Research
shows that children do best when raised by a mother and father. But what about
those studies that show they do just as well with two mommies or daddies?
What is
best for the children? The legal battles over marriage frequently revolve
around this very question. Gay activists argue that many same-sex couples
already have children, and these children need the protections afforded by
legal recognition of their relationship. To support this line of argument, they
present the courts with numerous studies claiming to prove that children raised
by persons with same-sex attractions (SSA) are just as happy, healthy, and
academically successful as children raised by their married biological parents.
In her book
Children as Trophies? European sociologist Patricia Morgan reviews 144
published studies on same-sex parenting and concludes that it fosters
homosexual behaviour, confused gender roles, and increased likelihood of
serious psychological problems later in life. A French parliamentary report on
the rights of children decried the "flagrant lack of objectivity" in
much of the pro-gay research in this area, and concluded with the warning that
"we do not yet know all the effects on the construction of the adopted
child's psychological identity. As long as there is uncertainty, however small,
is it not in the best interest of the child to apply the precautionary
principle, as is done in other domains?"(1)
When
spouses "fall in love" with their children, it doesn't diminish their
love for the other spouse, but enriches it. Same-sex couples may seek children
hoping they will provide this same effect, but will more often find them an
obstacle to and a competitor for affection.
Even a
recent meta-analysis by two gay activists failed to support the "just like
other children" myth. In 2004, Judith Stacey and Timothy J. Biblarz,(2)
both supporters of gay parenting, published a study entitled, "(How) Does
the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?" In it they re-examined twenty
studies of same-sex parenting that had supposedly shown no difference, and
charged their authors with ignoring the differences they had indeed found. There
were differences: children raised by parents with SSA showed empathy for
"social diversity", were less confined by gender stereotypes, more
likely to have confusion about gender identity, more likely to engage in sexual
experimentation and promiscuity, and more likely to explore homosexual
behaviour. Stacey and Biblarz characterized these as positive differences,
suggesting that same-sex parenting may in fact be superior.
Paula
Ettlebrick of the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce admitted that Stacey and
Biblarz had "burst the bubble of one of the best-kept secrets" of the
gay community - namely, that the studies it had been using did not actually
support the claims it was making. Not all gay activists saw this as a problem. Kate
Kendall, head of the San Francisco-based National Center for Lesbian Rights,
who raises two children with her partner, took the Stacey/Biblarz article as
good news: There's only one response to a study that children raised by
lesbian and gay parents may be somewhat more likely to reject notions of rigid
sexual orientation -- that response has to be elation.
Gay
activists have tried to put the best spin possible on the study, but they also
know there are political consequences to admitting that there are real differences.
Comments such as Kendall's above, though meant to be supportive, throw into
relief the ongoing dissonance between the public face of gay rights activism,
which pleads for acceptance into the "heteronormative" world, and the
majority of its committed ideologues, who want to unmake it.
Boys
in woman space
Any
same-sex parenting scenario will be "different" from ordinary
families, with consequent effects on children, but as evidence suggests, none
more so than two women raising boys.
Many women
with SSA have extremely negative attitudes toward men. Some are still very
angry with their fathers, and that antagonism carries over to males in general.
Some extend their hostility to masculinity itself, and frown on traditional
boyish pursuits. It's common for same-sex parents to discourage play with
gender-typing toys and games, but women seem to do it more thoroughly than
men.(4) Some women with SSA go so far as to advocate "lesbian
separatism," which Ruthann Robson defines as an ethical forward/moral/political/social/theoretical
lifestyle in which lesbians devote their considerable energies, insofar as it
is possible, exclusively to other lesbians or, in some cases, exclusively to
other women.(5)
Needless to
say, a fatherless boy living among women who are deeply hostile to masculinity
itself will find it difficult to develop a healthy masculine identity.(6) The
book Lesbians Raising Sons - a collection of essays by lesbian mothers
of boys -- reveals numerous cases of boys who, by their mother's admission,
exhibit symptoms of gender identity disorder. One mother defends her adopted
son's cross-gender behaviour and castigates society for not accommodating him. She
herself is pleased with it:
He has
watched the college girls who student-teach, the video mermaids, the female
heroines of the silver screen. He knows how to toss his head just so, to tuck a
lock behind his ear, to suck on a strand that reaches the mouth.(7)
When he is
asked if he is a girl or a boy, she encourages him to say "Well it doesn't
matter to me what you think… whatever you decide." (8) The school also
accommodates his problem. The kindergarten class was asked to line up, boys
on one side, girls to the other, for races. My son stood in the middle a little
dumfounded that such a request was being made, then slid himself to the girls'
side. Afterwards a confused Mr. M. went to the teachers for clarification. They
recommended he no longer divide the children by gender and that was that. (9)
A sad scene
like that is made possible not just by lesbian hostility towards men, but also
by the constructionist ideology, which denies that there are essential
differences between the sexes. No matter how strong the evidence for such
differences, radical feminists will not relinquish their vision of world where
we can choose our gender. Every little victory ("and that was that")
for their side shows once again how the rest of society can't avoid being
caught up in the battle.
