Lesbian Moms: Doin' it Right

Contrary to assertions from people opposed to same-sex parenting, we found that the 17-year-olds scored higher in psychological adjustment in areas of competency and lower in problem behaviors than the normative age-matched sample of kids raised in traditional families with a mom and a dad.

So concludes Dr. Nanette Gartrell, MD, the Williams distinguished scholar at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law. Gartrell's conclusions are part of a report she published in the journal Pediatrics. It's one of a series about the U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS). NLLFS has been studying the families of 154 prospective lesbian mothers who were enrolled as participants in the study between 1986 and 1992. Researchers followed and documented the mothers and their children from conception through the early years of the children. Most of the 140 women were birth mothers and co-mothers; 14 were single moms who identified as lesbian. 78 of the original families, or 93% of the original participants are still enrolled in the study. Gartrell notes that in 2005 more than 270,000 U.S. children were living in households headed by same-sex couples. Almost twice that number of children had a single gay or lesbian parent.

In the latest report, Dr. Gartrell and her colleague Henny Bos, Ph. D. of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands studied 78 teens from 77 families (one family did not complete fully complete the survey). In the study, the teens, with an average age of 17 completed a survey. Their mothers participated in interviews with researchers and completed detailed surveys and checklists about their children, covering social life, school and academic performance, and overall competence and experience. The participants were compared with another group of 93 teens of the same age, as part of a research sample that included similar data from their mothers.

According to Gartrell:

The teens raised by lesbian parents were rated higher in social, school, academic, and total competence, Gartrell found, while they were rated lower than the peers in the comparison group in engaging in problem behaviors such as rule-breaking and aggression.

Gartrell is also quick to note that the nature of lesbian parenting, and conceiving, means that their children are planned, since they are conceived through donor insemination. She also notes that "The moms tended to be older and attended parenting classes. They were very involved in the process of education [for their children]."

There's something to be said regarding the advantages of knowingly choosing to have children, and being aware that you need to prepare for it; it would be interesting to see more studies done in terms of the advantages of planned children, in terms of planning and affording children, no matter what sexual orientation. Given the social stigma still faced by lesbian parents, this kind of study is immensely helpful in terms of support for those who chose to have children.