Children of same-sex parents fare just as well as their peers who have opposite-sex parents, research has shown.
The UK’s Office For National Statistics recorded 212,000 same-sex families in the UK in 2019, which was a 40 percent rise since 2015. Unfortunately, up until now, research into same-sex families has not inclined with the statistics. What research we do have reveals is that children raised by same-sex parents do as well emotionally, socially and educationally as their peers in heterosexual families, if not better in some areas.
The latest study into children of same-sex parents, by Chinese and US researchers at BMJ Global Health, backs up previous research: a child’s development has little to do with their parents’ sexual orientation.
In particular, parent-child relationships were better and psychological adjustment was easier achieved among children of same-sex parents. “Contrary to many concerns, our review found most family outcomes were similar between these two family types, and sexual minority families have even better outcomes in some domains, such as child psychological adjustment and child-parent relationships,” the researchers wrote.
“Sexual minority parent groups showed higher levels of parent-child relationship quality, such as higher levels of warmth, greater amounts of interaction and more supportive behaviour, when compared with the heterosexual parent groups,” the researchers wrote.
However, families with same-sex parents did not outperform their heterosexual counterparts in parental mental health, parenting stress or family functioning. The study put this down to homophobic risk factors: “Relevant social risk factors of poor family outcomes included stigma and discrimination, poor social support and marital status, etc.”
Basically, homophobic society is the reason why families with same-sex parents are stressed more. It’s time to properly address all stigma and global inequality, for good.
“The next step is to integrate multiple aspects of support and multilevel interventions to reduce the adverse effects on family outcomes with a long-term goal of influencing policy and law making for better services to individuals, families, communities and schools,” researchers wrote.
Dr Rachel Farr, an expert in same-sex parent families at the University of Kentucky, raised concerns that the study took into account controversial or discredited research. Gay families would have outperformed in even more areas if it was not included.
Deni Makrekaj, assistant professor of sociology at Utrecht University, noted that some misinterpreted research surrounding children of same-sex couples’ “poorer academic performance” has been included when other pertinent studies had not.
But the “general message is the same,” Farr said. The sexual orientation of parents is “far less important to children’s outcomes and development as compared to what happens within families, such as the quality of parenting and family relationships.”