Lesbians
raising boys think they can fully compensate for the absence of a father --
that fatherlessness is not a problem unless an oppressive society makes it one.
But the children do not see it that way: Parents reported a number of
instances where children age four and older would ask about their father. Children
would ask someone to be their daddy, ask where their father was, or express the
wish to have a father. They would make up their own answers, such as their
father was dead, or someone was in fact their father.(10)
Can the
"second mommy" compensate for the absence of a father? There is
substantial evidence that children benefit from having a second sex represented
in the home -- not just a second person. Developmental psychologist Norma Radin
and her colleagues studied the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren
born to adolescent unwed mothers living with their parents. The young children
who had positively involved grandfathers displayed more competence than those
with an absent or uninvolved grandfather. The presence of the grandmother, on
the other hand, did not have a clear-cut impact, suggesting a redundancy
between the two forms of maternal influence.(11) Children, especially boys with
involved grandfathers, showed less fear, anger, and distress.(12)
Even
gay-affirming therapists are noting the problem. In an article entitled,
"A Boy and Two Mothers", Toni Heineman reports that in spite of the
pretence that two "mothers" were the same as a mother and father,
families had to cope with the reality of an absent father.(13)
Men and
women grow up with certain natural expectations about what it means to be a man
or a woman. Although activists may claim that these feelings are mere social
constructions which they can overcome, in practice nature will always have its
way.
Parenting
strains same-sex relationships
Apart from
the additional risks and stresses borne by a child raised by same-sex parents,
having a baby can strain and even destroy a same-sex relationship. Sometimes
the strain begins even before the baby is conceived: in some cases both women
want to bear a child and have to "negotiate" who gets to go first. In
cases where a female couple is deeply enmeshed, the child can threaten to drive
a wedge between them. If one or both of the women entered the relationship
hoping to have her deep need for mothering met, a baby can destabilize it.
In some
instances the woman's needs are so completely met by the baby that she no
longer is interested in meeting her partner's needs. One woman explained: What
can I say? I loved our baby and didn't know how to love two people at the same
time. I fell in love with the baby and my lover felt neglected, rejected, and
understandably totally abandoned.(14)
Often
compounding the stresses is the fact that most persons with SSA come from
dysfunctional families. The addition of a child often serves to resurrect old
traumas: My parents fought all the time when we were growing up. I didn't
have any idea that would happen to us. But it did. We were totally unprepared
for the way being parents brought up all those old issues from the past.(15)
Of course,
having a baby can also cause problems for a husband/wife couple, particularly
if either spouse came to the marriage with deep, unresolved problems. The
difference is that solving those problems will strengthen their relationship,
with the child's presence deepening the bond between them. When spouses
"fall in love" with their children, it doesn't diminish their love
for the other spouse, but enriches it. Same-sex couples may seek children
hoping they will provide this same effect, but will more often find them an
obstacle to and a competitor for affection. And when persons with SSA do
succeed in solving their deep problems and meeting their unmet needs, it tends
to diminish the attractions that form the very basis of their relationship, and
likewise undoes it.
Doesn't
everyone have a right to children?
Persons
with SSA are human beings. It is natural for them to want to experience the joy
of having children: to love, to nurture, to leave a legacy. There is nothing
wrong with a woman wanting to become pregnant and bear a child, or a man wanted
to experience the joy of seeing his son grow into manhood or his daughter
develop into a beautiful woman.
