{"id":2429,"date":"2017-11-05T10:49:40","date_gmt":"2017-11-05T07:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/?p=2429"},"modified":"2017-11-05T10:49:40","modified_gmt":"2017-11-05T07:49:40","slug":"serious-emotional-problems-in-children-with-same-sex-parents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/2429\/serious-emotional-problems-in-children-with-same-sex-parents\/","title":{"rendered":"Serious emotional problems in children with same-sex parents"},"content":{"rendered":"

Published research employing the New Family Structures Study (NFSS), the ECLS (Early Childhood Longitudinal Study), the US Census (ACS), the Canadian Census, and now the NHIS all reveal a comparable basic narrative, namely, that children who grow up with a married mother and father fare best.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A new study published in the February 2015 issue of the British Journal of Education, Society, and Behavioural Science appears to be the largest yet on the matter of same-sex households and children\u2019s emotional outcomes. It analyzed 512 children of same-sex parents, drawn from a pool of over 207,000 respondents who participated in the (US) National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) at some point between 1997 and 2013.<\/p>\n

Results reveal that, on eight out of twelve psychometric measures, the risk of clinical emotional problems, developmental problems, or use of mental health treatment services is nearly double among those with same-sex parents when contrasted with children of opposite-sex parents.<\/em><\/p>\n

The estimate of serious child emotional problems in children with same-sex parents is 17 percent, compared with 7 percent among opposite-sex parents,<\/em> after adjusting for age, race, gender, and parent\u2019s education and income.<\/p>\n

Rates of ADHD were higher as well\u201415.5 compared to 7.1 percent. The same is true for learning disabilities: 14.1 vs. 8 percent.<\/em><\/p>\n

The study\u2019s author, sociologist Paul Sullins, assessed a variety of different hypotheses about the differences, including comparative residential stability, experience of stigma or bullying, parental emotional problems (6.1 percent among same-sex parents vs. 3.4 percent among opposite-sex ones), and biological attachment.<\/p>\n

Each of these factors predictably aggravated children\u2019s emotional health, but only the last of these\u2014biological parentage\u2014accounted for nearly all of the variation in emotional problems.<\/p>\n

While adopted children are at higher risk of emotional problems overall, being adopted did not account for the differences between children in same-sex and opposite-sex households.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also worth noting that while being bullied clearly aggravates emotional health, there was no difference in self-reported experience of having been bullied between the children of same-sex and opposite-sex parents.<\/p>\n

Vocal critics, soon to emerge, will likely home in on the explanatory mechanism\u2014the fact that two mothers or two fathers can\u2019t possibly both enjoy a biological connection to a child\u2014in suggesting the results of the study reveal nothing of value about same-sex households with children. On the contrary, the study reveals a great deal. Namely, there is no equivalent replacement for the enduring gift to a child that a married biological mother and father offer. It\u2019s no guarantee of success. It\u2019s not always possible. But the odds of emotional struggle at least double without it. Some critics might attribute the emotional health differences to the realities of \u201cadoption by strangers,\u201d but the vast majority of same-sex couples in the NHIS exhibited one parent with a biological relationship with the child.<\/p>\n

Even research on \u201cplanned\u201d same-sex families\u2014those created using assisted reproductive technology (ART)\u2014reveals the significance of biological ties. Sullins notes such studies<\/p>\n

have long recognized that the lack of conjoined biological ties creates unique difficulties and relational stresses. The birth and non-birth mother . . . are subject to competition, rivalry, and jealousy regarding conception and mothering roles that are never faced by conceiving opposite-sex couples, and which, for the children involved, can result in anxiety over their security and identity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The population-based study pooled over 2,700 same-sex couples, defined as \u201cthose persons whose reported spouse or cohabiting partner was of the same sex as themselves.\u201d This is a measure similar to that employed in the US Census, but it has the advantage of clarity about the sexual or romantic nature of the partnership (being sure to exclude those who are simply same-sex roommates). Among these, 582 had children under 18 in the household. A battery of questions was completed by 512 of them.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time the NHIS data have been used to analyze same-sex households and child health. A manuscript presented at the 2014 annual meeting of the Population Association of America assessed the same data. Curiously, that manuscript overlooked all emotional health outcomes. Instead, the authors inquired only into a solitary, parent-reported measure of their \u201cperception of the child\u2019s overall health,\u201d a physical well-being proxy that varies only modestly across household types. Hence, the authors readily concluded \u201cno differences.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not surprised.<\/p>\n

