As scholars investigate complex family system, the research on how partners work together to parent children increases. Coparenting is a unique component in a family relationship where parents function on a continuum between working together and struggling against each to make parental decisions. Historically, traditional coparenting referred to the collaboration between a man and a woman to raise their children. However, important social changes have led to other forms of coparenting in families.
Parenting for gay and lesbian couples is becoming more common today than ever before. As the United States becomes more accepting of gay and lesbian rights, homosexual couples are building families of their own that include children. Many people believe gay and lesbian couples raising children are not a fit environment for children. However, research suggests child outcomes are the same for gay and lesbian parents and heterosexual parents. Coparenting between gay and lesbian couples does however have it's own characteristics.
Background
Gay and Lesbian families can choose from several paths to become parents. Some families are created when one member of the couple brings children from a previous heterosexual relationship. Most children of same-sex couples are biological children of one of the parents. However, a growing number of children are the result of various processes that now available to couples that include donor insemination, surrogacy, foster care and adoption.
Donor insemination involves a man donating sperm so a woman can be inseminated. Donor insemination can be performed using sperm from someone they know or from a fertility clinic from an anonymous donor. It can be performed within a fertility clinic ...
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...lesbian, gay, and heterosexual couples: Associations with adopted children's outcomes. Child Development, 84(4), 1226-1240.
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Rudolph, D. (2012). Milestones in lgbt parenting history. Washinton Blade. Retrieved from
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Same-Sex Parenting. (n.d.) Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society. Retrieved from http://www.faqs.org/childhood/Re-So/Same-Sex-Parenting.html
Selke, L. A. (n.d.). States that allow gay foster parenting. Global Post. Retrieved from http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/states-allow-gay-foster-parenting-6351.ht.
In the article “Foster kids do equally well when adopted by gay, lesbian or heterosexual parents” by Stuart Wolpert, high risk children from foster care are taken care of really well by parents or couples regardless of gender and sexual orientation. In Los Angeles County, 82 high risk children were adopted by lesbian, gay and straight parents and went through cognitive assessment. The children’s IQ levels raised by ten points and behavior remained stable. The children from birth had faced neglect, prenatal substances, and premature births, but their social development skills were stable after adoption. There are concerns regarding homosexual parents adopting children because in society a man and woman are the sole parents not two men and women.
Discrimintaion and equality in society is faced amongst people every day. One certain subject that seems to get most of this attention is whether or not homosexual couples should be able to adopt. Same sex couples should be able to adopt children for many reasons. Children that are raised by same sex parents are predominantly taught to be more open minded, have a greater sense of tolerance, and are thought of to be role models for equality in relationships and life. Most would say that these children will face issues regarding their parents sexual orientation, but this is not so. Children of same sex parents have studied to show very few differences in achievement, mental health, and social function as a child that is raised in a heterosexual household. Same sex parents will allow their child to express themselves through different talents and other attributes that there child seems to be indulged in. These children are often showing more loving, nurturing ,and outgoing behaviors that is exposed to them through gay parenting.
These families are still frowned upon by multiple religions and individuals, but these couples fight to stay around and have started to use surrogate mothers, sperm donors, and/or adoption to have children. Which leads to peoples optimism on how the children are being raised, most just assume that the children being raised by two adults of the same gender will have behavioral problems. But research has been found to be false and that it’s other factors such as divorce from heteorsexual couples that causes behavioral problems. Most gay couples do not break up once they’ve became parents and they have an ordinary
...s parents are gay or lesbian couples, you just can’t! It is a pretty hard situation for both the parent and the children going through the process, but it could all be easy if gay and lesbian adoption is taken out of the picture completely.
Another concern is that if homosexual parents get another child of their same gender that the child will be sexually abused but same sex parents view their children in the same way heterosexual ones do. The risk is no higher than with heterosexual parents. Another argument is that the child will not develop right psychologically but to say this is saying that homosexuality is a mental disorder which according to the DSM- V it is not (Reekers 343). It is a possibility that some of these studies that support same sex parenting are flawed because they are so new. Same sex marriage ten to fifteen years ago wasn’t as prevalent as it is today. There are very few studies and it is hard to get parents to agree for psychologist to pry into their private lives for something that may or may not be proven (Meezan 97).
The emergence of gays and lesbians from the shadows of perceived deviancy has led to the formation of civil unions and in an increasingly number of states, marriage. As society has become more open and accepting of homosexuals, an increased number of gay men and women have “come out” of the proverbial closet. These closeted individuals may have previously been married in heterosexual unions and produced offspring prior to freeing themselves of fear and societal constraints. This gives rise to a new interpretation of the blended family. The gay and lesbian blended family. Many gays and lesbians have opted to cohabitate as a family unit merging the heterosexual and homosexual familial entity. Despite the controversies, gays and lesbians with children are becoming more and more a part of the American family landscape. Increasingly, there are blended families with two moms or two dads. During the past decade, the number of same-sex households “grew significantly” in 10 states for which figures have been released: more than 700 percent in Delaware and Nevada; more than 400 percent in Vermont, Indiana, Louisiana and Nebraska; and more than 200 percent in Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts and
Reproduction is a part of life, and it was in Gods intention for living things to reproduce. In a homosexual relationship natural reproduction cannot occur. Adoption is an option, but it is not natural. The only situation which adoption is acceptable is if a parent who cannot properly raise a chi...