But
children are not trophies, or a way to meet one's personal needs, or props to
help forward an ideology. People are not a means to an end; they are meant to
be loved for their own sake. Therefore no one has a "right" to a
child. It is children who have the rights. When circumstances separate
a child from one or both biological parents, adults should try to create a
situation for him that is as normal as possible. No matter how honourable the
intention, no one has the right to compound the tragedy of separation from
biological parents by subjecting a child to another sub-optimal situation.
Activists
may claim that couples with SSA are "rescuing" children by adopting
them out of poverty or other hard circumstances. Although laudable, this intent
does not negate the real problems caused by same-sex parenting: problems deeper
and longer-lasting than material deprivation. This argument also loses force
when you consider the many roadblocks to adoption faced by stable, well-to-do
married couples. Same-sex adoption doesn't provide more homes for needy
children -- it just keeps those children away from married couples who would
otherwise adopt them.
Of course,
when AID and surrogacy are used to create babies for same-sex couples, these
children not being "rescued" from anything. Instead they are being
intentionally conceived to be placed in suboptimal situations. This is child
abuse.
As more
persons with SSA acquire children, society will increasingly be pressured to
ignore the problems caused by same-sex parenting -- just as it ignores the
problems caused by divorce -- and join in the pretence that that having two
mommies is just the same as having a mommy and a daddy. But no matter how many
people praise "family diversity," children being raised by parents
with SSA will always know that it's not the same, and someday they will resent
how their needs have been sacrificed for the sake of a social experiment. In a
sad irony, the more that cultural elites insist that there is nothing wrong
with their situation, the more these children will feel guilty about resenting
it, and this guilt will lead them to conclude that there must be something
wrong with them.
This is
an extract from One
Man, One Woman by Dale O'Leary, published by Sophia Institute Press and
reproduced here with permission. Dale O'Leary is an award-winning American
journalist with a special interest in marriage and gender issues.
Notes
1.
Parliamentary Report on the Family and the Rights of Children, French National
Assembly, Paris, January 25, 2006, http://www.preservemarriage.ca
2. Judith Stacey, Timothy J. Biblarz "(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of
Parents Matter," American Sociological Review, April 2004.
3. David Crary, "Professors Take Issue With Gay Parenting Research"
and "Report: Kids of gays more empathetic," AP/Los Angeles Times,
April 27, 2001
4. P. H. Turner, Scadden, Harris, "Parenting in gay and Lesbian
families." Journal of Gay and Lesbian Psychotherapy, 1(3) p.
55-66.
5. Albert Mohler Jr., "Lesbians raising sons; got a problem with
that?" Baptist Press, December 30, 2004 http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/bpnews.asp?ID=19814
6. Since relatively few male couples have raised girls from birth without a
female caregiver, the effects of such arrangements on a girl's development have
not been fully studied. Although girls raised by male couples still do not have
a female model, men with SSA are not generally as openly hostile to femininity
as women with SSA are to masculinity.
7. Sara Asch, "On the way to the water," Lesbian Raising Sons,
L.A.: Alyon Books, 1997, p. 4.
8. ibid., p. 4
9. ibid., p. 6
10. Barbara McCandlish, "Against all odds: Lesbian mother family dynamics
(in Fredrick Bozett, Gay and Lesbian Parents, NY: Praeger, 1987). p.
30.
11. Radin, N., Oyserman, D., Benn, R., "Grandfathers, teen mothers, and
children under two," in P.K. Smith (ed) The psychology of
grandparenthood: An international perspective, London: Routledge,1991, pp.
85-89.
12. Comments on Radin, in Biller, H., Fathers and Families: Paternal
Factors in Child Development, Westport CT: Auburn House, 1993
13. Toni Heineman, "A Boy and Two Mothers: New Variations on an Old Theme
or a New Story of Triangulation? Beginning Thoughts on the Psychosexual
Development of Children in Nontraditional Families," Psychoanalytic
Psychology, 2004, 21, 1, pp. 99-115.
14. Cheri Pies, "Lesbians and the Choice to Parent," Homosexuality
and Family Relations, New York: Harrington Park Press, 1990 p. 150
15. ibid.