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Julie Cohen is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist MFT and a Child Mental Health Specialist with a private practice in Los Angeles Her areas of focus include depression anxiety panic post-traumatic stress bipolar…
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Study Finds that Children Raised by Lesbian Parents Have Less Mental Illness
A recent study out of the University of Copenhagen finds that children raised by lesbian parents are less likely to suffer from mental illness than children raised by heterosexual parents. The study followed 387 children of lesbian parents from 1992 - 2008. The findings stated that only 2% of these children developed disorders such as anxiety and anorexia whereas children raised by heterosexual parents were at 5%.
What does all this mean? According to the Copenhagen Post, "The findings, according to Merete Lauberg, of the University Of Copenhagen Department Of Public Health, suggest that concerns that alternative families have a negative effect on child development are over." This is a huge step towards furthering equality and empowering lesbian and gay parents. It challenges and voids homophobic stereotypes that have oppressed gay and lesbian parents.
The study also states that possible reasons for the lower numbers may involve intent and strength gained from dealing with resistance. "One reason for the lower rate could be that their mothers have encountered more resistance in their lives than heterosexual parents have. ‘Resistance makes you stronger, and that could be passed on to their children,' Lauberg said.
Another reason, according to psychiatrist Per Hove Thomsen are the efforts the parents had to make to conceive the child.‘A lot of other parents have challenges having children, but children with lesbian mothers face particular challenges,' he said. ‘The women have had to make an extra effort to get pregnant, and that could have an effect on the child.'"
In the wake of a disappointing decision by the California Supreme Court to uphold proposition 8, this is a silver lining further validating the fight towards equality for all.
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Displaying comments 35-16 of 35
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My response to this study and its results is that the numbers are not very different so it doesn't demonstrate a clear effect. If there is a statistically significant effect that says the children raised by lesbian couples are less likely to suffer from mental illness, I could imagine a few reasons this could be so. The most obvious is that children of lesbian couples are much, much less likely to be unwanted or "surprise" children, than those of hetero couples. The other is that I have read studies that lesbian couples and families tend to be more egalitarian - that roles for the parents are less rigid, and there is less tendency for one parent to dominate the other, even if there is an earning disparity. Counterbalancing those would be discrimination against these families, the effect of (possible) societal disapproval.
The thing is really though, this study stands among many others that have looked for differences in children raised in lesbian families and to my knowledge NONE have ever found any bad effects on the children arising from being raised by lesbians rather than a heterosexual couple with a mother and father. Which is a good thing!
I don't know what the adoption laws are, but I hope that they extend to any couple who wants to adopt and can provide a good home have that chance. There are so many children out there who need a loving family, why should it matter whether you are homosexual or hetrosexual?
What are your opinions about children raised by lesbian parents?
It would be great to hear a broad range of opinions relating to anything (ethics, morals, religion, et cetera).
Thank you!
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could you please write down some symptoms of various types of mental illness because i used to have a friend i really cared about and i'll always wonder whether he may have had a problem there. like, sometimes, he would seem like he was in a completely different world, completely detached and he never knew when we would be able to meet. like he had problems with his nerves or something. he mentioned this to me once. also, we would hang out from about 10 am to 3 pm and then despite wanting to spend more time with me, he would have to drive back home and he got nervous. like he was about to have an attack or something. it's really hard to explain but i could recognize something was wrong from his facial expressions, he would be totally detached from everything but the thing is he does have a job. do people or can people who have a serious mental illness work?
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Next most of the states that ban gay adoption is the Red states other wise known as The republican states which inst a shocker. My point is dont talk bad about gay parents nobody has the right of saying that it is wrong . Unless you where raised by one. Im sure there grateful of there gay parents who saved them from which ever situation they where on i know i would.
Deanna, just because she's gay doesn't change the study. I'm bipolar, but if I found a study saying it's caused by X biological factor no one would go around saying "well, she's only posting that study because she's bipolar" as if that somehow makes the study itself less valid. Of course we post things that are near and dear to our hearts and things that effect us. There are certainly flaws to the study as many people here have pointed out, but the poster put in the information we needed to make that assessment- if it were biased she wouldn't have put in the bits about how it may simply be because they have to fight harder to get their children, she would have just said "lesbians are better parents, suck it straight community" The "tone" of your message smells slightly of anti-gay sentiment and I hope I'm reading something wrong into it.
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"‘The women have had to make an extra effort to get pregnant, and that could have an effect on the child.'""
it's not a great study which isn't saying anything against gay parents... just against the study.. but one good thing it will do is spark more studies as a few other people have already said.
I find it ridiculous that we even have to do studies- the only reason studies are being done are because of the religious ppl saying how BAD they'd be at being parents.. if we all just accepted that any parent has an equal opportunity to screw up their kids or do well, this wouldn't be an issue.
This is not to say that straight parents don't want their kids. I know that I was raised by two extremely loving parents and I'm very thankful. That being said, it's much easier to get an "oops" in the hetero world. People can be careless and it's the children who suffer. Just ask my single sister in law who just popped out her 5th kid... of 3 different men. Irresponsible.
I think you may be stretching the emotional response. I don't intrepret any anger in these posts. The fact that Merete Lauberg made such a strong statement based on one seemingly poorly run study is what got got my hackles up. "Suggest that concerns that alternative families have a negative effect on child development are over." This is a huge step towards furthering equality and empowering lesbian and gay parents. It challenges and voids homophobic stereotypes that have oppressed gay and lesbian parents." Keep in mind the bit of information in all likely hood can't be duplicated. There was no margin of error quoted. A 3% margin off error could mean they came out the same. Standard deviation figures would help too.