That was the lead line in a story posted by the Associated Press on April 3, 1997. My question upon reading this headline is, why is this news? Why is it so hard for people to believe that lesbian couples can raise happy, healthy kids? Not one study, but three, were done to prove this rather obvious finding. Not only did the lesbians in these studies raise normal kids, a researcher at the University of Virginia says you can't tell them apart using standard psychological tests. Normal kids, raised in lesbian homes, wow.
To the researchers I say, thanks for proving the painfully obvious. Those who think children will turn out sick and twisted living in lesbian homes need to visit a few. I can understand the stereotype. Maybe they think we'll constantly be having sex in front of the kid, or telling them how evil men are. Well, anyone who has been married awhile knows sex is the first thing to go, and as for the evil factor of men (or people in general) that's something children tend to pick up on their own without help from parents.
Case in point: I told my oldest sister that my partner and I were planning on having a child soon. She said, "I wouldn't raise a child in that environment." Well, what environment is that? One where the child is carefully planned for, wanted, loved and provided for by two committed and caring adults? She's right!! How stupid could we have been. When there are so many children out there living with single parents, or in some socially-acceptable heterosexual households that are filled with psychological and physical abuse, how could we have been so selfish as to think we could raise a child better than (or at least as well as) heterosexuals? "You know what I mean," she snapped. No, I honestly don't know what she means.
People often believe being raised in a home full of gay people will make you turn gay. Well, I for one, was raised in a home full of heterosexuals and somehow it didn't rub off on me. Lord knows they tried to make me straight, but you can't mess with what God gave you. If a lesbian's child is heterosexual, nothing the lesbian mother does will make them gay.
Another objection I have faced as I've contemplated raising children: "How will they deal with the prejudice and teasing from kids at school?" Well, the obvious answer here is it would not be a problem if other parents didn't teach their kids to be prejudiced. I intend to teach my child that everyone is different. That's not a value judgment, it is mere fact. My child's family will be different from other children's families. We are no better, we are no worse, we are just different. Keep your opinions (and your misguided Bible quotes) off my life, thank you very much.
Teaching tolerance is key for parents. Kids get their world view from their parents. Most studies done on children raised in lesbian or gay homes show the children are often more tolerant of others than children raised in heterosexual homes. The children are taught to not judge others and remain open-minded in unfamiliar situations.
Some of the more interesting findings in these studies is how involved both parents are in lesbian parenting arrangements versus heterosexual couples. For example:
These studies included women who had children by artificial insemination. Let me just state plainly, getting pregnant this way is more challenging than lowering the lights and opening a bottle of wine. You must take your temperature, guage ovulation, and get to the sperm as fast as possible. It can take months. With this type of dedication to having a child, you can bet there are no UNWANTED children in the lesbian community. There are no accidental children, there are only WANTED and LOVED children of homosexuals.
Generally, I'm very glad to see researchers are taking the reality of lesbian parents seriously enough to study them. It proves what lesbians already know ... we can be good parents, and proves to the world at large what they may not know ... lesbians can be good parents.
True, parenting is not a skill easily mastered. Not everyone is good at it, and all parents make mistakes. A parent's sexual orientation, however, has nothing to do with how good of a parent they are. Parents, of all sexual orientations, are people, fallible and weak. Raising children takes patience, time and money. Lesbians and straights alike may have varying degrees of these resources, but turn out good kids everyday. Lesbian parents are not the norm, but as these studies show, their kids are normal. We must remember Jeff Dahmer's parents were heterosexual, so were Charles Manson's. I can't cite an example of a serial killer or other freak raised by lesbians. Does this prove we're better? No, probably not, but it proves no parent is perfect, gay or straight.
Sexual orientation of the parent has little to do with how children turn out. Parents are responsible for teaching their children how to live with integrity, pride and love. They need to know how to balance their ambition with the needs of others. They need self-confidence and the knowledge that their parents love them unconditionally. These are taught by example. That depends of the depth of character of the parent, not the sex of the person they take to bed each night. I'm sure there are "bad" lesbian mothers, just as there are "bad" heterosexual parents. Being a heterosexual parent doesn't make you a better parent, just a more socially acceptable one.