Research Indicates Children Do Best When Raised By Married Mom & Dad
Quotes from leading scholarly summaries of this research:
• “An extensive body of research tells us that children do best when they grow up with both biological parents. … Thus, it is not simply the presence of two parents, as some have assumed, but the presence of two biological parents that seems to support child development.”
(Kristin Anderson Moore, et al., “Marriage From a Child’s Perspective: How Does Family Structure Affect Children, and What Can We Do about It?” Child Trends Research Brief (June 2002): 1.)
• “Most researchers now agree that together these studies support the notion that, on average, children do best when raised by their two married, biological parents.”
(Mary Parke, “Are Married Parents Really Better for Children?” Center for Law and Social Policy, Policy Brief (May 2003): 1)
• “Overall, father love appears to be as heavily implicated as mother love in offsprings’ psychological well-being and health.”
(Ronald P. Rohner and Robert A. Veneziano, “The Importance of Father Love: History and Contemporary Evidence,” Review of General Psychology 5.4 (2001): 382-405)
• Health scores are 20 to 35 percent higher for children living with both biological parents, compared with those living in single or stepfamilies.
(Deborah A. Dawson, "Family Structure and Children's Health and Well-being: Data from the National Health Interview Survey on Child Health," Journal of Marriage and the Family, 53 (1991): 573 -584)
• “When young boys have primary caretakers of both sexes, they are less likely as adults to engage in woman-devaluing activities and in self-aggrandizing, cruel or overly competitive male cults.”
(Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen, My Brother’s Keeper: What the Social Sciences Do (and Don’t) Tell Us About Masculinity, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), p. 121)
• “We should disavow the notion that ‘mommies can make good daddies,’ just as we should disavow the popular notion of radical feminists that ‘daddies can make good mommies.’ …The two sexes are different to the core, and each is necessary – culturally and biologically – for the optimal development of a human being.”
(David Popenoe, Life Without Father: Compelling New Evidence That Fatherhood and Marriage are Indispensable of the Good of Children and Society, (New York: The Free Press, 1996), p. 197)
Sara McLanahan of Princeton University, one of the world’s leading scholars on how family form impacts child well-being, explains from her extensive investigations:
• “If we were asked to design a system for making sure that children’s basic needs were met, we would probably come up with something quite similar to the two-parent family ideal. Such a design, in theory, would not only ensure that children had access to the time and money of two adults, it would provide a system of checks and balances that promote quality parenting. The fact that both adults have a biological connection to the child would increase the likelihood that the parents would identify with the child and be willing to sacrifice for that child and it would reduce the likelihood that either parent would abuse the child.”
(Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), p. 38)
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How can you say that kids who grow up in a home with 2 parents that are in a loving and committed relationship are at a disadvantage? The argument about kids needing to have a male parent to discuss some things with and a female parent to discuss other things with is off the wall. What about parents of single parents, either by divorce or death? Does society just write those kids off like the kids of same-sex parents? That’s not a very fair shake at life. The issue in any child-rearing environment is love, educational, support and consistency. If you offer that to your kids, they will end up just fine.
But what if the married mum and dad don't love one another? What if they do not love their children ? I would have rather been raised by same-sex couples rather than the evil bastards that were my parents.
info from 1991, 1996, 2003, 2004.... nothing from 2005-6-7-8... APA which has info from 5, 6, 7, and 8, disagrees with this notion that children are disadvantaged with gay parents... So i guess recent research doesnt indicate children doing best when raised by married mom/dad families.
All of the studies cited compared married biological heterosexual families versus other splintered heterosexual families. None of the studies considered same-sex couples as variables, so none of those studies can be said to reveal anything about children of same-sex couples.
If you want to discuss children of same-sex couples, then you must read a study that discusses same-sex couples, not one that discusses splintered heterosexual couples. Go ahead over to http://www.apa.org/pi/parent.html to see literally HUNDREDS of studies that actually looked at children of same-sex couples.
The big lie is that Focus thinks that a splintered heterosexual couple is equivalent to a committed homosexual couple. Nothing could be further from the truth!!!
There are several selection factors that actually make same-sex couples more fit parents , statistically speaking, than the average heterosexual couple. Mainly, same-sex couples can't have accidental children, meaning they only will adopt children if they plan to, you can't accidently get knocked up when you are gay .
Focus, will you stop lying and actually read scientific literature???
I see that someone mentioned that it is in our nature to procreate and rear our children. sure to a degree, but then we would not have the problems we see if this were universally true. It is better to say that loving people will readily step in and raise a child to the limits of their ability. this is why people adopt often. I know several families where the parents chose to adopt rather than add another to the planet themselves. people provide foster care for children who are not theirs. cats will suckle and tend to a dog, apes tend to orphaned babies. Strangers will miss appointments to find the parent of a child roaming the mall. while SOME (most or many) may feel the need to procreate, even more feel the drive to nurture.
What research? The title of this section implies that some kind of research will be cited. Instead, all we get is a series of statements like "reseach indicates" and "researchers find." This whole argument lacks substance.
Most, if not all, of Focus on the Family's "research" which they use to "prove" that gay-parented families are inferior to straight-parented families are studies of children being raised either in single-parent homes because their parents were divorced or they were abandoned by one of their parents, or of children being raised in "blended" step-families. Such familial situations may very well NOT be ideal for raising children, but poor outcomes from such blended or single-parent families does not by any means equate to poor outcomes for children raised in stable, two-parent, loving, nurturing homes where the parents are of the same gender.
The studies of children raised in stable, loving, two-same-gendered parent homes show that such children are equally as happy, healthy and thriving as children raised in equivalent opposite-gendered-parent homes.
Focus on the Family has completely missed the point here. In most adoption cases living with the biological parents is impossible due to the parents being physically or psychologically able to care for the child. In a perfect world every child would have loving parents, a warm home, and plenty of food. Unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world.