This juxtaposition provides a window into the state of the social science of same-sex households with children. Null findings are preferred\u2014and arguably sought\u2014by most scholars and journal editors. Indeed, study results seem to vary by author, not by dataset. It is largely a different approach to the presentation of data that distinguishes those population-based studies hailed by many as proof of \u201cno differences\u201d from those studies denounced by the same people as \u201cjunk science.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, population-based surveys of same-sex households with children all tend to reveal the same thing, regardless of the data source. It\u2019s a testimony to the virtues of random sampling and the vices of relying on nonrandom samples, which Sullins argues\u2014in another published study\u2014fosters \u201ca strong bias resulting in false positive outcomes . . . in recruited samples of same-sex parents.\u201d He\u2019s right. Published research employing the New Family Structures Study (NFSS), the ECLS (Early Childhood Longitudinal Study), the US Census (ACS), the Canadian Census, and now the NHIS all reveal a comparable basic narrative, namely, that children who grow up with a married mother and father fare best at face value.<\/p>\n

The real disagreement is seldom over what the data reveal. It\u2019s how scholars present and interpret the data that differs profoundly. You can make the children of same-sex households appear to fare fine (if not better), on average, if you control for a series of documented factors more apt to plague same-sex relationships and households: relationship instability, residential instability, health and emotional challenges, greater economic struggle (among female couples), and\u2014perhaps most significantly\u2014the lack of two biological connections to the child. If you control for these, you will indeed find \u201cno differences\u201d left over. Doing this gives the impression that \u201cthe kids are fine\u201d at a time when it is politically expedient to do so.<\/p>\n

This analytic tendency reflects a common pattern in social science research to search for \u2018\u2018independent\u2019\u2019 effects of variables, thereby overlooking\u2014or perhaps ignoring\u2014the pathways that explain how social phenomena actually operate in the real world. By way of a helpful comparison, I can state with confidence that after controlling for home ownership, residential instability, single parenthood, and neighborhood employment levels, there is no association between household poverty and child educational achievement. But it would be misleading to say this unless I made it clear that these were the pathways by which poverty hurts educational futures\u2014because we know it does.<\/p>\n

The academy so privileges arguments in favor of same-sex marriage and parenting that every view other than resounding support\u2014including research conclusions\u2014has been formally or informally scolded. I should know. The explosive reaction to my 2012 research about parental same-sex relationships and child outcomes demonstrates that far more is at work than seeking answers to empirical research questions. Such reactions call into question the purpose and relevance of social science. Indeed, at least one sociologist holds that social science is designed \u201cto identify and understand the various underlying causal mechanisms that produce identifiable outcomes and events of interest.\u201d That this has not been the case with the study of same-sex households raises a more basic question.<\/p>\n

Is the point of social science to win political arguments? Or is its purpose to better understand social reality? […]<\/p>\n

______<\/p>\n

From an article by Mark Regnerus, Public Discourse<\/a>, February 10th, 2015. Mark Regnerus is associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, research associate at its Population Research Center, and a senior fellow at the Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published research employing the New Family Structures Study (NFSS), the ECLS (Early Childhood Longitudinal Study), the US Census (ACS), the Canadian Census, and now the NHIS all reveal a comparable basic narrative, namely, that children who grow up with a married mother and father fare best. A new study published in the February 2015 issue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_disable_autopaging":false},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[907,249,5713,281],"class_list":["post-2429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-politics","tag-family","tag-homosexuality","tag-mark-regnerus","tag-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}