturing in their approach to childrearing and fostered a climate of acceptance and respect for diversity that heterosexual fathers did not as frequently endorse, future research on parenting quality needs to be conducted with larger and more representative samples of gay and heterosexual fathers before definitive conclusions can be drawn in this regard.”

Particularly overseas (in developed countries), the reactions to gay parenting include the supposed high risk of sexual abuse by the homosexual parent of his/her child – a “truth” according to “surveys” done by, among others, Family Research Council (FRC).  Immediately showing its bias because of its extremist association, FRC’s surveys have been negated by, also among others, the Public Broadcasting System, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Canadian Department of Justice (DOJ), all noting that “there is no connection between child abusers and sexual orientation.”

In fact, expounds the DOJ in Children's Development of Social Competence Across Family Types, “a few studies suggest that children with two lesbian mothers may have marginally better social competence than children in 'traditional nuclear' families, even fewer studies show the opposite, and most studies fail to find any differences.”

And then there’s the worry that having GLBTQIAs as parents may turn a child into one, too – something that the MFE says is not correlated, since “the frequency of contact or the length of time children live with their gay fathers does not seem to affect the child's ultimate sexual identity; that is, those who live with gay fathers for long periods of time are no more likely to be lesbian or gay than those who do not.”
“If this was the case, no heterosexual parent will ever have a gay child, which, of course, isn’t true,” Danny J. says, then adds with a laugh: “No, I don’t think my being gay will turn Princess into a lesbian, just as my macho father didn’t turn me macho, too.”

FOCUS ON CHILDREN

Danny J. believes the focus “need not (just) be the parents, but the children themselves,” he says.  “We have to look at what’s best for the children.”  And what’s best, for a growing number, is having “someone care for them,” he adds – an observation backed by the growing number of GLBTQIAs becoming parents, e.g. in 2000, the US Census reported that 33% of female same sex couple households and 22% of male same sex couple households have at least one child under 18 years of age living at home; as of end-2005, it was estimated that 270,313 children live in households headed by same sex couples in the US alone.