Study Shows Kids of Lesbian Moms Do Better

Time Magazine reports this week that a just-released study on same-sex parenting shows that kids raised by lesbian moms are better adjusted than kids in hetero homes. Researchers have known for some time that children raised by gay parents are no worse off psychologically than their peers raised in traditionally parented homes, but this is the first time that a study has shown that kids raised by lesbians do better. Time reports:

The authors found that children raised by lesbian mothers — whether the mother was partnered or single — scored very similarly to children raised by heterosexual parents on measures of development and social behavior. These findings were expected, the authors said; however, they were surprised to discover that children in lesbian homes scored higher than kids in straight families on some psychological measures of self-esteem and confidence, did better academically and were less likely to have behavioral problems, such as rule-breaking and aggression.

"We simply expected to find no difference in psychological adjustment between adolescents reared in lesbian families and the normative sample of age-matched controls," says Gartrell. "I was surprised to find that on some measures we found higher levels of [psychological] competency and lower levels of behavioral problems. It wasn't something I anticipated."

In addition, children in same-sex-parent families whose mothers ended up separating, did as well as children in lesbian families in which the moms stayed together.

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