Out of fifty states, only sixteen states allow gay adoptions while people in the other thirty-four states are either denied or sent to court to be determined by a complete stranger with no background information on the couple, whether or not they can take care of a child or not. According to “LGBT Adoption Statistics”, in 2012, 110,000 adopted children live with gay parents. Of the total amount of children in U.S. households, less than one percent lives with same-sex parents. If homosexuals were allowed to adopt, that one percent would rapidly increase. Sexual orientation of parents is not important when it comes to raising children; how the children are being raised and how the parents work together is what is truly important.
The argument sexual orientation interferes with ones parenting skills is common belief that Charlotte J. Patterson identifies as myth in her work, Lesbian and Gay Parents and their Children, suggesting the belief that “lesbians’ and gay men’s relationships with sexual partners leave little time for ongoing parent–child interactions.” In the Who is Mommy tonight? case study, how 18 lesbian adoptive parents, 49 lesbian parents who formed their families biologically, and 44 heterosexual adoptive parents experience and perceive their parenting role, how they respond when their children seek them or their partner for particular nurturing, and how the parents negotiate the cultural expectation of a primary caregiver (Ciano-Boyce & Shelley-Sireci, 2002) is looked at. The empirical data found proposes lesbian parent couples were more equ...
All of the research to date has come to the same conclusion about lesbian and gay parenting. “The children of lesbian and gay parents grow up as successfully as the children of heterosexual parents. In fact, not a single study has found the children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged because of their parent’s sexual orientation” (American Civil Liberties Union, 1999, p.2). Other findings show that there is no evidence to state that lesbians and gay men are unfit to be parents. Home environments of lesbian and gay parents support their child’s development just as heterosexual parents. Good parenting is influence by a parent’s ability to create a loving and nurturing home. Finally, children of lesbian and gay parents grow up as happy and healthy as children of heterosexual parents. In addition, the lesbian and gay “baby boom” will have a tremendous effect on the next generation. In reality, they will be raising their children who will be attending the same schools, playing in the same playgrounds, and leaving us to deal with this new level of diversity (American Civil Liberties Union, 1999, Lev, p.2).
In was late July of 1999, five of my buddies and I had just graduated from high school and we were enjoying one of the greatest summers of our lives in Ocean City, Maryland. We were renting out what we thought was the best bachelor pad in all of O.C. on 139th street. Even friends of ours that we graduated with and had known for several years were living at the beach as well. Life was good. But two girls in particular that all of our friends knew from Paint Branch H.S. would, throughout the remainder of the summer, indirectly change and redefine the way in which most of us thought about homosexual relationships.
America, being the diverse country that it is, has moved on from the idea of the traditional family; one father one mother and 2 children. We are seeing more and more homosexual couples having, adopting and raising their own children. Although some people do not approve of this idea of a family, whether it is due to religious beliefs or just the way that the individuals were raised as a child, it is definitely a reality. They face many obstacles when it comes to them wanting to be parents. People say it is not right, and that it is unnatural, which I feel they think that they have to be twice as “perfect” as the heterosexual parents are. In this paper I plan to discuss the issues that Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgendered Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ) families go through while trying to start a family of their own. The issues will range from adoption and the issues faced in trying to adopt a child, to custody battles and how sexual orientation could play a role in the “well-being” of a child, to how being brought up by a LGBTQ headed home could affect, if in any way, a child’s development.
Adoption for same sex couples is a very controversial topic in Family Law, and often same sex couples face many unique issues if they wish to adopt. Many states have different laws that apply for gay and lesbian adoption, as opposed to heterosexual couples. Several states also have special rules that apply when a child is born into a gay or lesbian partnership. Gay and lesbian couples may sometimes opt to bring a child into their lives through conception and birth as well. For a lesbian couple, this is usually done through a male donor or a sperm bank and having one of the couple become pregnant. Similarly, gay men may use a surrogate mother and then become a legal parent through adoption. The other parent then can become a legal second parent through stepparent or second parent adoption. However, many states including Virginia don’t allow second parent adoption.
An estimated two million LGBT people are interested in adopting. Studies say gay parents seem to be more motivated than heterosexual parents because they chose to be parents and adopt the child. There are many different types of adoption, but this essay will only be about 5 of them, each adoption will show that LGBT parents are as capable of adopting and raising a child as heterosexuals are.
...l preference, and cognitive development have been tracked for these children into adulthood. Study after study have asked different questions in attempts to find similarities and differences in children raised in these two different family structures, but scientific consensus shows that there are no noticeable differences in children brought up by a gay or lesbian couple.